News Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The March 20 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. The Linux SIG will Have an open discussion. The Macintosh SIG will have Emil Cobb presenting iPhoto.The PC SIG's presentation will be by George Krumins showing the database Alpha 5. Come and check out the varied offerings.
As always, we welcome any kind of input or feedback from members. Run across an interesting item or tidbit on the net? Just send the link to the editor. Have an article or review you'd like to submit? Send it in. Have a comment? Email any officer you like. Involvement is the driving force of any user group. Welcome to the group.
Here's the list of FREE products two lucky Winsig members will WIN at the March 20th meeting, courtesy of Microsoft (please note, you must be a 2003 member of CUCUG to participate in the drawing):
Microsoft FrontPage 2002 (retail box)
FrontPage is the favorite HTML editor of thousands of webmasters. Its simple WYSIWYG interface makes creating HTML as easy as making documents in Word. With new templates and smart tools ("bots") to help create a wide range of intranet and Internet pages, version 2002 is even simpler and faster to use than its predecessors. Users can draw with PowerPoint tools, drag and drop live content, and create photo galleries with a few mouse clicks. Publishing is incredibly easy. Beginners will love the wizards, and will find Web authoring much easier than expected. This is the full version of the software--NOT an upgrade. Street price $110.99.
Links 2003 and Links 2003 Championship Courses
Links 2003 is the most realistic golf sim available. The newest version of the all-time bestselling golf simulator features improved graphics, six brand-new championship courses, high- resolution 3-D characters, a dynamic camera that lets you see your shot from different perspectives, and improved putting with a new 3-D Green Analyzer. Links 2003 also brings improvements to the powerful Arnold Palmer course designer--the same 3-D course architecture tool used by the Links team to create course graphics in stunning photorealistic detail. Also includes add-on pack Links 2003 Championship Courses. Street price: $49.98.
PC chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices this week enacted their first sweeping desktop processor price cuts of the year.
Intel reduced the prices on all its desktop Pentium 4 processors by as much as 21 percent Sunday. Meanwhile, AMD cut prices on select Athlon XP desktop chips by as much as 32 percent Monday.
The companies regularly cut prices on their PC processors to make way for new chips and encourage customers to buy new PCs. The companies also use price cuts as a way to stay competitive.
The companies employed all three tactics in 2002, bringing down prices quickly through the middle part of last year. But it's been several months since either company made a widespread price cut on desktop chips. Intel, which reduced notebook Pentium 4 prices in January, dropped desktop prices the last time in November. AMD hasn't done any price cutting since last August, when it reduced desktop prices and in September, when it lowered prices on its mobile processors.
But analysts say that, despite the pause, the two companies' price cuts are arriving on schedule.
"Ordinarily, they look at cutting prices about once per quarter and this is about that," said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research.
Show me the money
Intel kicked off its latest round of cuts by nipping the price of its flagship 3.06GHz Pentium 4. It lowered the chip's list price by 8 percent, from $637 to $589. Intel also sliced 6 percent off the list price of its 2.8GHz Pentium 4 chip--from $401 to $375.
Intel also dropped the list prices of its 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, 2.53GHz, 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz chips by 21 percent each.
The 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz chips were reduced from $305 to $241, while the 2.5GHz and 2.53GHz chips went from $243 to $193 and the 2.4GHz from $193 to $163.
The price cut moves the 2.4GHz Pentium 4 down to the low end of Intel's pricing range for the Pentium 4. There, it can take over as the entry-level Pentium 4 chip for manufacturers, because, even though Intel still sells 2.2GHz and 2.26GHz chips, the list price for the 2.4GHz chip is the same as that of the slower chips. Intel lopped the prices of all three chips by 16 percent, lowering each of them from $193 to $163. Intel's 2.53GHz Pentium 4 is a small increase in price from there.
(Intel has several pairs of Pentium 4s, such as the 2.5GHz and 2.53GHz and the 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz, which are similar in clock speed and priced the same, but different in bus frequency. The 2.5GHz offers a 400MHz bus--a pipeline that transmits data between it and the rest of the PC--while the 2.53GHz has a higher-performance 533MHz bus.)
Meanwhile, Intel is making room for a new flagship processor by trimming the price of its midrange chips. It's expected to launch a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 next quarter and follow with a second round of price cuts. The combination of the two price cuts should push down prices for all of Intel's current desktop Pentium 4s, sources familiar with Intel's plans said.
For its part, AMD's kept prices on its new Athlon XP 3000+ and 2800+ chips the same at $588 and $375, respectively. The chipmaker dropped list prices on several desktop Athlon XP processors with the aim of making them attractive to customers, a representative said.
The Athlon XP 2700+ moved from $349 to $267, a 23 percent drop. AMD dropped its Athlon XP 2600+ processor from $297 to $241, a 19 percent reduction. Its Athlon XP 2400+ saw a 27 percent decrease, from $193 to $141. AMD's 2200+ chip dropped the most, 32 percent, from $157 to $107.
Prices on its 2100+ and 2000+ processors stayed nearly the same, dropping only a dollar, to $92, and two dollars to $81, respectively.
Prices on AMD desktop chips aren't likely to move until it brings out an Athlon XP 3200+ chip, which is expected at midyear.
Though the prices set by Intel and AMD apply to chips purchased in lots of 1,000, the chips often appear at retail distributors for different prices. These street prices can be higher or lower than the list prices, depending on supply and demand.
CHIP GIANT INTEL confirmed it has introduced a number of Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) products which it claims will "double" data throughput on PCs, and more.
The products include a GbE controller which includes Communications Screaming Architecture (CSA), and a 10GbE server for enterprises.
The firm has also released a small 10Gbps XFP optical transceiver that will switch at different multiple data rates and which Intel claims is the first four port GbE network adaptor for servers.
CSA, as we've written before, claims to double GbE throughput and is called the PRO/1000 CT connection, aimed at the up and coming Sprindale and Canterwood chipsets.
CSA is a bus that avoids PCI on the IO controller hub and will give bidirectional bandwidth of 2GBps.
Intel claims that the gains come when used in multitasking and with its now famous hypethreading (HT) technology, which will propagate across Pentium 4s in the second quarter of this year.
Intel said these products will either sample or ship by the end of March. The PRO/1000 CT desktop connection will cost $30, the Optical Transceiver will cost $500 when bought in volume, while the PRO/1000 MT Quad Port will cost $575.
If you purchased a Power Mac G4 last year and wondered why Apple included a built-in jet turbine, it's time to remove your earplugs. Responding to numerous complaints about the noise produced by its 2002 Power Mac line - particularly from the professional audio and video communities - Apple has announced a Power Mac G4 Power Supply Exchange Program. For a $20 shipping and handling charge, owners of the Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) can receive a new power supply (including a new system fan) that operates more quietly than the original. A prepaid airbill is included for sending the original power supply back to Apple. Apple also includes directions for installing the hardware, but recommends that anyone uncomfortable performing the repair take the new components to a certified service provider (which could entail a labor fee). The program runs until 30-Jun-03. [JLC]
http://depot.info.apple.com/?program=acoustic
TidBITS#667/17-Feb-03
Citing the virtual server capabilities of the technology, Microsoft last week announced that it has acquired from Connectix the entire Virtual PC product line. Connectix first developed Virtual PC to enable Macintosh users to run the Windows operating system and applications, along with other operating systems (such as Linux) that use Intel hardware. In recent years, the company has introduced Virtual PC for Windows, enabling PC users to run multiple simultaneous "virtual machines," each with its own operating system. Virtual Server, a new product under development at Connectix that caught Microsoft's eye, is designed to allow multiple independent server processes to run on a single Windows computer.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Feb03/02-19PartitionPR.asp
Microsoft has purchased all three products (Virtual PC for Mac, Virtual PC for Windows, and Virtual Server) from Connectix, and has hired "key members of the Connectix team to continue moving these products forward." Connectix will continue to sell and support these products during a planned six-month transition period, while Microsoft works to incorporate them into its product line. Following the transition, Microsoft says it will honor all support commitments to existing customers and will offer new support plans. Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit will inherit responsibility for Virtual PC for Mac and plans to continue development.
http://connectix.com/products/vpc6m.html
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/virtualpc/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/news/bulletins/vmnews.mspx
In the past, Connectix has licensed its technologies to Apple (MODE32), Logitech (QuickCam), and Sony (Virtual Game Station). The company says its product line will still include DoubleTalk and CopyAgent until the end of these products' life cycles. Since both are compatible only with Mac OS 9, it raises the question of whether Connectix will continue as a company after the six-month transition period. (RAM Doubler support is also slated to end in September of 2003.)
The acquisition makes sense for Microsoft from multiple perspectives. The interesting virtual server technologies let modern servers run legacy applications and ease the hassle of running more than one application per server. Virtual PC for Windows similarly helps desktop users by letting them run legacy programs that are only compatible with older versions of Windows. And Virtual PC for the Mac can only help Microsoft sell more copies of Windows - in the end, Microsoft doesn't really care what hardware you use to run Windows. For users, the acquisition will probably mean future versions of Virtual PC with significantly improved Windows performance, thanks to access to the Windows source code, although it's entirely likely that support for other operating systems such as Linux may be de-emphasized or dropped entirely.
Still unclear is what will happen to Connectix after September of 2003. Until then, Connectix is still selling and supporting Virtual PC, but after that point, the company will basically be a sales and service organization with no products. Although it's possible that the owners will simply wind up the company then, Connectix has reinvented itself several times over the 14 years the company has been creating Macintosh products. Roy McDonald, Connectix's president and CEO, told us that they'd be using the next six months to figure out what comes next, and if they come up with any great ideas, we won't have seen the last of Connectix.
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Sun Microsystems next week will begin offering a trial edition of the next version of its StarOffice software.
Sun expects to post the public beta, or test version, of StarOffice 6.1 on its Web site (http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/beta/index.html) by Wednesday, said Iyer Venkatesan, product line manager for Sun. A second, limited-release beta will be available to selected testers in May. The final version of StarOffice 6.1 is expected to be available in October.
StarOffice, Sun's commercial distribution of its open-source OpenOffice package, includes a word processor, a spreadsheet application and other common office tools. StarOffice has become one of Sun's most visible efforts to erode Microsoft's dominance over PC computing, with Sun positioning it as a low-cost alternative to the software giant's Office.
While the Microsoft product still boasts market share in the 90 percent range, Sun has made inroads lately, including its first bundling deal with a major PC maker and a new "thin client" strategy that incorporates StarOffice. Thin clients are computing terminals whose applications and data run off a centralized server, allowing the client software to run on relatively low-end devices.
The new version of StarOffice includes expanded support for handicapped users and new business configuration tools that allow information technology managers to oversee multiple StarOffice desktops from a single location. The new release also will allow people to save documents in Adobe Systems' widespread Portable Document Format (PDF).
"We've focused a lot on the enterprise features, getting StarOffice ready for deployment in the enterprise," Venkatesan said.
Version 6.1 also has enhanced support for creating localized versions of the software. Sun expects to have Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic versions of StarOffice ready later this year, and third-party vendors are working on versions for Eastern European countries and other regions. Venkatesan said widespread geographic support is a key part of Sun's strategy for boosting acceptance of StarOffice.
"There are these emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa where they need a strong office product but they can't pay hundreds of dollars per seat," he said.
TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan's Sony said on it would start sales next month of the world's first DVD recorder that uses blue laser light and can pack a two-hour high-definition TV program onto a single disc.
It won't be cheap, with a retail list price of 450,000 yen ($3,800) while low-end DVD recorders using conventional red lasers go for as little as 50,000-70,000 yen. But with digital satellite broadcasts in Japan, the United States and elsewhere now bringing high-definition TV to a small but growing number of households, Sony wants to get an early start in what could become a hot product.
"The market has already been established, and although it's still looking for direction, there will be a growing number of users who want high-definition recording," said Sony spokeswoman Shoko Yanagisawa.
Coming to America
The recorder, which includes a built-in broadcast satellite tuner, will hit store shelves in Japan on April 10. No date has been set yet for an overseas roll-out, she said.
The machine will give Sony, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, a head start over its partners in the Blu-ray consortium, a nine-member group of industry heavyweights that unveiled a common format for blue laser DVDs a year ago.
Blue light, with a shorter wavelength than red, can read and store data at much higher densities needed for high-definition recordings.
Blu-ray discs, which Sony will also start selling on April 10, hold up to 23 gigabytes of data, or nearly five times as much as existing DVDs and enough for two hours of digital satellite high-definition programming.
At 3,500 yen each, Blu-ray discs will also cost several times more than conventional discs.
Market growing as prices drop
The new format was devised by an alliance of nine giant makers: Sony, Pioneer Corp, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co (the makes Panasonic products), Sharp Corp, LG Electronics, South Korea's Samsung Electronics, Thomson Multimedia and Dutch manufacturer Koninklijke Philips Electronics.
Toshiba Corp., a pioneer in DVD technology, has weighed in with a competing blue-laser format it says will be less expensive and more compatible with existing recorders, although it would only store 15-20 gigabytes of data per disc.
A fragmentation of recording formats for existing red laser products has been blamed for hindering a take-off in DVD recorder sales, although the market has begun growing rapidly as the machines get cheaper.
Toshiba is hoping to have its first blue-laser DVD recorder on the market in another year or so, a spokesman said, although an industry body is still hammering out technical details for the format.
FACT BOX
Sony's Blu-ray machine will be able to play red-laser discs using the DVD-R and DVD-RW formats, but not those using the DVD-RAM or DVD+RW formats.
[Addendum: The Sony recorder-player, codenamed "BDZ-S77," comes with a BS digital decoder for receiving digital video signals beamed from broadcasting satellites.
The Blu-ray Disc technology provides a consumer format for recording of high-definition digital television and each disk can hold around two hours of such content.
In the event that the technology is used to record conventional TV programs beamed from terrestrial TV broadcasting stations, each disk can hold up to 12 hours of such content. The Sony recorder-player also can play back DVD and CD. ]
Former file-swapping wunderkind Sean Fanning has signed up to help CD-burning technology company Roxio build a reborn Napster service--but with a difference.
The new Napster won't look anything like the anarchic search-and-download service that kicked off file-trading legal battles more than three years ago, Roxio said Monday. The software company plans to work strictly by the record industry's playbook, and is taking the peer-to-peer component that was a foundation of much of Napster's appeal out of the service altogether, at least initially.
"We're looking to put a legal service up by year end," Roxio spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly said. "Our CEO, Chris Gorog, is in talks with all the major labels now."
The new Napster envisioned by Roxio--which purchased Napster's name and technology assets for $5 million in a bankruptcy auction in November--would fall more in line with authorized subscription and paid-download services such as Pressplay or MusicNet. As such, it would break little new ground, but could be a valuable new distribution channel for record labels' online efforts.
Roxio is planning to integrate the Napster music download service into its recently released Audio Central music jukebox program, which currently makes up part of its Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 disc-burning software. The jukebox and music download component may wind up being distributed separately, Kelly said.
Fanning, who created the original Napster file-swapping service while a university student, has been hired to help launch the new service as a consultant, rather than as a full-time Roxio employee.
Although the original Napster song-swapping service has been shuttered for more than a year and half, its influence lives on.
Last week, a group of songwriters sued German media giant Bertelsmann, asking for $17 billion in damages. Bertelsmann's loans to and corporate support for the file-trading service in its final year of operation extended Napster's life, and therefore contributed to copyright infringement, the music publishers claim.
Other file-swapping services--most notably Sharman Networks' Kazaa--remain strong. The Kazaa software itself has now been downloaded more than 193 million times, far more than Napster's, according to Download.com, a software aggregation site operated by News.com publisher CNET Networks.
Roxio already has a head start on its music licensing plans. Shortly before purchasing Napster's assets, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based business was named by the EMI Group record label as one of nine Net music companies granted broad licenses to offer download and CD-burning services using its music.
(CNN) -- Offering a glimpse of a faster digital future, researchers announced they have set a new Internet speed record.
Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center used fiber-optic cables to transfer 6.7 gigabytes of data -- the equivalent of two DVD movies -- across 6,800 miles in less than a minute. The center is a national laboratory operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Pushing the tech envelope
The team was able to transfer uncompressed data at 923 megabits per second for 58 seconds from Sunnyvale, California, to Amsterdam, Netherlands. That's about 3,500 times faster than a typical Internet broadband connection.
"By exploring the edges of Internet technologies' performance envelope, we are improving our ... ability to implement new networking technologies," said Les Cottrell, assistant director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
The experiment could "bring high-speed data transfer to practical everyday applications, such as doctors at multiple sites sharing and discussing a patient's [heart test results] to diagnose and plan treatment," he added.
On average, the amount of information that can be transferred over the Internet has doubled every year since 1984, scientists said. That trend is expected to continue.
Breaking their record
Already, Cottrell said he and other scientists have conducted further experiments that break their own record. But those tests have not been certified by Internet2, a consortium of 200 universities researching the future of the Internet, and they must wait for further confirmation before an announcement, he said.
Initially, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center employees expect to use the faster data transfer speeds to share massive amounts of research collected by physicists studying the fundamental building blocks of matter. But in the long term, Internet users and businesses could benefit from the findings.
"Imagine ... being able to download two full-length, two-hour movies within a minute," Cottrell said. "That changes the whole idea of how media is distributed."
Getting there won't be easy, said Harvey Newman, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology who participated in the center's research.
Allowing clean transfers
Scientists were able to get 93 percent efficiency out of their record-setting connection because they didn't have to share bandwidth, they received donated equipment in excess of $1 million and they changed the setting of Internet protocols to allow faster data transfers, Newman said.
Even if they could transfer vast amounts of data tomorrow at reasonable prices, Newman noted that present-day computers are unable to handle such loads.
"You have this inversion where the limitations on advances will not be the speed of the Internet but rather the speed of your computer," he said.
Scientists said the finding announced Thursday hopefully will help researchers develop a clearer plan for faster online technologies.
"We don't have a vision of the future of the Internet yet," Newman said. "It's a whole new world for which you can see the first few ideas, but we don't really know what it will be about."
FACT BOX
The data was sent via fiber-optic cables from Sunnyvale, California, to Chicago, Illinois. From Chicago, the data was relayed to Geneva, Switzerland, and from there on to Amsterdam, Netherlands. The information traveled the 6,800 miles in less than a minute.
Toshiba next week plans to exhibit a fuel cell prototype that it said has the potential to replace environmentally taxing, rechargeable batteries with clean-energy technology.
The Japanese electronics company, which ranks among the top notebook makers, said it would present direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) technology for portable computers that can provide about five hours of power with a single cartridge of fuel.
The new fuel cell, about 275 millimeters by 75 millimeters by 40 millimeters (about 11 inches by 3 inches by 1.5 inches), provides an instant power supply for a significant amount of time using replaceable methanol cartridges, the company said.
Toshiba, which will showcase the prototype at the CeBit technology show in Hannover, Germany, next week, said it would continue to develop the DFMC technology and hopes to commercialize it next year.
The consumer electronics industry is rushing to find ways to replace the nickel cadmium batteries and lithium ion batteries that today power most portable electronic devices. The drawback to existing power technologies is that they will inevitably hit a barrier, as faster processors, higher-resolution displays and other advances increase the overall demand for power.
A vast and varied body of research on fuel cells is emerging from university and corporate labs. Some researchers are working on developing more-efficient solar cells; others are looking to harness the energy stored in radioactive material. Hoping to make it easier to manufacture fuel cells, one start-up said it had developed a way to make them out of silicon.
Fuel cell technologies face several hurdles before they can garner widespread adoption--problems, for example, with delivering the fuel, miniaturization and the cost of the materials needed to build efficient fuel cells.
But as commercial fuel cells become a reality, the computer industry is likely to dramatically alter notebooks and cell phones, making them smaller but more powerful. New power technologies could extend the life of laptops more than two to three times as much as current batteries can.
Toshiba said it dealt with the problem of miniaturization by altering how the methanol is diluted with water to achieve the optimal concentration to power the cells. Methanol, the company said, delivers power most efficiently when it is mixed with water in a 3 percent to 6 percent methanol concentration. Storing the fuel at that concentration requires a tank that is too large for mobile devices.
The company said it overcame this problem by developing a system for methanol to be diluted by the water produced as a by-product of the power-generation process, which allows the methanol to be stored at a much higher concentration and in smaller fuel tanks.
Other enhancements that were required to shrink the fuel cell include: sensors to monitor methanol concentration and liquid levels, new material that allows smaller cells to be stacked atop one another, and having the computer provide information on its operating status to the fuel cell in order to balance supply and power demands.
(CNN) -- If it's not already there, it's probably coming soon to a local coffee shop, your favorite airport, the neighborhood park, a McDonald's around the corner and maybe your home.
Once the pride of computer geeks, wireless Internet access, known as WiFi, is one of the hottest technologies in years, catching on with millions of computer users and promising to change the way people get connected, industry analysts say.
Short for wireless fidelity, WiFi does away with cables dangling from the back of PCs by broadcasting Internet connections via radio waves. Then you just tune in from your computer.
This week, a slew of wireless networking initiatives are being announced aimed to make WiFi even more ubiquitous, building momentum by making it faster to connect and easier to find WiFi-enabled spots.
"We are unwiring the computer world," Mike Splinter, Intel head of sales and marketing, said Wednesday during a news conference at CeBIT, the world's largest annual electronics show. "Pervasive (WiFi access) is our goal from work to home. We want to move computing from the desk to the couch."
Chip giant backs wireless
Intel threw its weight behind WiFi on Wednesday, promising to outfit millions of laptops with Centrino chips, which contain a built-in WiFi transceiver and have a longer battery life. The move is expected to make wireless chips the standard for laptops, industry analysts say.
Earlier in the week, Intel also announced millions more in funding for firms that make WiFi technology, part of a $150 million investment plan to fuel growth of the industry.
And following the lead of Starbucks, which already wired 2,000 coffee shops with WiFi, McDonald's announced this week that by year's end it expects to offer one hour of free high-speed wireless access to anyone who buys a combination meal at 300 restaurants in three U.S. cities.
As if that wasn't enough, the Wi-Fi Alliance also jumped into the act Wednesday by promoting the launch of a Web site (www.wi-fizone.org) where users can search a database of about 1,600 hotels, airports, restaurants and other wireless access points in 23 countries.
WiFi "has come a long way," said Gemma Paulo, a networking analyst at In-Stat/MDR. "It's grown more than anyone expected. ... A lot of that growth has been fueled by people who want to put it in their home so they can sit in front of their TV and use their laptop."
By 2006, research firm Gartner expects 99 million WiFi users and 89,000 public WiFi access points around the world. But before it can get there, connections have to be made cheaper and pricing plans less complex.
The industry is still in its early days, said Dennis Eaton, chairman of the Wi-Fi Alliance, whose 207 member companies promote the use of the technology.
Pricing difficult to follow
No one is sure how to price WiFi service and some community-minded groups believe the service should be free, Eaton said. Service providers don't have a clear road to profitability and are trying out business models. Pricing can range from unlimited-use plans that cost $30 to $70 a month to per-minute charges at some hotels that can run about $15 an hour or more.
And if you have an unlimited use plan, you can only use it at spots that are wired by your service provider. The concept of "roaming" -- which allows cell phone users to move around the country without having to change providers or pay additional fees -- has yet to make it to WiFi.
"Just like in the early days of the cell phone market, there's a lot of experimentation right now," Eaton said.
Industry watcher Paulo said the move by the Wi-Fi Alliance to provide a list of wired spots is a good first move toward making pricing and service available more uniformly.
"The next step is the really big step to get the roaming process started between the providers," she said.
Better security promised
The other big challenges, Eaton said, are improving WiFi security. Right now, it's relatively easy to hack into WiFi connections. A new security standard, expected to be approved later this year, will make WiFi much more secure, which should help increase the number of businesses using the connections, Eaton said.
A new WiFi standard 802.11g also is waiting to be certified this year, which will increase the amount of data that can be transmitted and make it much easier to download multimedia content through the wireless connections, Eaton added.
With WiFi connection kit prices dropping and providers such as Cometa Networks promising to add thousands of access points in the coming years, wireless stands ready to replace wires as the standard for going online, said Phil Belanger, vice president of Vivato, a manufacturer of WiFi switches which recently received funding from Intel.
Vivato's big-screen size switches promise to increase the range of WiFi connections inside offices, which should prevent having to install numerous wireless access points, Belanger said.
"We're an example of the second wave of WiFi," he said. "The notion of taking your work with you will now be practical."
HOW IT WORKS
* A transmitting antenna, usually linked to a DSL or high-speed land-based Internet connection, uses radio waves to beam signals.
* Another antenna, which is in the laptop or PC, catches the signal.
* The signal has a range of about 300 feet for most home connections. The farther the user is from the signal, the slower the connection speed.
A group of four Polish hackers published code to an open security mailing list on Tuesday that can take advantage of a major vulnerability in the Sendmail mail server.
The code, released less than a day after the Sendmail flaw's public announcement, allows an attacker to remotely exploit a Red Hat or Slackware Linux computer running a vulnerable version of the mail server, the group--known as the Last Stage of Delirium--stated in the analysis that accompanied the code.
While the limited number of platforms affected by the program seems to be good news, the group warned that its quick analysis might have missed other ways of exploiting the problem.
"We do not claim that our way of exploitation is the only one," one of the group's members said in an e-mail with CNET News.com. "What we did was to perform the series of experiments aimed at actual verification of (the) vulnerability's impact. According to our results, this impact is much less significant that it might seem."
The flaw in Sendmail--in one of the mail server's security functions that parses mail headers--was found by network protection firm Internet Security Systems and announced on Monday. Companies shipping versions of Sendmail affected by the flaw--believed to be more the 15 years old--include IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat and other Linux vendors, according to advisories posted Monday by the Sendmail Consortium open-source project.
The LSD group's research questioned whether as many types of servers running Sendmail are as vulnerable as previously thought.
That's a moot point, said Eric Allman, founder of the Sendmail Consortium and chief technology officer for Sendmail Inc., a company that has created a commercial version of Sendmail.
"I don't think anyone should be complacent," he said, stressing that other ways to exploit the flaw may exist. "Just get the patch."
Allman wasn't sure how he felt about the security group publishing such extensive details about exploiting the vulnerability so soon after it was announced. For many years, security researchers and hackers have argued whether releasing detailed information about how a software flaw can be abused helps or hinders security.
The Sendmail founder had expected that code would be released soon, but not within 24 hours. Moreover, the functional nature of the posted code--the script returns a terminal prompt with which an attacker could issue commands to the compromised host--was overkill, he said.
"I would have preferred that they would have done a proof of concept," Allman said. Proof-of-concept code only illustrates how to exploit a vulnerability without actually doing anything overly useful.
The LSD group--whose four members claim to be graduates of the Poznan University of Technology--say that releasing such code enhances the community's overall security.
"We do believe that open and free information is the best for improving security," the group said in its e-mail to CNET News.com. "In our opinion, publishing the details is the only way to...determine the impact. The lack of appropriate information on the issue can be...even more damaging."
Opera Software has released a new version of its Opera 7 Web browser with just one tweak--it turns Microsoft's MSN Web site into gibberish that was inspired by the Swedish Chef from "The Muppet Show."
The "Bork Edition" of Opera 7 isn't designed so much to win over new visitors as to make a point about how browsers and Web sites should work together. It is Opera's response to what the company alleges are dishonest tactics by Microsoft to make Opera look like it is displaying pages improperly when people view MSN.
The Swedish Chef's dialogue was famously incoherent, and included the phrase "Bork, bork, bork!"
"This is a joke. However, we are trying to make an important point," Mary Lambert, desktop product line manager at Opera, said in a statement. "The success of the Web depends on software and Web site developers behaving well and rising above corporate rivalry."
Microsoft was not immediately available for comment on the move.
Earlier this month, Opera said Microsoft was sending its browser a faulty style sheet, which determines the presentation of graphics and text in a browser window. When people using Opera 7 browser software visit MSN.com, published by Microsoft, some of the site content is obscured, Opera Chief Technology Officer Hakon Lie wrote in a posting to the company's Web site.
"Opera 7 receives a style sheet which is very different from (that used by) the Microsoft and Netscape browsers," Lie wrote in his explanation. "Opera 7 is explicitly instructed to move content off the side of its container, thus creating the impression that there is something wrong with Opera 7."
Sources have confirmed that not only does the code not work in Opera 7, it also doesn't work in Microsoft's own Internet Explorer 6.
After an initial denial, Microsoft said it did send different style sheets to different browsers, and defended the practice. "We have different style sheets and different code for various browsers," said Bob Visse, director of marketing for MSN. "That's something we do to try optimize the experience for our users."
The browser-breaking charges come more than a year after Microsoft fell under fire for blocking Opera and other non-IE browsers from access to its MSN site.
In the resulting outcry, the tech giant opted to let the other browsers back into MSN. However, it also took the opportunity to disparage the browsers' adherence to industry standards. Microsoft warned that "the experience may be slightly degraded, simply because (those browsers) don't support the standards we support closely, as far as the HTML standard in those browsers" is concerned.
Opera is now accusing its rival of making sure that the MSN experience is degraded for Opera users. Opera said that the page and style sheet served to IE 6 renders properly not only in that browser, but also in Opera 7. In addition, the code served to Opera has serious rendering problems in both.
"We are working hard to make sure the Opera browser works well on all Web pages, even those that do not follow the Web's standards to the letter," said Lie, in a statement. "But it becomes impossible when we are targeted and fed distorted pages that don't work in any browser."
News.com's Paul Festa contributed to this report. ZDNet U.K.'s Matthew Broersma reported from London.
IBM began hitting back Friday against a SCO Group lawsuit that charges Big Blue with misappropriating Unix trade secrets and using them in Linux.
"We got a copy of the complaint this morning. Based on what we've seen of it, it's full of allegations with no supporting facts," said Mike Fay, vice president of communications for IBM's systems group.
Though Fay didn't comment on the specifics of the suit, the tone of IBM's statement indicates the computing giant won't knuckle under quickly to SCO's lawsuit and associated demands.
"I would bet that IBM isn't going to take this sitting down," said Brian Ferguson, an intellectual-property attorney at McDermott Will & Emery. "I would expect they will bring out the A-team of lawyers and aggressively defend themselves against this and potentially assert their own intellectual property."
SCO filed a suit Thursday seeking more than $1 billion in damages from IBM for allegedly using Unix intellectual property to improve Linux in violation of IBM's license agreement with SCO. The suit alleges that IBM misappropriated SCO trade secrets, interfered with business, breached its contract with SCO, and competed unfairly.
The suit could affect SCO's relationship with Linux seller SuSE (http://www.suse.com/), whose version of Linux is the foundation of the UnitedLinux products SCO uses.
"We at SuSE were greatly disappointed to learn of the SCO Group's recent actions...While we strongly believe that this does not impact Linux, we are concerned that these actions are not in the best interest of customers, partners and the Linux community," SuSE CEO Richard Seibt said. "Accordingly, we are currently re-evaluating our relationship with the SCO Group."
SCO's stock leapt on Friday, closing up 89 cents, or 40 percent, to $3.10 on the news. IBM's rose 83 cents, or 1 percent, to $77.90. Bruce Perens, an open-source advocate, said the increase in SCO's stock price illustrates his belief that the company's suit is a ploy to make SCO look more enticing to would-be acquirers, potentially including IBM itself. "I really strongly feel this suit is not meant to go anywhere in court. It's really just a prelude for an acquisition," Perens said.
For its suit, SCO hired attorney David Boies of Boies Schiller and Flexner, who prosecuted the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft and represented Al Gore in the vote-counting controversy in the presidential election.
Uphill battle
Legal observers and analysts said SCO likely will have an uphill struggle with its lawsuit and that the implications aren't good for the rest of SCO's business selling Unix and Linux products.
"These are difficult claims to win on...Trade secret theft is extremely difficult to prove in court," Ferguson said. "When you have a copyright or trade secret claim, you have to show access of original, copyrighted material. (SCO) will have to show IBM engineers working on the Linux side had that kind of access and used that access to develop the Linux side of IBM's development."
SCO's likely strategy is to "start up at the top and take out the biggest defendant out there--IBM in this case--hope it gets a quick settlement, and use that money to get a settlement with smaller companies down the line," Ferguson said.
Secondary effects of the suit likely won't help SCO's other business, said George Weiss, research director at Gartner. SCO is likely to damage its relations with its network of sales partners that customize its software and build it into computers used by "replicated sites"--companies such as McDonald's that have numerous similar branches.
"There's a fear that SCO is using this as a means of either selling the company or desperately attempting to find some other business model as an alternative to their current software business," Weiss said. "I would advise SCO (Unix) users that they should have a contingency plan or migration plan to an alternate platform."
In a brief news conference Friday, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride denied the company is going down the path of Intergraph, which once made workstations but now specializes in software. In 2002, Intergraph's income from operations was $10 million, but its net income including legal settlements was $378 million.
"Are we turning into an Intergraph, where that is the only thing we're going to do? No, that is not the path we're going down," McBride said. Specifically, the company's "SCO X" strategy, which will bear its first fruit this summer, "is really about taking our core operating system technologies and moving them forward," he said.
SCO, formerly Caldera International and Caldera Systems, is the inheritor of the Unix intellectual property that first was created at AT&T. Linux, which works in many ways identically to Unix, is created by a group of open-source programmers with assistance from IBM, Intel, NEC, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other companies. Red Hat, SuSE, SCO and others sell versions of Linux; the foundation of SCO's Linux is SuSE's product.
SCO in January announced SCOsource, its strategy to seek licensing revenue more aggressively from Unix intellectual property the company owns. And the plan is moving quickly, beginning with a mechanism by which companies may license supporting Unix software "libraries" that let programs written for SCO Unix run on computers that actually use the Linux operating system.
Among claims in SCO's lawsuit is the allegation that "IBM is affirmatively taking steps to destroy all value of Unix by improperly extracting and using the confidential and proprietary information it acquired from Unix and dumping that information into the open-source community," the suit said. "IBM's tortious conduct was also intentionally and maliciously designed to destroy plaintiff's business livelihood and all opportunities of plaintiff to derive value from the Unix software code in the marketplace."
Linux's rapid maturity--for example, growing up to work on large multiprocessor servers--is evidence of the presence of Unix intellectual property, the SCO suit said. "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer such as IBM," the suit said.
On Thursday, SCO also sent a letter to IBM Chief Executive Sam Palmisano that said if IBM doesn't cease breaching its SCO contract, SCO will terminate IBM's right to ship its version of Unix, called AIX, on June 13.
IBM and SCO differ on details of what led up to the suit.
"We have been talking with IBM about SCOsource (since) the December time frame. We reached an impasse. This is the culmination of those negotiations," McBride said of the suit.
But IBM's Fay told a different tale. "It's worth pointing out that SCO never approached us to raise the complaint, and they didn't tell us in advance they were going to file a lawsuit," he said.
Shock waves
The shock waves from the suit began traversing the computing industry Friday as companies evaluated the effects.
"If SCO is successful in this suit against IBM or obtains a favorable settlement, every single other supplier (of Linux) is an open target," McDermott's Ferguson said.
Gartner's Weiss agreed. "If IBM buckles and SCO wins this case, it could cause a negative impact to the Linux community in general," he said. Having proprietary components within Linux "pollutes all the spirit and the meaning of what the open-source community is."
McBride said the company's legal action--thus far--is only with IBM. "This is not about the Linux community or us going after them. This is not about UnitedLinux. This is about contractual violations we are alleging IBM has made," he said.
Two companies quick to say they're not affected by SCO's actions are Sun Microsystems and HP, the No. 1 and No. 2 sellers of computers running versions of Unix.
"HP did a complete buyout of Unix licensing from SCO," HP spokesman Brian Garabedian said. "We have a perpetual license rather than per copy license for HP-UX...We don't believe we have any exposure to the SCO lawsuit."
Sun, too, bought out its Unix license, said John Loiacono, vice president of Sun's operating platforms group.
"We bought our Unix license out....We are unencumbered for all things," including Sun's version of Linux, he said.
And Loiacono wasn't reluctant to seek gains from SCO's moves. "For people looking at the issues at hand, we are a safe harbor. We have absolute rights to our technology," he said.
The SCO litigation has affected Sun's shifting Linux strategy, Loiacono said. "We're changing our strategy around Linux (but) we're pausing because we're trying to figure out what the implications of this are going to be," he said.
Red Hat said it's not affected by SCO's suit--at least not in the near term. "The claims that have been asserted by SCO against IBM do not involve Red Hat," said Mark Webbink, Red Hat's chief legal counsel.
"We take the issues of intellectual property very seriously," Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Red Hat, said in an interview. "We have never believed that copyrights, trademarks or patents are things that should be infringed or treated loosely."
With Microsoft buying Virtual PC, which lets Macs run Windows wares, Apple's independence may well rest with programs such as Bochs.
The deal came like a thunderbolt out of the blue. On Feb. 19, Microsoft (MSFT ) announced that it had purchased Virtual PC, the nifty program from San Mateo (Calif.) software producer Connectix that allows us Mac zealots to run PC programs. For Mac users living in an info-tech universe where Windows dominates, Virtual PC has been a crucial survival tool.
Take the case of TekServe. The New York City outfit sells Apple (AAPL ) hardware and software, and offers consulting for companies using Macs. "We're an all-Apple shop," says Matthew Cohen, one of three partners in the venture. TekServe has become a mainstay in the Mac-heavy media community of midtown Manhattan. And by many accounts, it's one of the biggest independent resellers of Apple equipment around.
STRADDLING THE FENCE
Still, even TekServe needs Windows sometimes. Cohen sells Sony displays. To do so, he must run a special inventory and sales software program distributed to all Sony dealers called SNAP. It runs only on Windows. So Cohen relies on VirtualPC. So do about 1 million other Mac users who need to straddle the operating-system fence from time to time.
Cohen reacted with some trepidation when I told him about the Connectix deal, which both Apple and Microsoft have been painting as a cause for celebration. Tim McDonough, marketing director at Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, says Virtual PC has a bright future in Redmond (see BW Online, 2/21/03, "A "Perfect Marriage" for Microsoft?"). Apple software chief Ron Okamoto served up a canned quote saying he was glad Virtual PC was in such good hands.
Perhaps. But if I were a fly on the wall at Apple HQ right now, I suspect that it would be easy to confirm that the folks at One Infinite Loop are none too pleased. Steve Jobs has never liked the fact that Apple needs Microsoft more than vice versa. Redmond's deal with Connectix amplifies that point: Now, Microsoft controls two things vital to Apple's survival. The first, Microsoft Office, allows Mac users to converse with the rest of the computing world in the most popular file formats -- Word and PowerPoint documents.
OPEN-SOURCE POWER
The second piece, Virtual PC, may prove even more valuable than the first. And that's where Apple needs to think out of the Bochs. No, that's not a typo. Bochs is open-source software that functions as a Windows emulator on Unix machines. Apple needs to leverage the power of open source to win much-needed independence from Redmond.
Here's why. Apple is a hairbreadth away from creating a suite of products that could replace much of what Office does. I've been using Apple Works as my primary word processor for some time now, and it does just fine for what I need -- not elegant or pretty, but you can count words, check spelling, and perform most basic formatting tasks.
Apple's new mail client eliminated the need to use Microsoft Entourage for individual and small-business users. And presentation application Keynote covers another of the essential functions that would formerly have required purchasing Office v.X -- it can read PowerPoint files. No, it doesn't replace PowerPoint proper if, say, I'm at a meeting and need to run a presentation on someone else's machine. But it's still pretty close to covering the main tasks Mac users need.
As Apple improves its calendar and address-book applications, my decision to run my life on Mac software looks less quixotic. No offense to Redmond -- I know that Office v.X is a strong product, but I'm cheap.
INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT
The upshot of all this is, I believe, Apple's reliance on Office v.X has dramatically decreased. That's the good news. Unfortunately, the need for a product like Virtual PC has only increased. It provides a key security blanket for people moving from the Windows platform to Macs by allowing them to make the switch gradually. After all, if Windows withdrawal starts to hit, they can always run their familiar software on their Apples.
And much as we Mac lovers hate to admit it, many of us need to run Windows programs from time to time. This could be at work where a specific program doesn't have an Apple version, an all-too-regular occurrence. It could be at school, if the entire software bundle a class uses comes from a PC outfit and Mac versions aren't available. I use Virtual PC when I need to run Windows programs, such as music jukebox Winamp, that have Mac versions but are markedly superior on PC platforms.
Virtual PC fills a critical need -- which is why the Connectix deal should be a call to action at Apple HQ. Think what would have happened if Microsoft had bought Virtual PC in, say, 1999. Apple would have been in a pickle. Steve Jobs would have had to bow, scrape, and do whatever it took to make Redmond happy and keep Virtual PC going. Or Apple would have had to throw a ton of cash and developers at the problem and build its own Virtual PC.
STREET CRED
Oh, how times have changed. Apple now has cash to burn -- billions, really. Today, 5 million Macs run OS X, the new Unix-based operating system that has liberated Apple from its creaky, archaic OS 9. The open-source movement has matured to the point where it's putting out increasingly polished software. And Jobs's troops have street cred in the open-source community for their contributions to the Unix-based Darwin software that powers OS X.
Jobs & Co. also recently released its own version of a piece of technology called X11, which allows Unix and open-source Unix-based applications to be translated to Macs far more easily. In fact, X11 should mean that many Unix and Linux apps can simply run on OS X Macs with no code alterations needed. The upshot? Making a Mac-ready version of Bochs isn't just possible but positively easy.
Apple has the financial resources to dedicate a few engineers to the task of polishing Bochs to meet Jobsian ease-of-use and boy-is-it-pretty standards. Ultimately, Apple could weave Bochs into the operating system. Perhaps even as early as the upcoming Panther release (you know, the one after Jaguar OS X 10.2), Apple users could pop a Windows CD or DVD into the drive, and OS X would seamlessly launch Bochs and run the Windows code. In fact, I bet Apple could get this process to run smoothly enough that loading PC software would differ only slightly from launching Mac programs.
BEWARE REDMOND'S WRATH
Of course, ticking off Microsoft could lead to problems down the road. Redmond has promised it will integrate the Entourage mail client into Microsoft's dominant Exchange server, which allows group scheduling, companywide address book sharing, and other useful functions not currently available to Mac users. That's important for businesses that want to use Macs for some functions in a mainly PC environment, since it allows the two to communicate via the server. If Redmond decides not to continue support for Entourage in Exchange, it would be a big blow to Apple. An even worse possibility -- Microsoft might let Office v.X wither.
Microsoft has no reason, though, to get steamed if Apple does build its own Windows emulator. After all, Mac users would still need to pay for a Windows software license. To offer PC emulation in an above-ground fashion, Apple could sell Windows licenses twinned with Bochs software as part of a package deal. That might save Redmond the trouble of keeping Virtual PC for Mac up to snuff and would still send a steady stream of dollars to Microsoft's coffers.
What's more, PC emulation is exactly the area where Apple should rely on the open-source community for software and development. Lots of Unix and Linux users need it, so it's highly probable that a strong open-source support group will develop around Bochs or other PC emulation. That gives Apple a ready-made support and research team for Bochs. So, all the stars are in line. Take control of Apple's PC-emulation destiny, Steve. Gather the forces of the open-source revolution, and open the Bochs.
Mini Me may have his 17-inch PowerBook, but the rest of the world is having to wait as Apple Computer is apparently having production problems with the extrawide notebook.
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the world's largest laptop at January's Macworld Expo, he promised that the machines would be available in February. However, early customers--even some who ordered the day the giant laptop was introduced--say they are still waiting.
Reports of the delays are chronicled extensively on the Mac laptop site PowerBook Central. Some who say they ordered right after Jobs' keynote speech say they are being told they might not get their machines until March 24.
But Apple is remaining silent, with a representative refusing to say whether any machines have shipped or when the laptops might be broadly available. Apple's online store lists a three- to five-week wait for new orders, while a worker at Apple's retail store in Emeryville, Calif., said that the outlet has no machines in stock, nor does it have any idea when they might arrive.
Apple has advertised the machines extensively with a TV commercial that shows the diminutive actor Verne Troyer, who played Mini Me in the Austin Powers movies, using the 17-inch model as Yao Ming, the 7-foot-5-inch Houston Rockets center, uses the 12-inch model.
One independent Apple dealer said he has been given no new estimate of when the machines will reach independent stores, but said he is hoping they arrive by the end of the month. According to the dealer, initial orders were strong, with the large laptop outselling the 12-inch model by four-to-one in the first two weeks.
"It seems a lot of the pro people (for example, graphic designers) really want that 17-inch screen," the dealer said.
However, orders have slowed as the 12-inch model has shipped and the wait for the larger model has mounted, the dealer said. That increases the risk that the early demand may wane before Apple has a chance to convert interest into sales.
Apple's flat-panel iMac was initially in short supply, but shortly after Apple caught up with the initial demand, the company found interest had somewhat waned.
The February 20th meeting began with President Richard Rollins conducting the introduction of club officers. Among those mentioned, was founding member and CUCUG's first President Steve Gast. It was good to see Steve back among us.
Next. Richard asked what the SIGs had planned for this evening. Jack Melby announced that the Mac SIG would be looking at X11. Richard said the PC SIG will be looking at the Shuttle Cube he had brought in and speccing out a virtual machine.
The floor was then opened to questions and comments. Jack Melby talked about his Backup Prefs program at Emil Cobb's suggestion.
Jerry Feltner asked if anyone had any experience with a program called RSLinks, a PLC program for the PC.
George Krumins asked about a network card problem he was having at work, where they are running three web sites on the same Dell computer. Steve Gast suggested that they should have NIC cards each from different manufacturers. Whereas logic might suggest having the cards from the same manufacturer, in reality, similar cards from the same manufacturer perform in the same manner, calling on the same resources, and are a real source of conflicts. You up your chances of harmony with differing cards.
Matt Skaj asked about ZIP 100 disks formatted on a PC that play havoc on Apple machines, not being able to eject them without turning file sharing off. The consensus was that the disks need to be formatted as a PC disc on a Mac under the Finder, not with Iomega Tools. (Don't ask, just do it.)
John Ross asked about Mac OS 10.2.4 and Gnome sessions, Fink, and X11.
Jeff Strong asked about flashing a graphics card for a Mac on a PC.
In Mac news, Jack reported that Microsoft has just bought Virtual PC from Connectix. OS 10.2.4 is out and dual processor machines are having the time set back to 1969 if you don't click off "Use Network Time server" if you don't have a network connection.
Linux news: Kris didn't have any this month.
PC news: Flight Simulator is out.
George Krumins talked about game machines and the pirate chip equipped XBoxes now finding refuge in Australia.
Eleven people attended the Mac SIG with four laptops actively hooked to our wireless network.
Jack showed X11.
John Ross asked about printing from X11. Jack said it worked fine.
Matt Skaj asked if X11 had the ability to save files in PDF format, as you are able to do in OSX.
Jeff Strong asked about FAXing on OSX. Jack Melby mentioned Page Sender, FAX Elite, Cocoa Efax.
Matt Skaj asked if X11 has access to OSX fonts. Jack said not directly. You have to use a utility like TT Converter or TT Font Converter to convert OSX fonts to X11 usable ones.
John Ross asked about adding memory to his Mac. Will it make OSX operate faster? Matt Skaj said yes it would. When you hit 1 GB of RAM, OSX turns off virtual memory and uses RAM, which is much faster than virtual memory's accessing of the hard drive.
Jack then moved on to showing his Backup User Prefs program. He said MacWorld wants to put it on one of their CDs. He also said there have been 10,000 downloads of his program so far in the two or three weeks it's been available.
The program has step by step instructions on how to change permissions on preference files that the script can't initially copy because of ownership issues.
The was a question about Fink. Jack said you should install system XFree 86 first. Install X11 next, install FINK, then do a Fink self update to get the most current version.
Type FINK LIST and you will get a list of everything available that Fink can get for you. At last count, there are 2195 packages free for the downloading.
There was a discussion about Apt-get and deselect.
Fink is from SourceForge.org. It is a command line program. Fink Commander is the GUI for it. OpenOffice.org has the latest version of Open Office is 1.102.
After the Mac SIG wound down, I walked into the PC SIG just as they were having their drawing and was drafted as they "puller of names." In so doing, Rodger Bigler won Office XP and Mike Latinovich won the golf game.
The February meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, February 25, 2003, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Richard Rollins, Rodger Bigler, Mike Latinovich, Kris Klindworth, Jack Melby, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel and Emil Cobb.
Mike Latinovich: Mike began by saying he had played around with the KNOPPIX CD that was demonstrated and distributed at the last Linux SIG and he said it is pretty cool.
Mike pronounced the doughnuts good, but light and airy.
The Shuttle Cube, shown in the PC SIG, in Mike's opinion was very, very cool. It comes with no processor, RAM, hard drives, or any drives off any kind for that matter, but still the design is quite compelling. There followed a discussion on the Shuttle box. Mike concluded by saying it's strong points are that it has massive connectivity, it's quiet as a church mouse, and it's very powerful. When it is specced out, it can be a full blown media center, as Richard demonstrated in the PC SIG's presentation.
Lastly, Mike said it was interesting having so many Jim's at the meeting.
Kris Klindworth: Kris said he enjoyed the Cube demonstration. "It's a sweet little box." Kris then said he was happy with the way his KNOPPIX presentation went. Next month, the Linux SIG will be an open discussion, Kris related.
Jack Melby: Jack noted that there is some talk of a 1 GHz dual processor card for the Macintosh Cube and that the Cube itself may be reintroduced.
Jack talked about Apple's policy for addressing the chorus of complaints about their MDD "Wind Tunnel" machines. Apple has a plan for replacing the much derided noisy fan in this class of machine by replacing it with a new fan and new, cooler-running power supply.... for free.
Next month's Mac SIG will be Emil Cobb presenting iPhoto.
Looking back to topics from the last Mac SIG, Jack said that Apple's port of X11 will be out sometime next year. He also noted that someone had asked about using Mac fonts with the currently available X11. Jack said that by converting Mac True Type fonts to Windows True Type fonts you can get about 2/3 of them to work.
Rodger Bigler: Rodger requested that the give-aways at the meetings be aimed at more cross-platform materials, so that more than just PC people can benefit. Kevin Hisel pointed out that we are kind of at the mercy of the items we are given.
Rodger said he'd be willing to demo Task Info in May.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin reported that we currently have 36 members.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin announced that next month's prizes would be Front Page and another golf game. Mike Latinovich said his dad loves the Microsoft Links 2003 he was lucky enough to take home recently.
Kevin said we need to contact Jim Lewis about Corporation Agent issues.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that we had 28 members in attendance at the last meeting.
Richard Rollins: Speaking about the meeting, Richard enthusiastically pronounced his opinion that KNOPPIX is closing in on mainstream "ease of use" for Linux. Moving to the PC SIG, Richard said, "The Shuttle Cube is one of the coolest machines I've built in years."
Next month, the PC SIG will have George Krumins demonstrating the database Alpha 5.
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Illinois Technology Center. The Center is located at 7101 Tomaras Ave in Savoy. 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 zero at the McDonalds on the corner of Kirby/Florida and Neil in Champaign, you only go 2.4 miles south. Windsor will be at the one mile mark. Curtis will be at the two mile mark. Go past the Paradise Inn/Best Western motel to the next street, Tomaras Ave. on the west (right) side. Tomaras is at the 2.4 mile mark. Turn west (right) on Tomaras Ave. The parking lot entrance is immediately on the south (left) side of Tomaras Ave. Enter the building by the front door under the three flags facing Rt 45. A map can be found on the CUCUG website at http://www.cucug.org/meeting.html . The Illinois Technology Center is also on the web at www.IL-Tech-Ctr.com .
Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at mid year.
Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by email. All recent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user group exchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. As a matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):
President/WinSIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 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 Corp.Agent/Web.Mr: Kevin Hisel 406-948-1999 Mac SIG Chairman: John Melby 352-3638 jbmelby@johnmelby.com Linux SIG Chairman: Kris Klindworth 239-0097 kris.klindworth@Carle.com
Visit our web site at http://www.cucug.org/, or join in our online forums at http://www.cucug.org/starship/index.php .