News Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The November 21 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. The LinuxSIG will have Angel Medina showing them the internals of computer monitors.Ed Serbe and George Krumins will be putting the X-box through its paces forthe PC SIG. And, Jack Melby will be conducting a Question and AnswerSession on Jaguar (Mac OS 10.2) for the Macintosh SIG meeting. Quite avaried evening.
As most of you Winsig members know, we are part of the Microsoft MindShareprogram. One of the nice "bennies" of this program is that we get to sharein some FREE goodies from Microsoft. This month we will be holding arandom drawing for (drum roll please!) Microsoft Publisher 2002! This is avery nice program for creating newsletters, sales flyers, inserts, couponsheets--just about any printed materials you can imagine. Publisher 2002has received high marks from reviewers and is a mature product. Amazoncurrently sells Publisher 2002 for $119.99--that's the equivalent of sixyears of CUCUG membership dues. One lucky Winsig member will walk awayfrom Thursday's meeting with their own retail box copy of MicrosoftPublisher 2002! You must be present to win, so don't miss Thursday'smeeting!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine of the 13 computer servers that manage globalInternet traffic were crippled by a powerful electronic attack this week,officials said.
But most Internet users didn't notice because the attack only lasted anhour. Its origin was not known, and the FBI and White House wereinvestigating.
One official described Monday's attack as the most sophisticated andlarge-scale assault against these crucial computers in the history of theInternet.
Seven of the 13 servers failed to respond to legitimate network traffic andtwo others failed intermittently during the attack, officials confirmed.
The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center was "aware of thedenial of service attack and is addressing this matter," spokesman StevenBerry said.
Service was restored after experts enacted defensive measures and theattack suddenly stopped.
The 13 computers are spread geographically across the globe as precautionagainst physical disasters and operated by U.S. government agencies,universities, corporations and private organizations.
"As best we can tell, no user noticed and the attack was dealt with andlife goes on," said Louis Touton, vice president for the InternetCorporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Internet's key governingbody.
"We were prepared, we responded quickly," said Brian O'Shaughnessy, aspokesman for VeriSign Inc., which operates two of the 13 computers innorthern Virginia.
Computer experts who manage some of the affected computers, speaking oncondition of anonymity, said they were cooperating with the White Housethrough its Office of Homeland Security and the President's CriticalInfrastructure Protection Board.
Richard Clarke, President Bush's top cyber-security adviser and head of theprotection board, has warned for months that an attack against theInternet's 13 so-called root server computers could be greatly disruptive.
These experts said the attack, which started about 4:45 p.m. EDT Monday,transmitted data to each targeted root server 30 to 40 times normalamounts. One said that just one additional failure would have disruptede-mails and Web browsing across parts of the Internet.
Monday's attack wasn't more disruptive because many Internet providers andlarge corporations and organizations routinely store, or "cache," popularWeb directory information for better performance.
"The Internet was designed to be able to take outages, but when you takethe root servers out, you don't know how long you can work without them,"said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a securityorganization based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Although the Internet theoretically can operate with only a single rootserver, its performance would slow if more than four root servers failedfor any appreciable length of time.
In August 2000, four of the 13 root servers failed for a brief periodbecause of a technical glitch.
A more serious problem involving root servers occurred in July 1997 afterexperts transferred a garbled directory list to seven root servers andfailed to correct the problem for four hours. Traffic on much of theInternet ground to a halt.
Spammers have co-opted an administration feature in Microsoft's Windowsoperating systems and are using it to bring up intrusive advertisements onInternet-connected computers.
The feature, known as the messenger service, typically lets a networkadministrator send warnings to users when, for example, a server isscheduled to go down for maintenance. Now some advertisers are using it tosend bulk messages to anyone connected to the Internet with an accessibleaddress.
"Spammers are blindly sending their advertisements by randomly picking aseries of Internet addresses," said Charmaine Gravning, product manager forWindows at Microsoft. "On computers without a firewall, a little messengerwindow pops up."
The messenger feature, not to be confused with Microsoft's instantmessaging applications, can use many different protocols to send a singlemessage, according to Microsoft. The intrusive messages only appear oncomputers running Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP and that are directlyconnected to the Internet via a valid address; Windows systems behind afirewall or attached to a router that links multiple computers to a singleInternet address will be unaffected.
"The feature can be used to notify a user when a printer job fails," saidLawrence Baldwin, president of myNetWatchman.com, a company that monitorsincidents on the Internet through a network of sensors set up byvolunteers. "It was never the intention to let someone halfway across theworld send messages that pop up on your screen."
Free utilities that enable people to exchange messages with each otherusing the messenger service have been available on the Internet for awhile, but one enterprising company has recently started selling suchsoftware.
DirectAdvertiser.com, a U.S.-based firm registered in Romania, has createdan application that lets users send advertisements via the messengerchannel to anyone whose computer is set up to receive messenger-servicenotes. The program costs $700 and has, in two months, already sold morethan 200 copies, company founder Zoltan Kovacs said in an interview.
"You always get some people who don't like the product," Kovacs said,referring to the moderate amount of critical mail he has received. "Butmany more are interested in the product."
Kovacs stressed in the interview and on his Web site that the applicationis not for sending spam. However, a testimonial on the Web site says, "Ifyou've been a bulk e-mailer like myself, you owe it to yourself to tryDirectAdvertiser."
In fact, DirectAdvertiser may be the reason more security experts havebecome aware of the abuse of the Windows messenger service. Students atJames Madison University, for example, reported that the technique has beenused to cause an ad selling university diplomas to pop up on their computerscreens, according to Wired News, which first reported the abuses. Based oninterviews with users of the software, MyNetWatchman.com's Baldwinestimates that spammers can send more than 100,000 messages in an hour.
"This is just going to be a whole other delivery vehicle for spam," Baldwinsaid, adding that the fact the service is turned on by default is anotherindication that Windows security has a way to go. "But welcome toMicrosoft," he said.
Since a January memo sent by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates turned thecompany's focus to security, the software giant has been turning offunneeded services that could compromise security. While Microsoft'sGravning stressed that the firewall that ships with Windows XP disables themessenger service by default, she admitted that turning the messenger on indefault installations is mainly a matter of convenience.
"Is this something that we should look at?" Gravning said. "I think that isa good question, and (I) will find out if there is a reason that we have itturned on."
LONDON (Reuters) - CD-recording software maker Roxio Inc emerged as thepotential new owner of Napster (news - web sites) on Friday, bidding tobuy the revolutionary song-swapping site for $5.3 million in cash andstock.
The Nasdaq-listed firm filed an offer to a Wilmington, Delaware bankruptcycourt on Thursday to purchase Napster's assets for $5 million in cash and100,000 warrants for Roxio stock. Roxio's shares ended Thursday's sessionat $3.38.
The deal hinges upon approval by the bankruptcy court, which has beenoverseeing the sale of Napster's assets since the track-trading servicefiled for Chapter 11 protection in September.
A spokesman for Roxio in London said the company came to an agreement withcreditors and a court-appointed trustee overseeing Napster'sreorganization following a series of negotiations.
More than a dozen bidders, including Barcelona-based adult entertainmentcompany Private Media Group, have emerged as possible buyers of Napster'sassets.
Rival bidders have until November 27, the date the court is expected torule on the offer, to top the Roxio bid, the spokesman said.
NOT FREE, BUT CHEAP
The Roxio offer price is considered relatively cheap for a song-swappingservice that in its heyday attracted tens of millions of young music fans,a group highly desirable to record labels looking to cultivate a loyalfollowing.
Trenwith Securities, the U.S. investment firm handling the Napster assetsale, originally asked that offers for Napster's revolutionary technologybegin at $6 million.
With the exception of Private's $2.4 million all-stock bid, none of theoffers, nor the identities of the bidders, have been made public.
Microsoft has issued security updates for Macintosh versions of Office 98(1.5 MB), Office 2001 (2 MB), and Office X (2.8 MB). The updates correcttwo security issues, one where a holder of a valid security certificatecould generate bogus subordinate certificates which Office would believe tobe valid (Microsoft security bulletin MS02-050), and another where fieldcodes in Microsoft Word could be used to gather information surreptitiouslyfrom users' documents in some circumstances (Microsoft security bulletinMS02-059). The security certificate problem is the same one for whichMicrosoft released new versions of Internet Explorer last month.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download/security.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-050.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-059.asp
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06947
Significantly, the security update for Office X also includes unspecifiedimprovements which may improve application stability under Jaguar, welcomenews for frustrated users of Word X who have experienced inordinate programcrashes since upgrading to Jaguar. [GD]
Apple Computer last week announced a net loss of $45 million for its fourthfiscal quarter of 2002, although Apple's net numbers for the entire fiscalyear were positive, with $65 million in earnings on $5.74 billion inrevenue. The fourth quarter results included several non-recurring items(including write-downs of investments); without these items, Apple wouldhave had a net profit of $7 million for the quarter. Revenues for thequarter were $1.44 billion, and gross margins were down to 26.4 percentfrom 30.1 percent in the same fiscal quarter of 2001. Curiously,international sales accounted for only 35 percent of Apple's revenue:usually, international sales contribute just under half of Apple's revenue.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/oct/16earnings.html
Apple said it does not expect the computer industry as a whole to improvesoon, so the company does not anticipate a dramatic uptick in profits.However, Apple hopes to do well during the holiday season withconsumer-oriented items like iPods, iMacs, and iBooks, and the companyclaims Mac OS X 10.2 is on track to have 5 million users by the end of thecalendar year. Apple retail stores had 2.25 million visitors during thelast quarter, and Apple as a whole remains in good financial shape withmore than $4.3 billion in cash on hand, no revenue slippage, and normallevels of channel inventory. [GD]
Apple has unveiled "X for Teachers," a new program offering _free_not-for-resale copies of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar for eligible K-12 teachers inthe U.S. (and, after 24-Oct-02, in Canada) for their personal, educational,and/or research use. The package will feature a "Getting Started with MacOS X" self-paced training CD-ROM that presumably introduces Mac OS X's keyfeatures; also included are Apple's digital hub applications iMovie,iTunes, and iPhoto.
http://www.apple.com/education/macosxforteachers/
http://www.apple.com/ca/education/macosxforteachers/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
To qualify, teachers must be currently employed as a K-12 teacher in apublic, private, or charter school. Non-teacher school employees, studentteachers, higher education faculty, home schools, resellers, and others arenot eligible, and there's a limit of one copy of Jaguar per qualifyingteacher. Orders must be placed via the X for Teachers Web pages, and orderswill be shipped to the teachers' school addresses. The X for Teachersprogram runs through 31-Dec-02. [GD]
Apple has released the iMac SuperDrive Update, the first of a series ofSuperDrive firmware updates that are critical for owners ofSuperDrive-equipped Macs. A bug in the firmware of Pioneer DVD-writingdrives (such as the SuperDrive, though Apple doesn't use Pioneer drivesexclusively) makes them unable to identify media belonging to a newspecification for higher-speed DVD media. Using these discs, which recordat 4x speed for DVD-R and 2x for DVD-RW, can potentially damage the driveitself: the device's laser attempts to determine what type of media hasbeen inserted, and since it doesn't recognize the new format, it keepstrying until it overheats and burns out. (Macintosh author Jim Heid haspublished more detailed information at his Macintosh Digital Hub Web site.)So far, Apple has released an update only for the iMac G4 (15-inch FlatPanel), and only under Mac OS X; the company says that updates for thePower Mac G4, as well as Mac OS 9 versions for both types of machine, willbe posted soon. Recent models, such as the 17-inch iMac G4, theSuperDrive-equipped eMac, and the Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors),include the latest firmware version and are not affected by the problem.The iMac SuperDrive Update for Mac OS X is a 1.2 MB download. [JLC]
http://www.apple.com/hardware/superdrive/
http://www.macintoshdigitalhub.com/superdrive/
Soon after introducing a new StuffIt compression format, Aladdin hasreleased an update to its system-wide utility for compressing and expandingfiles. StuffIt Deluxe 7.0.1 improves compatibility with Mac OS X 10.2,speeds up the Fast Compression option of the new StuffIt X file format, andadds support for Finder command keys while using the Dvorak key layout. Theutility also adds support for Intego's VirusBarrier. The StuffIt Deluxe7.0.1 updater is free for registered users and is a 7.9 MB download for theMac OS X version, or a 2.8 MB download for those running Mac OS 8.6 throughMac OS 9.
http://www.stuffit.com/stuffit/deluxe/updates.html
http://www.virusbarrier.com/virusbarrier/
Aladdin also recently released StuffIt Expander 7.0, part of the StuffItStandard Edition package (formerly known as StuffIt Light). Due to asecurity vulnerability discovered in StuffIt Expander 6.52 and earlier,Apple offers StuffIt Expander 7.0 by itself via Software Update. [JLC]
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/383779
In "Update Firmware Before Installing Jaguar!" in TidBITS-653_ we outlinedan arduous hard drive-swapping process to recover iMacs that had beenrendered unusable by installing Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. If an affected iMachas a VGA video output port, an easier option may be to connect it to anexternal VGA monitor. If the external monitor mirrors your iMac's display,you should be able to update the system's firmware directly withoutattempting to dismantle your iMac... or paying for a motherboardreplacement. [GD]
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06973
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1783
Apple released the Mac OS X 10.2.2 update via Software Update late today,rolling in a number of bug fixes, improvements for both Apple's built-inprograms and third- party applications, networking enhancements, andenhanced compatibility with other devices. (Apple's KnowledgeBase articleincludes a list of specific items addressed). The 24.4 MB update is formoving from Mac OS X 10.2.1 to 10.2.2; a separate combo updater is alsoavailable for those updating from 10.2 (though at press time, neitherstandalone updater was available from Apple's software downloads page).[JLC]
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107140
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107141
http://www.info.apple.com/support/downloads.html
Apple has posted an important update for owners of olderSuperDrive-equipped Power Mac G4 computers (specifically, the DigitalAudio, Quicksilver, or Quicksilver 2002 models, but not the Mirrored DriveDoors model, to use Apple's insipid model identification scheme). The PowerMac G4 SuperDrive Update corrects a problem in the drive's firmware thatcould cause the drive to overheat when using new 4x speed DVD media (formore details, see "Apple Posts Important iMac SuperDrive Update" inTidBITS-653_). The update is currently available only under Mac OS X; MacOS 9 versions will be posted shortly, according to Apple. [JLC]
http://www.apple.com/hardware/superdrive/
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120166
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06969
Just in time for the holiday feeding frenzy, Apple has updated the TitaniumPowerBook G4 and iBook lines. The PowerBook G4 now offers either a ComboDVD-ROM/CD-RW drive or the first slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD- R/CD-RW),the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics processor, and a PowerPC G4 processorrunning at either 867 MHz or 1 GHz. The top-of-the-line 1 GHz modelincludes the SuperDrive and an AirPort card, along with 512 MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and 64 MB of DDR SDRAM graphics memory for $3,000, whereasthe 867 MHz model drops the price to $2,300 by using a Combo drive, makingthe AirPort card optional, and shipping with only 256 MB of RAM, a 40 GBhard drive, and only 32 MB of DDR SDRAM graphics memory. Although it'sinteresting that Apple is now making the AirPort card standard equipment,Apple made no comment about improving the Titanium PowerBook G4's abysmalrange with wireless networks. Nonetheless, the enhancements to the 1 GHzmodel should make it an even more attractive option for those who want towork only on a laptop without giving up options like the SuperDrive thatwere previously available only in desktop Macs. The 867 MHz model isavailable immediately; the 1 GHz model should be available in mid-November.
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/nov/06pbg4.html
The changes to the iBook are less significant, though certainly welcome.Apple has increased processor speeds, so you can buy iBooks with either 700MHz or 800 MHz PowerPC G3 processors, and the company also added the ATIMobility Radeon 7500 graphics controller, with either 16 MB or 32 MB ofRAM. Prices have dropped as well, so an iBook with the smaller 12.1-inchscreen, a 700 MHz PowerPC G3, 128 MB of RAM, a 20 GB hard drive, and aCD-ROM drive costs only $1,000. Add $300 for the next model up, whichoffers an 800 MHz PowerPC G3, a 30 GB hard drive, and a Combo drive. Thelarger 14.1-inch screen model costs $1,600, but provides an 800 MHz PowerPCG3, 256 MB of RAM, a 30 GB hard drive, and a Combo drive. AirPort cards canbe added to any of the iBook models. All models of the iBook are availableimmediately. [ACE]
http://www.apple.com/ibook/
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/nov/06ibook.html
Qualcomm has released Eudora 5.2, the latest version of their popular emailprogram. The most important and welcome feature is that Eudora filters cannow match addresses in incoming messages against the contents of addressbooks; this lets you separate mail from people already in your address bookfrom those with whom you haven't already corresponded, like spammers. Theother major improvements relate to security; Eudora now supports Kerberos VAuthentication, and the SSL support previously available under Mac OS 9returns for users of Mac OS X 10.2. Eudora 5.2 also includes numerous othersmall changes and bug fixes, such as improved performance opening manywindows, a help button added to all error dialogs and standard alerts,support for drag & drop to and from the Filters window,personality-specific x-eudora-settings (I've updated the full list ofsettings for 5.2; send email to http://www.eudora.com/ On Friday, 01-Nov-02, the four year-old antitrust case brought by the U.S.Department of Justice and 18 states and the District of Columbia drew to aclose with a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.Judge Kollar-Kotelly essentially accepted the proposed settlement betweenMicrosoft and the Justice Department and nine states, making relatively fewsubstantive changes. Unless they challenge it on appeal, her decision alsoends the effort by the states dissenting from the original proposedsettlement. (See our article series tracking the progress of thelong-running case.) http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1152 In reading Judge Kollar-Kotelly's opinion, I was struck by three things: Let's skim through the final judgment. You can read the entire document and Judge Kollar-Kotelly's 101-page opinion (prefixed with her comments about the dissenting states) here: http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/FinalDecree.pdf Anti-Retaliation A number of clauses prevent Microsoft from retaliating against orthreatening retaliation against an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) ifthe OEM is developing, distributing, promoting, using, selling, orlicensing any software that competes with Windows or any Microsoftmiddleware product. (Middleware is software that other developers can useto run applications and that could easily be ported to other operatingsystems; examples are Web browsers and Java virtual machines.) Also protected from retaliation or threat of retaliation is the act ofshipping a PC that either includes both Windows and another non-Microsoftoperating system, or can boot with more than one operating system. Thislast part ensures Microsoft cannot prevent OEMs from selling PCs with Linuxpre-installed or as an option. Along with OEMs, independent software vendors (ISVs) gain protection fromMicrosoft retaliation or threat of retaliation, either for developing,using, distributing, promoting, or supporting any software that competeswith Windows or Microsoft middleware. Plus, Microsoft may not enter intoagreements that require an ISV refrain from developing, using,distributing, or promoting competing software. (Judge Kollar-Kotelly added the bit about threatening retaliation to thelanguage in the proposed settlement because she felt that was a significantconcern, despite the government's claim that banning the act of retaliationitself was sufficient.) As a variant on the protection, Microsoft may not enter into agreementsthat require a company to distribute, promote, use, or support Windows orMicrosoft middleware exclusively or in some fixed percentage, unless thecompany in question can practically provide equal time to a competingproduct. Apple falls into this category because of the 1997 agreement inwhich Microsoft agreed to keep working on Microsoft Office in exchange forApple making Internet Explorer the default browser, avoiding NetscapeNavigator, and not promoting other Web browsers. That sort of agreementwould now violate the terms of the settlement. (One limitation on thisrestriction: it doesn't apply if Microsoft licenses intellectual propertyfrom the third party and if the intellectual property license is theprimary purpose of the agreement. This latter clause was JudgeKollar-Kotelly's addition; she didn't want every agreement to turn into asham intellectual property license.) Uniform Licenses This provision in the settlement requires that Microsoft issue uniformlicenses to OEMs licensing Windows. In essence, this clause ensures a fairplaying field for licensing Windows, although there are several exceptionsfor different language versions of Windows, for volume discounts, and forvarious marketing-related discounts (as long they're distributed uniformlyto OEMs of varying sizes). Judge Kollar-Kotelly took slight exception with this section because shefelt that uniformity wasn't necessarily in the best interests of alllicensees, and presumably, the public. However her concerns weren'tsufficient to suggest an alternative. Flexible OEM Licenses Many of the complaints about Microsoft stemmed from the company'srestriction of how OEMs could modify the look of Windows. The settlementaddresses this by forcing Microsoft to allow OEMs to: API & Communication Protocol Disclosure To prevent Microsoft from taking advantage of private APIs in itsmiddleware products, the settlement requires Microsoft to disclose the APIs(Application Programming Interfaces; the hooks applications use to connectto middleware or an operating system). Plus, Microsoft must also makeavailable, via reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms, thecommunication protocols used by any product Microsoft installs with Windowsand that communicates with a Microsoft server operating system, such asWindows 2000. In this section, Judge Kollar-Kotelly made one significant change byreducing the time before which these disclosures must be made to threemonths, down from twelve months and nine months, for the API disclosuresand the communication protocol disclosures, respectively. Some of the feedback to the court about the proposed settlement argued thatMicrosoft must issue royalty-free licenses for these communicationprotocols; in her opinion, Judge Kollar-Kotelly disagreed, saying thatMicrosoft's liability didn't require it to give away significant amounts ofvaluable intellectual property rights. There is one significant limitation to this requirement that Microsoftdisclose APIs and license communication protocols. Microsoft does not haveto reveal anything that would compromise anti-piracy, anti-virus, softwarelicensing, digital rights management, encryption, or authenticationsystems. Similarly, Microsoft can make licenses related to these type ofsystems conditional on the licensee having no history of software piracy orwillful violation of intellectual property rights, having a reasonablebusiness need, meeting reasonable standards for verification of theauthenticity and viability of its business, and agreeing to submit therelated software to third-party certification of specification compliance. End User Control In an attempt to give end users more control over their computingenvironments, the settlement requires Microsoft to allow end users and OEMsto enable or remove access to Microsoft or non-Microsoft middleware throughicons, shortcuts, and menu entries, and by controlling automatic launching.Plus, end users and OEMs may designate non-Microsoft middleware to replaceMicrosoft middleware. Similarly, Windows itself may not automatically alter the OEM'sconfiguration of icons, shortcuts, and menu entries without asking forconfirmation from the user. That confirmation cannot happen until 14 daysafter the first time the user turns on a new computer, and any suchautomatic removal must include both Microsoft and non-Microsoft products.This particular section is aimed at protecting the Windows Desktop CleanupWizard, which removes unused icons from the desktop. RAND Licensing of Microsoft IP If intellectual property licenses are required for a company to exercisethe options provided in the settlement, Microsoft must license thatintellectual property using reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms.The licenses can be narrow in scope and may be non-transferable, but JudgeKollar-Kotelly struck without comment a clause that would have required thethird-parties to license back to Microsoft certain intellectual propertyrights related to the exercising of these options. Compliance & Enforcement Perhaps the most significant change Judge Kollar-Kotelly made is in theCompliance and Enforcement Procedures section. Initially Microsoft and theJustice Department had proposed a Technical Committee of three independentpeople, one appointed by each side and the first two selecting the third.Though it's difficult to see what concern Judge Kollar-Kotelly had withthis proposal, in the final judgment she replaced the Technical Committeewith a Compliance Committee made up of at least three members of theMicrosoft Board of Directors who are not present or former employees ofMicrosoft. This approach maps the method proposed by the dissenting states,so it's possible she adopted it to throw them a bone. A major aspect of compliance is a Compliance Officer appointed by theCompliance Committee. The Compliance Officer's duties include distributingand explaining the settlement to all Microsoft officers and directors,providing annual briefings on the settlement, tracking Microsoft'scompliance, certifying annually to the plaintiffs that Microsoft hasremained in compliance, and reporting any violations to the plaintiffs. Enforcement authority remains with the plaintiffs, and includes the states.For coordination, the plaintiff states must form an enforcement committee,and no individual state may take action without first consulting theenforcement committee. Jurisdiction and power to issue further orders ordirections remains with the U.S. District Court for the District ofColumbia; something about which Judge Kollar-Kotelly felt strongly, so muchso that she made it explicit in the final judgment. Next Update in Five Years Although most antitrust decisions remain in place for at least ten years,the settlement calls for termination after only five years due to the fastpace of the industry. However, the plaintiffs can apply to the court for aone-time extension of up to two years if Microsoft has engaged in a patternof willful and systematic violations. The final judgment is certainly far weaker than the dissenting states hadproposed and hoped for, but in essence, they set their sights too high, andreceived almost nothing they wanted. The judgment is thus widely seen as avictory for Microsoft, which had faced the possibility of a breakup. Theremedies, though arguably an appropriate attempt to terminate the illegalmaintenance of Microsoft's monopoly, are unlikely to slow Microsoft downmuch at all. Whether or not other companies are able to compete with theMicrosoft juggernaut even after these remedies are in place remains to beseen. But Judge Kollar-Kotelly will be watching to make sure the playing fieldremains level; at the very end of her full 344- page discussion, she quotedMachiavelli in saying, "Let it not be said of Microsoft that 'a princenever lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise,' for this Court willexercise its full panoply of powers to ensure that the letter and thespirit of this remedial decree are carried out." http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/Lit11-1.pdf The Beast has hired a research crew to do a bit of attitude sampling amongthe Great Unwashed in the US and abroad, and has found that slagging Linuxis not winning it any points. In a company memo posted by Eric S. Raymondhere (http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween7.php) we learn thatregular folks are both eager for a Microsoft alternative and generallyrespectful of the open-source concept. We also learn that bombastic hoots by Steve Ballmer likening the GPL to avirus are in fact offensive to many people. Outright lies, like Ballmer'sclaim that Windows is, overall, cheaper than Linux also haven't beenplaying well, the researchers discovered. "A plurality (40%) of all respondents felt that a low TCO [total cost ofownership] was the best reason to support OSS [open source software], thereport says. MS does make much about the fact that running *nix requires abit of expertise, whereas dumber, hence cheaper, employees can manage aWindows system. On the other hand they've got a license that just keeps ontaking, so it's hard to believe that after a couple of years the Redmondcrack addiction isn't going to start upsetting the economic tables to MS'advantage. Additionally, we're told that "one-third of all respondents cited 'analternative to Microsoft' as one of the best reasons to support OSS."Apparently a lot of people are starting to question the wisdom of acomputing monoculture, as they should. Most interestingly, "messages that criticize OSS, Linux, & the GPL are NOTeffective," the survey crew has learned. (emphasis original) "On the other hand, 'positive' OSS, Linux, and GPL messages are veryeffective -- both across geographies and audiences." What this might mean we're almost afraid to ask. But apparently we canexpect Ballmer to start waxing sentimental about how wonderful Linux andthe GPl are, second only to Windows and the license that keeps on taking. "In the short term, then, Microsoft should avoid criticizing OSS and Linuxdirectly, continue to develop and aim to eventually win the TCO argument." I have no idea what this means but I can hardly wait to find out. Iseriously doubt that the TCO argument can be won without frequent recourseto outrageous lies and strident insistence that black is white and up isdown. But then this is the sort of gravity-defying rhetoric at which theRedmond PR machine excels, so all bets are off. One of the goals of the survey was to compare reactions to open-sourcesoftware and Microsoft's self-serving substitute with strings,'shared-source' software. There's a fair bit of tortured rhetoric involved,but the wind-up is that SSS could probably fly so long as it's adequatelymisrepresented. Traditionally cynical Europeans and Asians are unlikely tobe fooled, the survey notes, but Americans won't be much trouble, havingalways been easy, willing prey for commercial manipulators andpropagandists. "Overall, the greatest challenges we face are with the Internationalaudience -- especially the French, Germans, and Japanese," the memolaments. But they've still got the Americans by the short and curlies: "support forShared Source was strongest in the US (73%)," the writers were relieved tosay. Of course that number is certain to change as the details become betterknown. People accuse Microsoft of devious tactics all the time. Microsoftgenerally denies the accusations -- after all, they're flanked by the bestlawyers that money can buy. This week, though, Microsoft gave itself a big, goopy pie in the face. OnOct. 9, the company posted a testimonial on its Web site called"Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert." It was a first-person account by a"freelance writer" about how she had fallen in love with Windows XP. Shecompared the operating system to a Lexus. "I was up and running in lessthan one day, Girl Scout's honor," burbled the attractive, 20-somethingbrunette in the photo. There was only one problem: She doesn't exist. A with-it member of Slashdot.org, the popular hangout for articulate nerds,happened to notice that the woman's picture actually came fromGettyImages.com, a stock-photo agency. Associated Press reporter Ted Bridistook it from there. He tracked authorship of the article to one ValerieMallinson, a public-relations woman hired by Microsoft to write the story.Microsoft was caught red-handed. I was dying to find out how this public-relations fiasco came to pass, butMicrosoft spokesman Tom Pilla would speak only in Officialese. "The articlewas mistakenly posted to the Microsoft Web Site," is all he would tell me."Once we realized that it wasn't part of the Windows XP marketingactivities, we pulled it. It's an unfortunate situation, and we takeresponsibility." No wonder Microsoft has become a laughingstock online. "Once we realized .. . ?" Hello? Exactly how disconnected are the right and left hands ofMicrosoft's marketing organization? And then there's the feebleness of the ad itself. Not only is it a childishattempt to mimic Apple's "Switch" campaign, but Microsoft's bogus customeris hopelessly misinformed. "AppleWorks pales in comparison to MicrosoftOffice XP. There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word,Excel and PowerPoint," she writes, evidently never having heard ofMicrosoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Macintosh. Then she makes it worse: "Internet Explorer 6 does more for me thanNetscape Navigator ever did . . . I can name and organize my Favorites anyway I want." First of all, Internet Explorer is on the Mac, too. Second,had Ms. Fictitious ever, in fact, used Netscape Navigator, she might haverealized that it, too, permits naming and organizing bookmarks. To be sure, the online community is wasting no time in rubbing these gaffesin Microsoft's face. But nobody's mentioning the most disturbing part ofall this: That it's part of a longer string of fraudulent Microsoftmarketing efforts. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that Microsoft, during itsantitrust trials, hired PR companies to flood newspapers with fake lettersof support, bearing ordinary individuals' names but actually written byMicrosoft PR staff. Payments were funneled through Microsoft's PR companyso that the checks couldn't be traced. Later, during the antitrust trials, Microsoft attempted to prove theinseparability of Windows and Internet Explorer by showing the judge avideo. There was only one problem: The government's lawyer noticed that asthe tape rolled on, the number of icons on the desktop kept changing.Microsoft sheepishly admitted to having spliced together footage fromdifferent computers to make its point. And now a phony testimonial illustrated by a photo bought from a stock-artagency. What does all of this say about a company's corporate psyche that it feelsthe need to fabricate evidence of the public's love? Maybe Microsoft is jealous of the genuine affection Mac fans seem toexhibit for their machines. Or could it be that the company somehow feelsrejected by the quirky (and as far as anyone can tell, real) people inApple's "Switch" ads. But more likely, Microsoft's latest blunder demonstrates neither jealousynor wounded pride -- it's pure arrogance. The company thinks it can getaway with anything. This time, at least, it's wrong. A screen shot of the original Microsoft ad can be viewed at: http://www.scripting.com/misc/msSwitchAd/lies.jpg. The world's wealthiest individual says most of his money will go tocharity, not his three children. NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, theworld's wealthiest man, said Tuesday he will pass a sizeable portion ofhis wealth to charity and not his three children. "I don't think it's constructive to grow up having billions of dollars,"Gates said of his children at a news conference while on a four-day tripto India. "The idea that I will take a sizeable portion of my fortune andhave them inherit that, I don't think that would be to society's benefitor to their benefit. I've spoken out about this before...my philosophy ofgiving back my wealth to society." But Gates added: "Certainly I'll make sure they are taken care of in asense that they can live a very comfortable life." The 47-year-old's wife, Melinda, gave birth to their third child inSeptember. The other two are ages six and three. Gates, whose fortune is estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine,announced a $400 million investment in India to boost education, businesspartnerships and software development. A Harvard drop-out, Gates built his vast fortune from the Microsofttechnology empire he started from scratch. Microsoft is the world'slargest software firm. Gates said Monday he will give $100 million to battle the spread ofHIV/AIDS in India, which has the world's second-largest number of cases ofthe deadly disease. The donation -- the largest single-country grant by the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation -- is aimed at protecting truck drivers, migrant workersand other vulnerable groups from the disease. Much has been written about what's wrong with the Digital MillenniumCopyright Act (DMCA). After all, it's been used to jail programmers,threaten professors, and censor publications, and because of it, foreignscientists have avoided traveling to the U.S. and prominent researchershave withheld their work. In a white paper about the unintendedconsequences of the DMCA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues thatthe DMCA chills free expression and scientific research, jeopardizes fairuse, and impedes competition and innovation. In short, this is a law thatonly the companies who paid for it could love. http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.html Just who are we talking about here? Primarily the large movie studios andrecord labels, who own the copyrights on vast quantities of content and whohave been working with one another and via their industry associations, theMotion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording IndustryAssociation of America (RIAA), to control how we are allowed to interactwith that content. Their unity of purpose and storm- trooper tactics haveled some to dub them the "Content Cartel." http://www.riaa.org/ However, the DMCA is merely one link in a chain that's being used by theContent Cartel and many others to restrict access to the shared culturalheritage of the world, and in the process, extract money from our pockets,stifle innovation and competition, and protect entrenched interests. DMCA and Trusted Systems I recently attended a talk by Professor Tarleton Gillespie A trusted system could prevent you not only from copying a CD or DVD, butalso from listening to the CD more than a certain number of times in a dayor skipping commercials on a DVD or on broadcast television. Along withrequiring us to buy new hardware to play such content and buy new protectedversions of the content we already own, a trusted system could have anotherill effect. That's because it could prevent us from working with content wewould create, using tools such as those Apple kindly provides in iMovie,iDVD, iTunes, and iPhoto. In the worst case scenario, Apple could lose notjust the Mac's current digital media advantage in the marketplace, but theability to work with digital media at all. See Cory Doctorow's article onthe broadcast flag in TidBITS-642_ for more on this disturbing possibility. http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901 Professor Gillespie illustrated how this could happen with a discussion ofthe awkwardly named Content Scramble System (CSS), used to prevent peoplefrom copying DVDs, and the DeCSS software created by a Norwegian teenagerwith help from others on the Internet to build a Linux DVD player. (A brief aside: DeCSS violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions,which ban devices or services that are designed primarily to circumventcopy prevention technologies, that have only limited commerciallysignificant purpose other than circumvention, or that are marketed forcircumvention. The DMCA was signed into law in large part to bring the U.S.into compliance with a pair of World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) treaties that require anti-circumvention protections in thecopyright law of signatory nations. You might think Norway would beincluded among the nations signing these WIPO treaties, but in fact, only37 countries have signed on, including the U.S. and Japan, along with thelikes of Kyrgyzstan, Gabon, and Paraguay. We're not talking about fullinternational support here, especially in contrast to the 149 signatoriesto the more general and long-standing Berne Convention for the Protectionof Literary and Artistic Works.) http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/wct/ In particular, Professor Gillespie focused on three defenses used in thecourt case filed against Eric Corley, publisher of the hacker magazine2600, by eight movie studios to prevent 2600 from publishing the DeCSSsoftware. Although Eric Corley didn't create DeCSS, he made it available onthe 2600 Web site. His lawyers' defenses focused on ways DeCSS might escapethe anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA, which was the law underwhich the case was being tried. Let's look at these defenses, all of which the court eventually dismissedin ruling for the movie studios and enjoining 2600 magazine from postingthe DeCSS code. A subsequent appeal also failed, and the defendants chosenot to appeal again to the Supreme Court (probably a wise move - thisparticular case struck me as fairly weak). http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/20000830_ny_amended_opinion.pdf Create a Linux Player The primary defense that Eric Corley's legal team, funded by the ElectronicFrontier Foundation (EFF), advanced was that CSS was reverse engineered andDeCSS written to further the development of a DVD player for Linux, whichallegedly had no way of playing DVDs at the time (four players areavailable now; see the Linux Journal review linked below for details).Unfortunately, the judge deemed the defense utterly irrelevant because theDMCA offers no relief based on motivation. In short, if a technologyviolates the DMCA's anti- circumvention provisions, the purpose for whichthat technology was created simply doesn't matter. The judge also wasn'timpressed with the fact that DeCSS is actually a Windows program, soalthough it could be argued that it was a necessary step in the creation ofa Linux DVD player, it's a weak argument. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5644 The obstacle that actually lies in the way of creating a DVD player is thelack of a key to decrypt the CSS encryption used on DVDs. The _only_ way tocome by such a key is to sign a contract licensing CSS from the DVD CopyControl Association (DVD CCA), a group made up of companies representingthe movie studios, consumer electronics companies, and the computerindustry. At $15,500, the licensing cost is not usurious, but the contracteffectively prevents individuals and small organizations from licensingCSS. For instance, in the event of a material breach of contract, thelicensee is liable for $1 million, and damages can grow to a maximum of $8million. In addition, the contract prevents licensees from reverseengineering CSS or working in any way counter to the goal of CSS'sprotection of DVDs. Put simply, the CSS license is the sort of thing only large companies canreasonably sign, so it's clear that the effect of the DVD CCA contract isto keep newcomers out of the cozy little club. Perhaps that wasn't a likelyconcern before the age of the Internet, but the rise of Linux and the opensource movement shows that small, informal groups organized over theInternet can produce software that threatens the largest of companies. The end result here is that innovation is stifled. Companies that licenseCSS cannot, even if they wanted to, produce products that consumers mightlike to buy, such as DVD recorders that could copy a DVD. That keeps newcompanies, niche players, or even independent programmers from competingwith the consumer electronics giants with innovative features that in anyway run afoul of CSS. So although the consumer electronics companies mightnot have minded consumers copying DVDs, since they would sell the equipmentto make that happen, it's worthwhile for them to abide by CSS to eliminatespotential competition. Equally as problematic is that the CSS license's numerous requirementsforce the consumer electronics firms to be technologically responsible forregulating our movie viewing and copying behaviors _for_ the studios.Signing this draconian contract is an all-or-nothing deal, so the moviestudios have cleverly managed to pass off the dirty work of technologicalregulation on everyone else (they just produce the content; the DVD andplayer manufacturers must implement CSS). It's a big step toward a trustedsystem in which all the parties are bound by the CSS contract. (As an aside, another effect of the CSS contracts is also to move theentire issue from the world of copyright law, where there is at least somepresumption of needing to benefit the public, into the world of contractlaw, which doesn't give a damn about the public good. If this continues tothe logical extreme, the concept of copyright, and unauthorized access toany content, could be locked up forever in simple contracts that lieunderneath a trusted system's technologies, all backed up by the DMCA'santi- circumvention provisions.) Perform Encryption Research Another defense that Eric Corley's lawyers put forth was that DeCSS wascreated as research into the CSS encryption method, since the DMCA doesallow copy- prevention technologies to be circumvented for encryptionresearch. However, the DMCA specifically requires that the encrypted copybe obtained lawfully and that the person performing the research make agood faith effort to obtain authorization in advance. In addition, thedecryption tools from such research may be shared only with collaboratorsfor good faith research purposes - in other words, distributing these toolspublicly isn't kosher. Note the words "good faith" above. In determining whether encryptionresearch is good faith, the judge said the court must determine whether theresults are disseminated in a way that advances the state of knowledge ofencryption technology, whether the person is engaged in legitimate study ofwork in encryption, and whether the results are communicated to thecopyright owner in a timely fashion. Deciding that none of these tests weretrue of Eric Corley, the judge dismissed out of hand the claims that DeCSShad protection under the encryption research exception to the DMCA. Looking past the specifics of this case, consider the ways in whichencryption research is considered to be in good faith. You must be alegitimate researcher, have a goal of advancing the state of knowledge, andhave at least made an effort to get authorization from the copyright owner.Now think about how these requirements completely disenfranchise theinterested individuals and the Internet technical geek community. What doesit take to be considered a legitimate researcher - a white coat, thickglasses, and a job with a university, corporation, or government body? What we're seeing here is how the DMCA in essence props up the status quo,denying that legitimate research could be done outside the halls ofacademia or a company's R&D department. Left on the outside are the crazyones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers... oh hell, go read therest of "Here's to the crazy ones" from Apple's Think Different ad campaignfor yourself. Whether we're talking about Apple's target audience or theopen source community that has had Microsoft running scared is immaterial.The point is that the DMCA, supported by this court ruling, prevents thatsort of person from doing anything that's not sanctioned. http://www.apple.com/thinkdifferent/ Report as a Journalist A third defense that Eric Corley's lawyers offered was that posting DeCSSwas protected by the First Amendment's protection of the press, and by theFirst Amendment in general. It took the judge significantly longer todispose of this defense, since free speech issues are notoriously tricky,but in the end, he concluded that the speech in this case iscontent-neutral due to the functional nature of the DeCSS code. He thenwent on to note that regulation of content-neutral speech is acceptable ifit "advances the government's interests" and that preventing the copying ofdigital works is a government interest due to the existence of theCopyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution and the importance to the U.S.economy of exporting copyrighted materials. If you haven't looked at the Constitution recently, the Copyright Clausereads, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing forlimited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to theirrespective writings and discoveries." Personally, I come down on the sideof copyright existing to benefit society through the progress of scienceand the useful arts, and only secondarily to give authors and inventorsexclusive rights. By my reading, the government interest thus lies inpromoting the progress of science and the useful arts, and there's noquestion that the DMCA eliminates progress. http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html But I digress. The final result of the case was that Eric Corley and 2600may not post DeCSS on their Web site or knowingly link their Web site toany other site on which DeCSS is posted. The decision was worded carefullyso that linking in general would not be affected by the DMCA, but only incases where "those responsible for the link (a) know at the relevant timethat the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it iscircumvention technology that may not lawfully be offered, and (c) createor maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology." In other words, it's acceptable to link to DeCSS if your intent is not todisseminate DeCSS, but merely to report on its availability, a fact Iproved to my satisfaction with a trivial Google search on "download DeCSS"that provided over 17,000 hits, many of them still functional. You canverify this for yourself; just remember that DeCSS is only for Windows. http://www.google.com/search?q=download+DeCSS Here's where Professor Gillespie's argument becomes a bit more speculative.Although the court went no further in this case, he suggested that in anyfuture cases in which the legitimacy of linking was called into question,he felt that the court would include in its deliberation the nature of thepublication in question. For example, if the New York Times chose to linkto DeCSS or some other technology that violated the DMCA (as in fact theSan Jose Mercury News and Wired News have, in making the point that a banon linking is seriously problematic), he felt that the court would havelittle trouble accepting the journalistic intent of the link. On the otherhand, if some silly little electronic newsletter aimed at Macintosh andInternet users were to perform the same action, he was concerned that itwould be more difficult to make the same defense. And if TidBITS wouldn'tmatch up to the journalistic level of the New York Times in the eyes of atheoretical court, what about a blogger? The end result would be that this court's interpretation of the DMCA couldhave the same effect of stabilizing the large news organizations in favorof the small newsletters and bloggers who are redefining what journalismmeans in today's Internet-enabled world. Speaking as someone who has donesome of that redefining over the last 12 years, that worries me. Regime of Arrangement In the end, Professor Gillespie argues that the true power of the DMCA isnot so much related to its effect on copyright but these ways it weavesestablished organizations like large manufacturing corporations, researchuniversities, and media conglomerates into what Professor Gillespie calls a"regime of arrangement." Don't assume that these established institutions are necessarily beingco-opted against their will. Apple's Think Different campaign reads like amanifesto for the very people who are disenfranchised under this regime ofarrangement, and yet Apple is a member of the DVD CCA, and, obviously, alicensee of CSS for the DVD hardware and software that comes with the Mac.The open source community has proved the power of teams of independentprogrammers as an alternative to the traditional software developmentmodel, not to mention the ivory towers of research institutions. Distanceeducation hints at the decline of the traditional university, andentrenched media organizations have struggled for years with the way theInternet lets anyone be a publisher. If there's one theme we take into the 21st century, it's decentralization,and you can see it everywhere. The PC overtaking the mainframe, Napsterchanging the face of music distribution despite the recording industry'sbest efforts, DeCSS causing the movie studios conniptions, Linuxsuccessfully challenging the mighty Microsoft's server operating systems,even the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - allare examples of the power of decentralization and the ever-increasing clashbetween these forces of decentralization and the centralized powerstructures that control everything about our world. I have no answers here,but I'd note that despite the awesome power of both systems, I'm seeing theforces of decentralization making significant inroads. What Can We Do? I've been attending a number of talks on copyright and intellectualproperty issues at Cornell over the last year. Almost without exception,the talks are warnings of dark times ahead (obviously, most are slantedtoward the academic and library worlds), but at the same time, none haveoffered any suggestions for how we can work to reverse the efforts on thepart of the Content Cartel to lock up our cultural heritage and stifleinnovation for the future. At a recent talk by Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy andTechnology (CDT), I chatted with Alan afterwards about this problem, and heagreed it was a concern, but had no silver bullet to prevent the hordes ofwell-funded Content Cartel lobbyists from having their way with our electedrepresentatives. I, too, have trouble knowing what will be effective, but Ioffer these possibilities. http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment_forms/ I have to admit, I'm worried that none of this will be enough. The ContentCartel has the aura of celebrity on their side - they're "protecting" therock stars and movie stars who sit at the pinnacle of today's society.They're the cool kids, whereas the people who campaign for civil libertiesare often considered dull and overly earnest. My main ray of hope is thatthe reason most of the software industry voluntarily gave up copyprotection technologies - primarily that consumers hated copy protection -will rise again, but unless we speak out now, all of our content may belocked up in a trusted system protected by the DMCA. PayBITS: Is this is an important article on an important topic? Adam willdonate all of this article's PayBITS proceeds to the EFF!https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com Read more aboutPayBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/ But, oh, happy day, there's a slick, slick way out of this dilemma. At This tip is from the apple web site as a I-pod owner I found it useful. TITLE iPod: How to Play Songs While Charging Article ID: 60972 TOPIC This document explains how you can play songs from iPod while it ischarging. DISCUSSION You can charge iPod using the Apple iPod Power Adapter or you can chargeiPod by connecting it to your Macintosh using the FireWire cable. When charging iPod using the iPod Power Adapter you can play music just asif the charger was not connected. When using the FireWire cable connected to your computer, though, iPod'sbuttons no longer work, and iPod's display does not show the standard menu.Instead, only a FireWire icon or the message "Do not disconnect" appears onthe display. Despite this, you can still play songs from iPod through yourcomputer. Follow these steps: 1. Connect iPod to your computer using the included FireWire cable. You should now be able to select any song from iPod and play it through thecomputer. More and more spouses are blaming the Internet for the break up of theirmarriages. Two-thirds of lawyers meeting at an annual conference in Chicago said theInternet has played a significant role in divorces they had handled duringthe past year. Meeting a new lover online and an "obsessive" interest in pornography werethe top two problems cited in many Internet-related divorce cases. Otherreasons that have led to the break down of marriages include excessive useof the Net and chat rooms. "The computer is a great communications device. But spouses need toremember to communicate with each other as well," said J Lindsey Short Jr,president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. While the Net is being blamed for some divorces, people's activitiesonline are also being used to support a case against a spouse. For instance, almost 80 percent of those attorneys questioned said thatincriminatory e-mails had been part of divorce proceedings, while 65percent said computer and financial spending records had been incorporatedinto divorce records. "While I don't think you can say that the Internet is causing moredivorces, it does make it easier to engage in the sorts of behaviours thattraditionally lead to divorce," said Short. Well, to wrap up my story for a quest for a cheap TV card for my WindowsXP/GeForce 2 system, I took the advice of Mike and Jim and bought aHauppauge WinTV-Go card (the #190). It was $49.99 (no shipping) fromCircuitCity.com. It worked straight up with Windows XP, something I could never get the ATIcard to do without major fiddling every time I wanted to watch the TV. Infact, new software available on their site now includes the deinterlacingfeature once available separately as a freeware add-on. The WinTV-Go has all the necessary controls and a few neat features likemultiple-PIP channel preview. It has still and motion capture but the stilldefinitely works better than the motion capture. In fact, I could not getthe TV motion capture controls to work properly and had to use anotherprogram which they supply. They offer another capture utility on their website which captures the card's output as MPEG-1 compressed video but Icould not get it to record more than a few seconds of video. (Update: thisutil has been updated and now works much better, but the video and audio donot sync well.) Frankly, I really don't care too much about capture and the card worksbeautifully for the purpose I bought it for--displaying TV on my computer'smonitor. This is a big contrast compared to the ATI All-In- Wonder VE,which I could never get to work properly with XP--even with their updatedXP drivers. (Someone please shoot me if I EVER buy another ATI productagain.) Physically, it indeed does not need to connect to your video card--it usesa feature on most modern video cards called overlays. So, it's compatibleacross a wide range of video cards. The only goofy thing is that you haveto run a connector out of the audio output into your sound card's lineinput to get sound. Surely you'd think they could feed this internallysomehow without a physical connection. To be fair, the ATI had the sameshortcoming. Thanks to all who helped out with suggestions in this topic. This is justone really great example of the benefits of a user group and a good forumBBS. For more information, see the Hauppauge web site athttp://www.hauppauge.com/ Oh, my goodness. I just ran across a very interesting little utility thatyou can run on one of the boxes on your LAN. It's like a Swiss Army Knifeof LAN services. Check it out: POP3 (with virus filtering) I know there's more in there. I don't personally need most of this stuff,I installed it to use the POP3 since you can use AVG to filter your e-mailthrough it (I don't use Outlook which AVG supports natively). You can control everything via the built-in web server or through regularrequesters. The web interface is handy if you're running it on a box in adifferent location. The five-user license is FREE. Very interesting program! More info and download here: http://www.software602.com/products/ls/ Details emerge of 48GB effective memory bandwidth WE EXPECT NVIDIA TO not only present the NV28M but probably also the NV30at Comdex next week. If you remember, Nvidia decided to opt for a .13µ (micron) process butfaced some obstacles because shrinking the die and increasing the frequencygreater than 400MHz is technically tough. 0.15µ marchitecture with its aluminum interconnections is limited to 400MHz while Nvidia plans to clock its chips at over 400 MHz and even to500MHz. Will it get to 500MHz? It will have a nice old try. Nvidia will use DDR II memory running at 500MHz or 1GHz effective that willbe the fastest memory used so far in this type of semiconductor, as wereported before. The NV30 chip will feature eight pipelines and two TMUs ö that's one morethan ATI ö and this will give it quite a boost since it will be able torender 16 textures per pass. Documents seen in the Vienna equivalent of the Porcupine pub reveal that anNvidia card will be able to deliver 200 million triangles per second andwill be "the most efficient architecture in the world". We can also confirm that with 1.0 GHz data rate plus Lightspeed MemoryArchitecture 3, a card will be able to reach an amazng 48 GB/s, double whatthe Radeon 9700 PRO can do with its DDR 256 bit memory. Remember Nvidiawill use 128 bit memory this time and will save its breath for 256 bit DDRII for future designs. As for anti-aliasing, you will be able to use FSAA 8X now and anisotropicfiltering will go up to 128 tap anisotropic filtering leaving ATI's methodsin the dust. Here, briefly, is what that means: ATI method Nvidia Method As for performance, the Nvidia NV30 card will be about 30 per cent fasterthan Radeon 9700 PRO in FSAA, Anisotropic filtering is set for maximumsettings. Performance wise you should be able to see 20000 to 22000 3dmarks 2001 SEon the fastest processors but we will keep our powder dry on those claimsuntil we've seen it in action. NV30 will use higher precision 64 and 128 bit colour which is "film-quality color precision ö higher precision than used for Toy Story2,Floating point or integer", Nvidia said. As for the known things it will use CineFX engine for cinematic renderingand we assume we will see some nice demos to follow these cards. Some figures seen on the Nvidia official documents in Vienna show that theNV30 will be 2.5 times faster in quake 3 than TI 4600, 3.5 times faster inDoom 3, and three times faster than 3dmark 2001 SE but this remains to beseen. We already know the NV30 will use 125 millions of transistors, will useAGP 8X and will have support for DirectX 9 and even beyond. As for the name we wont spoil a big plans to Nvidia to surprise the worldand will keep you waiting for that for sometime next week, when NV30 willdebut with a new mobile baby NV28M. It might not be the same day, OK? This will surely be the fastest offering once Nvidia manage to have it inshelves and the company still claims that some cards will be available forChristmas in shops. Let's wait and see. Nvidia will wrench the performance crown for 3D performance if its NV30claims are true. Why should it boast if they're not? INTEL'S PENTIUM 4 processor crosses the 3GHz threshold today. We've beenplaying with this new P4 for a while, and now we get to show you what it'sall about. This chip brings Intel's Hyper-Threading technology to desktopprocessors for the first time. Like clockwork, only much messier, we'veloaded up eleven different test configs with a brutal suite of benchmarksto see how the new P4 measures up. Read up to get the lowdown on the newPentium 4's nosebleed-inducing 3GHz speeds and creamy smooth Hyper-Threading tech. Read the article at: http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/pentium4-3.06/index.x?pg=1 SHUNNING THE TWO largest handheld platforms, Palm and Pocket PC, IBM willannounce Friday it has inked a deal with Sharp to create a new version ofSharp's Linux-based Zaurus handheld to be named the Enterprise EditionZaurus. The agreement furthers the strategic direction of both companies, accordingto IBM officials, as it brings a handheld device into the IBM pervasivecomputing initiative and extends Sharp's efforts to create a Linux/Javaplatform to support back-end corporate applications. For the full story: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/11/15/021115hnsharpibm.xml?1115fram Fujitsu Ltd. announced its business reinforcement measures on Oct. 23,in which Linux is positioned as the basic OS for the next-generationIT infrastructure. Currently, the company's support for Linux is limited to some modelsincluding Internet servers. However, Fujitsu will make advancements inmiddleware and system management software to make them Linux-enabled,and in 2005 it will extend this to large-scale mission-critical systems,such as banking systems. "From the lowest to the highest grade systems, everything will be madeLinux compliant," Fujitsu Vice President Tadayasu Sugita said. For the full story: http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf?CID=onair/asabt/news/214364 If you're a Windows user who's on the fence about switching to Linux,SuSE is making the process less painful than ever. The upcoming SuSELinux Office Desktop, due to launch in January, will include SuSE Linux8.1 as well as applications designed to ease the transition from Windowsto Linux. There's an easy-to-use setup tool, YaST2, which simplifiesinstallation, and Acronis OS Selector to help you partition your harddrive (if, for example, you want to run both Linux and Windows). Butperhaps the best news for Windows types is CodeWeavers CrossOver Office,which allows you to run Windows applications--such as MS Office andLotus Notes--on a system running Linux. For the full story by Matthew Broersma: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-963703.html IBM's giving Linux yet another vote of confidence: Big Blue says theopen-source operating system will be the main OS for its "Blue Gene"supercomputers. IBM's $100 million Blue Gene program aims to create,over the next three to four years, a new family of supercomputers thatwill perform a quadrillion calculations per second. The first Blue Genecomputer will contain 65,000 (count 'em) processors and 16 trillionbytes of data, and will be able to perform 200 trillion calculationsper second. The system will be used for nuclear weapons simulations. IBMalready endorses Linux for a variety of its servers and mainframes. For the full story by Michael Kanellos: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-963285.html Would Macworld Expo be the same without Apple? That's the question Macusers and vendors are asking themselves as Apple and conference organizerIDG World Expo publicly trade barbs about Apple's participation in upcomingtrade shows. The brouhaha erupted late last week, when IDG World Expo announced that the2004 East Coast expo would move from New York City, where the event hasbeen held since 1998, to the show's original East Coast venue, Boston. Theannouncement was the culmination of weeks of negotiations between IDG WorldExpo and representatives of both cities to see which could provide the bestdeal for one of the largest high-tech conferences in the country.(According to comments by IDG World Expo CEO Charlie Greco, the last Bostonshow in 1997 brought in $42 million for the city.) However, later that same day Apple released the following statement: "TodayIDG World Expo announced plans to move Macworld from New York to Boston inJuly of 2004. Apple disagrees with this decision, and will not beparticipating in Macworld Boston. Since IDG World Expo is no longerinvesting in New York, we now need to re-evaluate our participation inMacworld New York 2003. Apple will continue to participate in Macworld SanFrancisco in January." The following day, IDG World Expo reiterated its plans to put on bothshows, with or without Apple. Then, in a public salvo delivered over theweekend, Greco suggested in a Boston Globe interview that IDG World Expomight consider banning Apple from this January's San Francisco show, aswell as from its events held in Tokyo and Paris. Apple hasn't responded publicly to Greco's threat, though it now appearsthat private discussions may be making progress. IDG World Expo toldMacCentral (both companies are owned by IDG) today that Apple would beparticipating in the upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco in January.But there's still no word about what will happen with the East Coastevents, and it's clear that both sides are putting on a show of force tosee who will back down. Why all the fuss? Although money is definitely amajor factor, there are other possible explanations. http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0210/21.expo.php East Expo Expense Moving Macworld to Boston will be a great financial boon to IDG World Expo.Boston beat out New York by offering incentives such as reduced hotelrates, use of some city buildings for Macworld functions, steep discountsfor exhibitor services, and a great rate for Boston's new conventioncenter, which is scheduled to be completed by 2004 and will be large enoughto house the expo (previous Boston expos required splitting the showbetween two venues, forcing awkward bus trips between the two). However, as an exhibitor, Apple doesn't share in all the financial savings.According to Greco, Apple typically spends $4 million to $5 million at anexpo for equipment and supplies, plus travel and lodging for hundreds ofemployees, along with the not insignificant costs of Steve Jobs's dramatickeynote addresses. Apple may have more than $4 billion in the bank, but asthe overall technology market continues to falter, the company no doubtwants to put its money where it will have the most impact. An Expo in Every Mall That impact is increasingly being met by Apple's retail stores (currently53 locations either open or announced). Unlike Macworld Expo, where peoplecan order products only from Apple's online store, Apple Stores aredesigned to make the purchasing process easy. Plus, although Macworld Expomay draw 50,000 or more people, Apple announced that 2.25 million peoplevisited an Apple Store in the last three months. Also worth considering is the fact that Macworld Expo attendees are for themost part already Apple customers, whereas people who wander into an AppleStore are more likely to be new to the platform. Call us cynical, but Applemay believe that marketing to existing customers simply isn't all thatnecessary; that could also account for why Apple advertises little inMacintosh publications. Equally important is the fact that Apple Stores control the customerexperience on an almost one-to-one basis. Rather than watch thousands ofgawkers stream through the expo booth and fight to be heard among theloudspeakers and crowd noise, Apple can dictate how a customer's visitoccurs from the moment he or she walks through the door. Since Steve Jobs'sreturn to the company, Apple has been obsessed with controlling theMacintosh experience, whether by engineering Mac OS X so that developershave less leeway to adjust the operating system's look and feel, or bymaintaining a tight lid on new products until Apple is ready to unveil themat a time and place of Apple's choosing. In fact, you could argue that having a booth and hardware to display hasbecome something of a formality for Apple. In the company's eyes, MacworldExpo is less about connecting with users or vendors, and more aboutgenerating the massive amount of press coverage that the show, andespecially the keynote, can draw. Macworld Expo isn't a trade show for aniche computer manufacturer, it's an Event that receives worldwide mediaattention. If you're skeptical, consider the way the recent iMac redesignbecame a Time cover story (timed to coincide with the keynote so thatattendees received a free copy, purchased by Apple, on their way out). But Apple can't keep up the pace. After years of releasing new machines andsoftware in January and July, it's become more difficult for Apple to liveup to expectations by having "just one more thing" ready in the wings. Atthe last New York show, Jobs was rumored to be furious because delays infinishing Jaguar meant that the new line of Power Mac G4s weren't ready tobe announced. The result was a greater emphasis on software that was on theverge of shipping (Jaguar), or not ready (iCal and the still-beta iSync). The big announcement pattern has its destructive aspect too, as sales ofexisting products tend to drop off in the weeks leading up to the show; thecurrent wisdom being that it's foolish to buy new hardware late in the year(during the important holiday retail season), because there's likely to bea computer processor speed bump or some completely different product at theshow in January. To buck the trend, Apple has made several significantannouncements, such as the release of the iPod and the newly redesignediBook, during invitation-only press conferences at Apple's corporate campusthroughout the year. Apple's statement following the Boston announcement suggests that thecompany may be looking to concentrate on the January expo in San Francisco,which doesn't require nearly as much in the way of travel expenses butstill results in huge media coverage. By dropping out of an East Coast showin July or August, Apple could more easily release products on a lesspredictable schedule and save millions of dollars. Timing Is Everything According to reports, Apple's statement was a surprise to IDG World Expo,despite frequent contact between the two companies during the time IDGWorld Expo was talking to New York and Boston about the change of venue.It's hard to believe that the announcement was a complete surprise, though,especially considering Greco's comments to the Boston Globe indicating thathe suspected months ago that Jobs was looking to reduce Apple's slate ofshows. Instead, it sounds as if IDG World Expo assumed Apple would followthe expo wherever it ended up, so IDG World Expo forged ahead anyway. Apple- or more realistically, Jobs - took advantage of IDG's gaffe and droppedthe bomb of pulling out of Boston and possibly New York at the point whenIDG World Expo would be most vulnerable - and therefore most willing tonegotiate in Apple's favor. As a result, IDG World Expo finds itself fighting the perception that itdidn't adequately communicate with its star attraction, while also needingto placate the cities of Boston and New York, with whom it no doubt hascontractual obligations. And in an ugly step, Greco has taken the powerstruggle public, vowing to keep the other shows alive no matter what thecost. Greco may have taken the debate to the press to force Apple's hand, butangering Steve Jobs by making Apple look bad doesn't seem like a recipe forsuccess. It's equally disappointing to see Apple stick to theour-way-or-the-highway approach, but the fact is that a Macworld Expowithout Apple would be a very different kettle of fish. Without Apple,attendance would undoubtedly slump and much of the press would skip theshow entirely, both of which would reduce the visibility vendors receivefor the significant expense of exhibiting. A domino effect could result,with Apple's exit causing the larger vendors to bow out, and making it evenharder for smaller developers to justify spending marketing dollars toattend. In such a situation, IDG World Expo could change the show to compensate,charging less for vendors to exhibit, concentrating more on the conferencesessions, or giving away exhibit floor passes. But would such changesresult in the kind of Macworld Expo users and vendors alike would want toattend? We hope Apple and IDG World Expo can stop their posturing and workout a compromise that keeps Apple involved in the Macworld Expos underterms acceptable to both companies and the rest of the Macintosh industry. Last week, I began to see credible reports that installing Mac OS X 10.2Jaguar on some iMacs was "frying" the motherboards. Users would run theJaguar installer, everything would proceed correctly, and when users triedto restart the screens would remain black, rendering the machines unusable.Furthermore, the screens stayed black: restarting the machine from a Mac OS9 CD or other bootable volume made no difference. Some users who contactedtheir Apple dealers were reportedly told the only solution was to replacetheir iMac's motherboard, potentially at a cost of $700 or more. So, after some investigation, here's the deal: 1) Installing Jaguar on some slot-loading iMacs _can_ render the machineunusable by blacking out the internal display, even when trying to start upin Mac OS 9. The bug is apparently in Jaguar, not the installer. 2) You can avoid the problem altogether by updating your iMac's firmware_before_ installing Jaguar. The current firmware version is 4.1.9; it's a1.2 MB download. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130 3) If you've already been hit by this problem, no, the iMac's motherboardis not fried, and replacement is not necessary. See below for the fix. 4) A reasonable person would think the Jaguar installer would check for asupported firmware revision before attempting to install. It does not,though the ReadMe and slim installation brochure that comes with Jaguarboth hint at the possible need for a firmware update. Firmware Versions At this time, it's not entirely clear which iMacs are vulnerable. Theoriginal "slot-loading" iMacs and iMac DVs introduced in September of 1999are affected; the problem may extend to later iMac models with built-inCRTs, which Apple designates "Summer 2000," "Early 2001," and "Summer2001." Neither flat-screen iMacs nor eMacs are affected. Be sure you read the instructions before attempting to update the firmware:you'll need to locate and use the programmer's button on the side of youriMac. Firmware updates can be run only when launched from a writable diskunder Mac OS 9.x (or Mac OS 8.x, if your computer is old enough). Youcannot run a firmware update from the Classic environment in Mac OS X, norcan you run one when the computer is started up from a CD-ROM or networkdisk. Your PRAM will be reset after installing a firmware update, so youmay need to check some of your system settings. In particular, make surethe setting in your startup disk control panel is correct if you havemultiple bootable drives or partitions. If you don't know what firmware version you're currently running (and whodoes?), you can find out by using Apple System Profiler; an entry for "BootROM version," "ROM revision," or "Boot ROM info" appears under the SystemProfile tab. If you're using Mac OS 9, the version will appear in an uglydecimal format like $0004.17f1 - that corresponds to firmware version4.1.7. The following Knowledge Base article lists the current firmware revisionsfor Macs which support Mac OS X. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117 Seeing Black? If you've already attempted to install Jaguar and are looking at a blackscreen, you can recover, but it's not simple. Essentially, you must find away to update your iMac's firmware from a writable drive without having useof the iMac's screen. Perhaps the best approach is to open the iMac, remove its hard drive, andconnect the hard drive to a second computer (like a Power Mac G3 or G4 withan available drive bay). Then copy the firmware updater to the iMac'sdrive, install a remote control program like Timbuktu onto the hard driveand configure it to allow incoming access, and set the drive to boot in MacOS 9. Next, move the hard drive back to your iMac and boot the machine inMac OS 9 (the screen will still be black). Then, connect to the iMac over anetwork from another Macintosh using the remote control program and run thefirmware updater. Once you've done that, the iMac's video should berestored. If your iMac is under warranty, note that opening your iMac toremove the hard drive may void that warranty. Obviously, not every iMac owner has a second computer and a remote controlprogram at their disposal, or the technical acumen to transplant harddrives between machines. An Apple dealer may be able to perform these orsimilar steps for you to recover your iMac, but they're unlikely to do sofor free even if your iMac is still under warranty: expect to pay at leastan hourly rate for the dealer's time, but that's certainly cheaper than anew motherboard. A well-versed Mac consultant might be faster and lessexpensive. Under _no_ circumstances should you let a dealer convince youthat your iMac's motherboard must be replaced. Motherboard replacement wasinitially Apple's official solution to this problem; however, now that theissue has been more thoroughly identified, Apple dealers now have access toinformation about it how to recover iMacs without replacing themotherboard. If your dealer isn't yet aware of it, ask them to look. Seeing Red? This situation is troubling. It's incredible that Apple would releaseoperating system software dependent on particular firmware revisions andnot check that appropriate firmware was available before installing. C'mon:that's just common sense! We're also disturbed Apple would recommenddealers and service centers replace motherboards on affected machines - acostly solution, especially for machines out of warranty - when there'snothing wrong with the motherboards, and Apple's own software caused theproblem. We realize working out solutions for these problems takes time anddealers need to provide solutions as quickly as possible, but we certainlyhope Apple plans to provide refunds to affected users who have already paidfor motherboard replacements. PayBITS: If this article saved your iMac's bacon, please considersupporting TidBITS by becoming a contributor.http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html Read more aboutPayBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/ October 17, 2002 - Emil Cobb chaired the meeting. He began with thetraditional introduction of club officers. Kevin Hisel announced his candidacy for Corporation Agent. George Krumins offered up that Microsoft had announced another patch. RichHall asked if they were a Boy Scout organization. Mark Zinzow said Mozilla 1.2 beta is out. Mozilla is also offering just abrowser, called Phoenix, without all the other bells and whistles. There was a discussion of trouble with SPI installs, primarily betweenGeorge Krumins and Richard Rollins. Western Digital is shipping 200 GB drives. Mike Latinovich said they areavailable at Best Buy for $299 with $30 rebate: out the door price $269.They are 7200 RPM drives with an 8 MB buffer. They are also available for$335 on pricewatch.com. The Lite On 52X CD burners are now available. In Microsoft news, their recent answer to Apple's "Switch" ad campaignproduced a "Switch to PC" web page. The only problem is that the woman thesaid switched didn't really exist. Her picture turned out to be a fake. Itcan be found on the Getty website. The testimonial was written by a womanwho worked for Microsoft's PR firm. In XBox news, Licksang, a company making hacker chips for the XBox has beenshut down by the legal actions of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Licksanghad also been selling hacked XBoxes. Richard Rollins announced he has just purchased a Pioneer A04 DVD burnerand wondered if anyone else had a DVD burner. Richard appears to be ourfirst. He said he hopes to have a report on its performance for us nextmonth. Jim Huls says that Unreal Tournament 3 is out now and is great. Check theforums for his review of the game. In Macintosh news, MacWorld is moving back to Boston, but Apple said theywould not attend it there, and might not ever attend again. In response to a Windows hanging question, Mark Zinzow suggested checkingWindows update. Systems hanging tend to be hardware device drivers and/ornetwork issues, Kevin Hisel added. An examination of the problem has foundthat 50% of Windows problems are caused by 1% of the code. Kevin Hisel raffled off a copy of Encarta Reference Library 2003. DebraSmith won. George Krumins will test and review the Alpha 5 database program. This evening's demonstration on wireless connectivity was chaired byRichard Rollins and Mike Latinovich. The star of the show was Mike's 614Plus D-Link wireless broadband router. This little gem allows four wiredconnections and "probably" 64 wireless ones (Mike was a little unsure ofthe number), hooking you up to your Internet connection. Mike said it canbe had for $90 at Best Buy on sale, which happens about every three weeksor so. However, Mike admitted paying $120 for his. (He needed it andcouldn't wait for the next sale.) There really wasn't that much to see really, since we were able to set upour connections fairly quickly, and everything worked as expected. We usedsix connections in our demonstration: 3 wired and 3 wireless. A few facts bandied about: The DLink does 22 megabits a second. It has arange of about 300 feet. The standard used is called 802.11 B which is thesame as Apple's AirPort connection. In our set-up, we had a very varied mix of connected machines: the club'sPC and Mac and several laptops, both clone and Macintosh. Everythingworked. The informal discussions touch on several topics, among them telephoneinterference at 2.4 GHz, the Sygate Personal Firewall and Zone Alarm. Therewas a discussion of Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP) and VPN. One of the drawbacks of wireless is latency. Its response can be a littleslow. Mike said if doing a lot of gaming, you'll want to be wired. Other items of interest that came up were the web site chrismyden.com forhigh quality MP3s. You have to have 320K sample rates for MP3s. It's partof the ubernet. Another wireless unit from SMC Networks has a parallel porton it. It has one less Ethernet port, but the parallel port facilitates abuilt-in network printer server. The unit mentioned was the SMC7004AWBR,the Barricade, a 4-Port 11Mbps wireless broadband router. You can check itout at http://www.smc.com. Another source of good information is http://www.practicallynetworked.com. The October meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday,October 22, 2002, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing toattend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number areboth in the book). Present at the meeting were: Emil Cobb, Mike Latinovich,Kris Klindworth, Richard Rollins, Jim Huls, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, andMark Zinzow. Emil Cobb: Emil reported that thirteen people attended the Linux SIG andattendance grew to 19 total for the evening at the General meeting. Emilsaid, "Pretty good meeting, I thought." For next month, Emil plans for theMac SIG to do a Question and Answer session on Mac Os 10.2. Kevin Hisel: Kevin thought meeting was fine, despite it being informal.Kevin discussed his Folding@Home activities, Folding@Home is a researchvehicle. Richard Rollins asked if there has been any tangible, productiveresult from all the computer power expended so far. Kevin said he was the only openly declared candidate for CUCUG office nextyear, running for Corporation Agent. He encouraged others to openlydeclare, querying other officers about their intentions. He then asked,"What are we going to do about the office of the President. If it is notfilled, we'll have a constitutional crisis." Kevin informed the Board that, when he was cleaning up recently, he foundthe old CUCUG Library petty cash box, which still contained some funds. Themoney will be turned over to the Treasurer. Kevin said, "If you want anything from Microsoft, let me know. I'll try toget a copy of it for review through their Mindshare program." Kevin Hopkins: Kevin had no new business this month. Jim Huls: Jim said Ben Johnson had brought up the idea of purchasing avideo projector. In the discussion that they had, he had preferred Hitachisand Sonys. Jim said he was glad he had come to the meeting. "It was interesting," hesaid. Mark Zinzow: Mark sparked a discussion of potential meeting sites at theUniversity of Illinois. Richard Rollins: Richard informed us that Ed Serbe and George Krumins willbe doing a demonstration of the X-box next month for the PC SIG. Richard said he enjoyed the meeting and that it made him think aboutrunning wireless himself. Kris Klindworth: Kris said he was sorry he couldn't make the last meeting,but that he was drinking tequila in Guadalajara at meeting time. He had agreat vacation. Mike Latinovich: Mike said the meeting was good, although the doughnutswere lacking. "There were lots of questions and lots of interest," Mikefelt. "Not everyone was able to directly participate, but we did haveseveral people with laptops hooked up and actively involved. We should lookinto a wireless access point for our meetings." Mike said we were using aDLink Wireless bridge connected via ethernet. Richard Rollins made themotion to purchase a similar device. Kevin Hisel seconded. The motion wasapproved. We will be getting a DLink DI-614 Plus accesspoint/router/wireless switch and a DLink DWL-810 wireless Ethernet bridge,so that both the club's Mac and PC can use the device, making SIG meetingsin the lobby a snap to get an Internet connection. This will also allowanyone with a laptop and an AirPort card to connect to the net duringmeetings. Kevin Hisel will see to the purchase. Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at theIllinois Technology Center. The Center is located at 7101 Tomaras Ave inSavoy. To get to the Illinois Technology Center from Champaign or Urbana,take Neil Street (Rt 45) south. Setting the trip meter in your car to zeroat the McDonalds on the corner of Kirby/Florida and Neil in Champaign, youonly go 2.4 miles south. Windsor will be at the one mile mark. Curtis willbe at the two mile mark. Go past the Paradise Inn/Best Western motel to thenext street, Tomaras Ave. on the west (right) side. Tomaras is at the 2.4mile mark. Turn west (right) on Tomaras Ave. The parking lot entrance isimmediately on the south (left) side of Tomaras Ave. Enter the building bythe front door under the three flags facing Rt 45. A map can be found onthe CUCUG website at Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at midyear. Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by email. Allrecent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user groupexchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. Asa matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after threemonths of no contact. For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, orcontact one of our officers (all at area code 217): Visit our web site athttp://www.cucug.org/, or join in our online forums athttp://www.cucug.org/starship/index.php .
http://www.eudora.com/download/eudora/mac/5.2/Release_Notes.txt
http://www.web-confidential.com/ Common Ground:
Final Judgment in Microsoft Antitrust Case
by Adam C. Engst (ace@tidbits.com)
TidBITS#654/04-Nov-02
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/StateSettlement.pdf MS admits its Linux-bashing jihad is a failure
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 8 November 2002 at 10:21 GMT
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28008.html A New Microsoft Blunder
From the Desk of David Pogue
Thu, 17 Oct 2002, The New York Times Direct Gates says he'll give it away
(submitted by Kevin Hisel) The Evil That Is the DMCA
by Adam C. Engst (ace@tidbits.com)
TidBITS#656/18-Nov-02
http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
http://anti-dmca.org/
http://www.mpaa.org/
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/berne/
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/20011128_ny_appeal_decision.html
http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm Palm Weathering A Hard Reset
The Palm is a real computer, and like other computers it can, on occasion,lock up. Sometimes the fix is nondestructive. That is, you can do a softreset by pushing the reset button on the back of the device and no data isdestroyed. This is great when it happens this way. Sometimes, though, itfreezes "hard" and the only way to get your Palm going again is to do aHARD reset. Hard resets destroy EVERYTHING. The data goes bye-bye. Ofcourse, your data is backed up on your main computer, because every timeyou hot sync, the newest version of your data is saved to the maincomputer. But HARD resets will wipe EVERYTHING off your Palm! You canrecover your DATA from your main computer, but you'll have to reinstall ALLof the APPLICATIONS! *groan* This has happened to me more than once. Onetime I installed the batteries backwards and lost everything. This hasceased to be a problem since I started buying Palms with built-inrechargeable batteries, but the Palm will still occasionally freeze. Thisoften happens when I try new software that isn't compatible with the PalmOS I happen to be using. iPod Tip
From: Emil Cobb (e-cobb@uiuc.edu)
Created: 11/29/01
Modified: 10/17/02
2. Open iTunes, if necessary.
3. Select iPod in the Source list.
4. Click the iPod Options button in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window.
5. Click to enable the "Manually manage songs and playlists" option.
6. Click OK. Internet blamed for marriage break ups
By Tim Richardson, The Register
Posted: 15/11/2002 at 11:37 GMT
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/28122.html
(submitted by Kevin Hisel) The PC Section:
TV Card Recommendations
by Kevin Hisel
From the Starship CUCUG II Forum at http://www.cucug.org/starship/index.php
Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 12:38 pm 602 Pro Lan Suite
by Kevin Hisel
From the Starship CUCUG II Forum at http://www.cucug.org/starship/index.php
Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 8:50 pm
(POP3 can grab mail from other POP3s)
SMTP (with spammer protection)
DHCP
Proxy Servers
Works with Broadband or Dial-up!
FAX server (send and receive FAXes via e-mail)
WWW Server w/CGI and SSL
Filtering by IP NV 30 "30% faster" than Radeon 9700 Pro
By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 15 November 2002, 09:30
theinquirer.net
0 AF 0 AF
1x AF 4Tap AF
2x AF 8Tap AF
4x AF 16Tap AF
8x AF 32Tap AF
16x AF 64Tap AF
128Tap AF Intel's Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor
by Scott "Damage" Wasson
http://www.tech-report.com/ The Linux Section:
IBM Dips Toe Back Into The Handheld Waters
Posted November 15, 2002 05:29 Pacific Time Fujitsu to Adopt Linux in Large-Scale Mission-Critical Systems in 2005
October 30, 2002 (TOKYO) New SuSE Linux runs Windows Apps
October 30, 2002 IBM chooses Linux for "Blue Gene" supercomputers
October 18, 2002 The Macintosh Section:
Apple, IDG World Expo Play Hardball Over Macworld Expo
by Jeff Carlson (jeffc@tidbits.com)
TidBITS#652/21-Oct-02Update Firmware Before Installing Jaguar!
by Geoff Duncan (geoff@tidbits.com)
TidBITS#653/28-Oct-02 The CUCUG Section:
October General Meeting
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu) The Presentation: Mike Latinovich and Richard Rollins take us wireless
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu) October Board Meeting
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu) The Back Page:
The CUCUG is a not-for-profit corporation, originally organized in 1983to support and advance the knowledge of area Commodore computer users.We've grown since then, now supporting PC, Macintosh and Linux platforms. President/WinSIG: Jim Lewis 621-2343 lewisj@pdnt.com Vice-President: Emil Cobb 398-0149 e-cobb@uiuc.edu Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Richard Hall 344-8687 rjhall1@uiuc.edu Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 621-2343 lewisj@pdnt.com Board Advisor: Richard Rollins 469-2616 Webmaster: Kevin Hisel 352-1002 Mac SIG Co-Chair: John Melby 352-3638 jbmelby@johnmelby.com Mac SIG Co-Chair: Charles Melby-Thompson 352-3638 cmelby@princeton.edu Linux SIG Co-Chair: John Ross 469-0208 hurricanejohnn@prairieinet.net Linux SIG Co-Chair: Kris Klindworth 239-0097 kris.klindworth@Carle.com
912 Stratford Dr.
Champaign, IL
61821
