News Humor Common PC Linux Mac Amiga CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of themonth: Thursday, October 21st, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Churchof Champaign in Savoy. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of thisnewsletter.
The October 21 gathering will be one of our social gatherings. There's noformal agenda. It's just a free form, bring in what ever you want, swaphardware and software kind of meeting. Just come on in and enjoy eachother's company for the evening.
ToCBy Tony Smith
Published Friday 6th August 2004 14:43 GMT
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/taiwan_mem_card/
Taiwanese technology companies will this autumn unveil what they hope willbe the next solid-state memory card format.
Dubbed 'µcard', the format will support up to 2TB of storage capacitywithin a 3.2 x 2.4 x 0.1cm card - the same size as a standard MMC unit. Thenew cards are said to be connector-compatible with the older format.
The new cards will have a data transfer rate of 120MBps, ten times that ofSD memory cards. Like the Secure Digital format, µcard will support I/Odevices, such as Bluetooth and 802.11 adaptors.
According to a DigiTimes report, the new format will be formally launchedat the Taipei International Electronics Show (Taitronics) on 8 October.Mass production is expected to commence early next year.
ToCThe number rose 400% between January and June in comparison with 2003.
News Story by Reuters
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,96046,00.html?nlid=AM
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004 (REUTERS) - The number of new viruses and worms aimed atMicrosoft Corp.'s ubiquitous Windows operating system rose 400% betweenJanuary and June from the same period a year earlier, computer securitycompany Symantec Corp. said yesterday.
Nearly 5,000 new Windows viruses and worms were documented in the firsthalf of the year, up from about 1,000 in the same period a year earlier,said Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec.
The problem of computer viruses can be massive, overloading computers withmessages, automatically rebooting systems and sometimes disabling them.Symantec said virus writers and spammers are joining forces to exploit andprofit from vulnerabilities in Microsoft's widely used software,reiterating warnings made last month by security group MessageLabs.
In its report, New York-based MessageLabs said computer viruses spread bye-mail were growing more sophisticated as virus writers and spammersincreasingly collaborate in an effort to make smarter bugs and make money.
Computer security companies often pick up new trends in the secretive worldof virus writers and spammers by monitoring chat rooms. "This is the firstreport we've done in which there is a commercial motive," said AlfredHuger, a senior director at Symantec's Security Response team.
Huger said malicious code writers are increasingly going to spammers tosell them access to the computers that they or break into.
After forking over money to the hackers for access, spammers then floodthose hacked computers with unsolicited e-mail that often advertiseproducts or get people to spend money.
Symantec also said it expects more viruses and worms to be written toattack systems that run on the Linux operating system and handheld devicesas they become more widely used.
ToC[Editor's Note: I was sent this link by a conservative friend. I hope youfind it amusing and thought provoking as well.]
http://www.wearabledissent.com/101/floridavote.html
ToCBy Declan McCullagh, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/E-voting+critics+report+new+flaws/2100-1028_3-5378199.html
Story last modified September 22, 2004, 2:59 PM PDT
WASHINGTON - Critics of electronic voting machines said on Wednesday thatthey have identified additional flaws in vote-counting software that couldpermit miscreants to alter results in the November election.
Bev Harris, an activist who runs a Web site called Black Box Voting, and ahandful of computer scientists staged an event here--complete with a videoshowing a computer-savvy chimpanzee throwing an election--to highlight howthe security used by Diebold Election Systems could be circumvented.Diebold's software will count tens of millions of votes this fall.
The reported vulnerabilities occur in Diebold's Global Election ManagementSystem (GEMS), which is Microsoft Windows software that tabulates votesreported by election precincts. GEMS stores precinct totals in a standarddatabase format that can be altered without a password simply by openingthe files in Microsoft Access.
"This is something that any county IT guy can do," Harris told a roomfilled with about 40 reporters. In addition, Herbert Thompson, director ofsecurity research at Security Innovation, demonstrated a tiny Visual Basicscript that could alter GEMS totals.
A Diebold spokesman dismissed the demonstration as "analogous to a magicshow."
Diebold's David Bear said there were standard checks and balances thatwould prevent this method from affecting official election results. "Thepremise is based on something that doesn't happen, which is complete andunfettered access to an elections system," Bear said. "In the real world,it does not happen...The scenario they threw out wouldn't have any effecton an election, because it affects only the unofficial vote total, not theofficial vote total."
Still, Harris and her allies--including Joan Krawitz from the NationalBallot Integrity Project and a programmer who demonstrated attacks onSequoia Voting Systems software--are hoping that their criticism ofelection machines will generate interest in last-minute alternatives thatprovide some kind of paper trail. Only 41 days are left until the Novemberelection.
Among the "emergency measures" that Krawitz proposed on Wednesday: Cast allvotes for federal office on paper ballots, including optical-scan andpunch-card ballots; count all those ballots by hand in public; and tabulateprecinct results with calculators or spreadsheets instead of relying onGEMS.
Also on Wednesday, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundationreleased a kind of election guide for geeks(http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/). Complete with photographs of themost popular models of e-voting machines, it lists their known flaws andproblems that people have had with them in the past.
"The more people know about the voting machines they'll be using, thebetter prepared they'll be on election day." EFF staff attorney MattZimmerman said in a statement.
By Robert X. Cringely
URL: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040930.html
Like many of us, Andrew Greig put a WiFi access point in his house so hecould share his broadband Internet connection. But like hardly any of us,Andrew uses his WiFi network for Internet, television, and telephone. Hecancelled his telephone line and cable TV service. Then his neighborsdropped-by, saw what Andrew had done, and they cancelled their telephoneand cable TV services, too, many of them without having a wired broadbandconnection of their own. They get their service from Andrew, who added aninline amplifier and put a better antenna in his attic. Now most ofAndrew's neighborhood is watching digital TV with full PVR capability,making unmetered VoIP telephone calls, and downloading data at prodigiousrates thanks to shared bandwidth. Is this the future of home communicationsand entertainment? It could be, five years from now, if Andrew Greig hasanything to say about it.
The advantage Andrew Greig has over most of the rest of us is that he worksfor Starnix, an international Open Source software and services consultancyin Toronto, Canada. Starnix, which deals with huge corporate clients, hasthe brain power to get running what I described above. And it goes muchfurther than that simple introduction.
Somewhere in Andrew's house is a hefty Linux server running manyapplications, including an Asterisk Open Source VoIP software PBX. There isno desktop PC in Andrew's house. Instead, he runs a Linux thin client on aSharp Zaurus SL-6000 Linux PDA. Sitting in its cradle on Andrew's desk athome, the Zaurus (running a special copy of Debian Linux, NOT as shipped bySharp) connects to a full-size keyboard and VGA display, and runsapplications on the server. Another cradle, monitor and keyboard are atAndrew's office, where he also doesn't have a PC. Walking around in hishouse, the Zaurus (equipped with a tri-mode communications card) is a WiFiVoIP phone running through the Asterisk PBX and connecting to the VonageVoIP network. Walking out of his house, the Zaurus automatically convertsto the local mobile phone carrier, though with a data connection that stillruns back through Vonage. At Starbucks, it's a Wifi Vonage phone. AtAndrew's office, it is a WiFi extension to the office Asterisk PBX AND toAndrew's home PBX. That's one PDA doing the job of two desktop PCs, anotebook PC, and three telephones.
Yeah, but what about that wireless TV? How does that work? Andrew's serverruns Myth TV, an Open Source digital video recorder application, storing ondisk in MPEG-4 format (1.5-2 megabits-per-second) more than 30,000 TVepisodes, movies and MP3 music files. "As each new user comes online, I addanother TV card to the system so they can watch live TV," says Andrew, "butsince there are only so many episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, nearlyeverything that isn't news or sports is typically served from disk withfull ability to jump forward or back at will. We've reached the point nowwhere the PVR has so much in storage already that it is set to simplyrecord anything that isn't already on disk."
Think about it. These folks up in Canada can not only watch everything wecan watch on TV, on a whim they can watch every episode of the originalStar Trek in the order they were broadcast ALL ON ONE WEEKEND. I wouldn'tdo that, true, but I also CAN'T do that.
At this point, intellectual property lawyers are supposed to start reachingfor their telephones to call Canada, but it won't do any good because allthis content is perfectly legal and here's how. With the exception of localchannels, which come from an antenna, all of Andrew's video content comesfrom a C-band (big dish) satellite receiver (receivers, actually), and isfully paid for. "I buy the channels just like a cable system does or amotel that wants to offer HBO, from the National Programming Service," saysAndrew. "And as a result I pay wholesale prices. People don't realize howmuch of a markup there in is the cable business. The Discovery Networks,for example, cost me $0.26 per customer per month. The IP laws in both theU.S. and Canada say that if I have legal access to this content I can storeand use it. And the over-the-air channels, of course, are free."
Remember how in the go-go Internet days of three to four years ago, we usedto talk about "disintermediation?" That was using technology to removemiddle men from transactions. Well, what Andrew Greig is doing isdis-intermediating both the telephone and TV cable companies. And he'd liketo dis-intermediate the Internet Service Providers, too.
Starnix is getting ready to take its technology on the road, so to speak,selling and licensing it to all comers. One plan is to create a wirelessISP offering these services, growing it around what Andrew calls "wirelesssweet spots." The difference between a "hotspot" and a "sweet spot" is thata sweet spot is both hot AND cheap. "We were installing a wireless networkin a large hospital and showed them that there were economies of scale tobe gained from lighting four of the fiber pairs coming-in from their ISP,rather than two. Their costs go down and we benefit from that lower pricingand pick up the additional bandwidth for wireless service outside thehospital." Since Starnix installs wireless networks all over (other Starnixsites include the Time-Warner intergalactic HQ in New York), this is aprovisioning model that could be used over and over.
Unlike most other wireless networks, Starnix uses 802.11a, which matchesthe 54 megabits-per-second speed of 802.11g, but does so in the five GHzband where there is less interference. Even more important, while 802.11g(and -b) have a maximum of only three non-conflicting channels, 802.11a inNorth America supports 24 non-conflicting channels for at least eight timesthe total bandwidth.
This would all be just an interesting and very nerdly proof of conceptexcept that Starnix has a global reputation (one of their wireless networkcustomers is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police -- Canada's more colorfulversion of the FBI), and the Canadian Government is putting some money intohelping establish the wireless ISP.
But there is an industrial or commercial side to this, too. Right now, OEMsare lining-up to bring this Starnix model of hardware, software, andconnectivity to the workplace. "It's the six percent solution," says Greig."Businesses don't want to admit this, but they spend up to 12 percent ofgross revenues on IT including communications. By going to Open Source andthin clients and VoIP we could cover all their needs for half that cost --six percent. No separate hardware, software, bandwidth, or support costs,just a flat six percent. We have large partners right now who are gettingready to take this proposition to market."
What's happening in Andrew Greig's neighborhood is going to happen in threeto five years in many neighborhoods. The look will be slightly differentwith technologies like WiMax wireless networking playing a role. Moore'sLaw, too, is going to have a significant impact on bringing down the costof implementing this dream. That Starnix thin client needed to drive yourTV costs $250 in volume today but three years from now it will cost $70. Ormaybe the thin client will be in the TV, itself. With Linux proliferatingin consumer devices that's almost a sure thing since even if Sony doesn'tdo it some firmware hacker will.
That's the big lesson here, not that some guys up in Canada can run theirown Star Trek marathon, but that Open Source software is leading to digitaldevices being used in large volumes in ways their designers neverenvisioned. This takes control of the network out of the hands of theproviders and into the hands of the users. And the outcome doesn't have tobe some socialistic information economy. On the contrary, it means thatwhole new business models will appear to take advantage of the fact thatall types of communications and all types of content will be able to reachall parts of the market with almost no friction. Following that line ofthought, even I might find a way to make a living. Maybe.
ToCBy TED BRIDIS
WASHINGTON - Companies and others that secretly install "spyware"programs on people's computers to quietly monitor their Internet activitieswould face hefty federal fines under a bill the House passed Tuesday.
The most egregious behaviors ascribed to the category of such software ?secretly recording a person's computer keystrokes or mouse clicks ? are alreadyillegal under U.S. wiretap and consumer protection laws.
The House proposal, known as the "Spy Act," adds civil penalties overwhat has emerged as an extraordinary frustration for Internet users, whoseinfected computers often turn sluggish and perform unexpectedly.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., provides guidelines fortechnology companies that distribute software capable of most types ofelectronic monitoring. It requires that consumers explicitly choose to installsuch software and agree to the information being collected.
The House voted 399-1 to approve the bill. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who oftenvotes against spending measures, cast the lone dissenting vote Tuesday.
The House separately was expected to approve another anti-spyware bill as earlyas Wednesday. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., providesfor additional criminal penalties.
The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas,said Goodlatte's anti-spyware bill was preferable because of its criminalsanctions, and Barton said he will work to combine both proposals for a finalvote by year's end.
Barton acknowledged that experts had recently found more than 60 varieties ofspyware installed on the panel's own computers. He said all the spywareprograms had been installed without the permission of computer users.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, called theproposal approved Tuesday "a bill whose time has come."
"People are increasingly finding their home pages have been changed or theircomputers are sluggish," she said. "Their computers are no longer their own,and they can't figure out why."
The House bill approved Tuesday explicitly permits snooping software built bythe FBI or spy agencies secretly collecting information under a court order orother legal permissions affecting federal departments.
The bill's bans against spyware would begin 12 months after it becomes law andwould automatically expire after 2009.
ToCby Charles Maurer
TidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
In another incarnation I was a commercial photographer. At the end of thatlife I sold all of my studio equipment and all of my cameras save one, aHorseman 985, a contraption with a black bellows that resembles the SpeedGraphic press cameras you see in pre-war movies. It uses roll film andallows the front and back of the camera to be twisted in every directionwhen it's parked on a tripod. You can also hold it in your hands andpretend you're acting in "Front Page." Never have I found a camera souseful. Nowadays, however, digital sensors are pushing the optical limitsof lenses and software has become more pliable than leather bellows, notjust for adjusting colour but for optical manipulations as well. This yeara modestly priced (as such things go) digital SLR supplanted my Horseman. Ican no longer see owning a camera that uses film.
In this article I am going to examine the technology of digital cameras,but in an unconventional way. I am going approach it from basic principles.This approach may seem abstract and theoretical at first, but it won't forlong. You will see that if you understand the scientific principles, youcan ignore a lot of marketing hype and save significant sums of money.
Imagine a small windowpane with bits of a special metal embedded in theglass and a wire touching those bits. Photons of light bang against theglass. The impact unsettles electrons in the metal. They bang intoelectrons within the wire, which bump into electrons further down the wire,which bump into still more electrons, so that a wave of moving electronspasses along the wire - an electrical current. The more photons that banginto the pane, the more electricity flows.
This is a photocell, a sensor that is sensitive to the intensity of light.Now imagine millions of cells like this assembled into a checkerboard andshrunk to the size of a postage stamp. Put this stamp-sized collection ofphotocells inside a camera where the film usually goes. The lens projectsan image onto it. Each cell receives a tiny portion of the image andconverts that portion into an electrical charge proportionate to the amountof light forming that portion of the picture. Now we have a photosensor.
The complete matrix of charges on this photosensor forms an electricalequivalent of the complete image - but only of the intensity of the image.Since the eye interprets the intensity of light as brightness, brightnessdevoid of colour, this photosensor provides the information of a colourlessphotograph, of a black-and-white photograph. If we feed the output of thephotosensor to the input of a printer, and if we let the printer spray inkon paper in inverse proportion to the voltage (lower voltage, more ink),then we will see a black-and-white photograph appear. The output of thephotosensor can be connected directly to the printer through an amplifier,or it can be converted into digital numbers and the digital numbers can besent to the printer. The first approach is analog, the second is digital.The greater the range of digital numbers, the finer the steps from black towhite. If there are enough steps, the printout will look like acontinuous-tone photograph.
To make a photosensor record colour, we need to make it sensitive towavelengths of light as the eye is sensitive to them. We see longwavelengths weakly as reds, short wavelengths very weakly as blues, andmedium wavelengths strongly as greens. The easiest way to make ablack-and-white photosensor record colour is to put filters over the cellsso that alternate cells respond to short wavelengths, medium ones and longones. Since the eye is most sensitive to medium wavelengths, it ispractical to use twice as many of these as the others: one blue, one red,two greens. Such a set of filtered cells - red, green, blue, green - formsthe Bayer photosensor (named after its inventor) that is used in nearlyevery digital camera.
Now consider what happens when a spot of light is smaller than a group offour cells, when it is small enough to strike only a single cell. Assumethe spot to be white light, which includes every wavelength. If the whitespot falls on a blue-filtered cell, then the picture will show the spot tobe blue. If the white spot falls on a red-filtered cell, the picture willshow the spot to be red. If it falls on a green-filtered cell, the spotwill look green. This can cause so many errors in the image thatmanufacturers try to prevent it from happening by blurring the image, byputting a diffusing filter in front of the sensor to smear small spots oflight over more than one cell.
Note that in a sensor like this, four cells form the smallest unit that cancapture full information about some part of a picture. That is, four cellsform the basic element of a picture, the basic "picture element" or"pixel". Unfortunately, to make their products sound more impressive,manufacturers count cells as pixels. That's like saying a piano has 234notes, not 88, because it is built with 234 strings. Since the sensorsfunction differently at the level of the cell and the level of the pixel,it is important to ignore the advertising and to discriminate appropriatelybetween pixel and cell. I shall do that in this article.
A simpler approach would be to design a sensor in which every cell issensitive to every wavelength. Such a sensor was patented by Foveon, Inc.,in 2002, and is currently in its second commercial generation. Foveon'ssensor uses no coloured filters but instead embeds photo-sensitivematerials within the silicon at three depths. The longer the wavelength ofthe light, the farther it penetrates the semi-transparent silicon and thedeeper the photo-sensitive material it stimulates. With a Foveon sensor,every cell records a complete pixel with all wavelengths. (Note, however,that Foveon have taken to multiplying the number of pixels by three, tosound competitive in their ads.)
The smallest detail usable in a print is defined by the finest lines that aperson can see. At a close reading distance (about 10 inches, or 25 cm),somebody with perfect vision can resolve lines slightly finer than those onthe 20/20 (6/6) line of the eye chart, lines of about 8 line-pairs permillimetre (l-p/mm), which is the unit of optical resolution.
However, those are black-and-white lines. No ordinary photograph containsblack-and-white lines so thin because no camera can produce them onphotographic (as distinct from lithographic) film. No lens can create suchfine lines without beginning to blur the blacks and whites into grey.Dark-grey-and-light-grey lines need to be thicker than black-and-whitelines to be seen. In the perception of fine lines, a halving or a doublingof thickness is usually the smallest difference of any practicalsignificance, so this pronouncement of Schneider-Kreuznach sounds perfectlyreasonable to me: "A picture can be regarded as impeccably sharp if, whenviewed from a distance of 25 cm, it has a resolution of about 4 l-p/mm." Onan 8" x 12" photo, this is 1,600 by 2,400 pixels, or 3.8 megapixels. (8" x12" is about the size of A4 paper. It isn't quite a standard size of aphoto but will prove more convenient for discussion than 8" x 10".)
In short, 4 million pixels carry all of the useful information that you canput into an 8" x 12" photograph. Finer detail than this will matter totechnical aficionados making magnified comparisons, and it may matter forscientific or forensic tasks, but it will not matter for ordinary purposes.The same holds for larger prints because we don't normally view largerphotographs from only 10 inches away. It holds even for the gigantic imagesin first-run movie theatres. The digital processing used routinely forediting and special effects generates movies with no more than 2,048 pixelsof information from left to right, no matter how wide the screen. Thevertical dimension differs among cinematic formats but is typically around1,500 pixels.
This, of course, presents quite a paradox: a frame of a Cinemascope printobviously contains a lot more than 4 million pixels. Even an 8" x 12" printfrom a 300-dpi printer contains 2,400 pixels by 3,600 pixels, or 8.6million pixels. Large prints need those additional pixels to prevent ourseeing jagged edges on diagonal lines, because the eye will seediscontinuities in lines that are finer than the lines themselves.
Since no photograph of any size can contain more than 3 to 4 millionelements of information, even when made from film, any substantialenlargement needs to be composed primarily of pixels that do not exist inthe original. These pixels need to be interpolated: interpolated throughcontinuous optical integration (film), interpolated mechanically(high-resolution scanner), or interpolated logically by software (digitalphotography). This need for interpolation in enlargements makesinterpolating algorithms fundamentally important to digital photography.For most enlargements, the quality of the interpolating algorithm mattersmore than the resolution of the sensor or the quality of the lens. We shallcome back to this.
For the moment - indeed, forevermore - it is essential to keep straightthe distinction between (1) the information that is contained within animage and (2) the presentation of this information. Both are often measuredby pixels but they are orthogonal dimensions. The information within apicture can be described by a certain number of pixels. That informationmay be interpolated into any number of additional pixels but doing so addsnothing to the information, it merely presents the information in smallerpieces.
To illustrate this, here are some examples:
If you have an 8" x 10" photo printer, you can compare those levels ofinformation by printing out a set of pictures (linked below, about 30 MB)that I took at approximately those resolutions, keeping everything else thesame. (The test pictures were shot at 3.4, 1.5 and 0.86 megapixels: I useda Foveon sensor and, to generate the lower resolutions, used its built-infacility to average cells electronically in pairs or in groups of four.) Ienlarged the pictures using the best interpolator I could find to 3,140 by2,093 pixels.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/751/HighMedLowResolution.zip>
The photos are JPEG 2000 files, saved in GraphicConverter at 100 percentquality using QuickTime lossless compression. To prepare them I adjustedthe levels, cleaned up some dirt in the sky, then enlarged them inPhotoZoom Pro using the default settings for "Photo - Regular." Thosesettings include a modest and appropriate amount of sharpening.
What you will see, if you print them, is surprisingly small differencesfrom one level of resolution to the next. Each of these photos looks sharpon its own, and at arm's length they all look the same. You can see adifference only if you compare them up close. That, of course, is becausethe only information that's missing from the lower-resolution pictures isinformation that is close to the limit of the eye's acuity and thus isdifficult to see.
Cameras today fall into two categories, those with a Bayer sensor and thosewith a Foveon sensor, which at this writing include only two, a theoreticalPolaroid 530 and a very real Sigma SD-10.
<http://www.pdcameras.com/usa/catalog.php?itemname=x530>
<http://www.foveon.com/SD10_info.html>
In a Bayer sensor, a single cell records a single colour, but a pixel inthe print can be any colour. Carl Zeiss explain this: "Each pixel of theCCD has exactly one filter color patch in front of it. It can sense theintensity for this color only. But how can the two remaining colorintensities be sensed at the very location of this pixel? They cannot. Theyhave to be generated instead through interpolation (averaging) bymonitoring the signals from the surrounding pixels which have filters ofthese other two colors in front of them."
Since the cells provide a lot of partial information, the interpolation canbe accurate, but it can be inaccurate as well. Patterns of coloured lightcan interact with the checkerboard pattern of filters over the cells togenerate grotesque moire patterns. To avoid these, Bayer sensors arecovered with a filter that blurs every spot of light over more that onecell. The net result proves to be interpolated resolution that varies withcolour and peaks with black-and-white at about 50 percent moreline-pairs/millimetre than the intrinsic resolution of the sensor. Thissounds like a lot but cannot be seen unless you look closely.
More problematic is the fact that this filter does not merely prevent moirepatterns, it also blurs edges. With a Bayer sensor, every edge of everyline is blurred. You can see the interpolated resolution and the blurringin the magnified tests in the picture linked below. There I have comparedcameras with a Foveon and a Bayer sensor containing the same number ofpixels - pixels, not cells. Both have 3.4 million pixels (although theBayer has 13.8 million cells).
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/751/Resolution.jpg>
People make a big deal about resolution because it sounds important and iseasy to test, but aside from special cases like astronomical observation,fine resolution actually matters little. By definition, at the limits ofresolution, we can only just make out detail. Anything that is barelyvisible will not obtrude itself upon our attention or be badly missed if itis not there. What we see easily is what matters to us, what determines ourimpression of sharpness. Our impression of sharpness is determined by theabruptness and contrast at the edges of lines that are broad enough to beeasily made out. You can see this with the two tortoises in this picturelinked below. The sharper tortoise has less resolution but its edges aremore clearly defined.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/751/Sharpness.jpg>
The Bayer sensor resolves finer black-and-white lines but a Bayer sensorwill not reproduce any line so sharply as the Foveon. As a result, whencomparing two top-quality images, I would expect the Bayer's image to lookslightly more impressive when large blow-ups are examined up close, but Iwould expect the Foveon's to look slightly clearer when held a littlefarther away. Moreover, when detail is too fine for the sensor to resolve,the Bayer looks ugly or blank but the Foveon interpolates pseudo-detail.This means that in some areas, large enlargements examined closely mightactually look better with the Foveon. In sum, I would expect the 3.4megapixel Foveon and what is marketed as a 13.8-megapixel Bayer to be inthe same league. I would expect photographs from them to be different butcomparable overall, if they are enlarged with an appropriate algorithm.
"If they are enlarged with an appropriate algorithm..." - that statement iscritical to a sensible comparison. Usually, if you magnify an object alittle, it won't change its appearance much. If you simply interpolateaccording to some kind of running average, you can increase its size to acertain extent and it will still look reasonable. This is how mostenlargements are made. It is the basis of the bicubic algorithm used inmost photo editors, including Photoshop and, apparently, Sigma's PhotoPro.It is also the basis of most comparisons between Bayer and Foveon. However,a running average will widen transitions at the edges of lines, and it willdestroy the Foveon's sharp edges, softening them into the edges of a Bayer.A better class of algorithm will stop averaging at lines. Any form ofaveraging, though, tends to distort small regularities (wavelets) thatoccur in similar forms at different scales. Best of all are algorithms thatlook for wavelets, too. The only Macintosh application I know of in thatclass is PhotoZoom Pro. PhotoZoom Pro has a limited set of features andsome annoying bugs - version 1.095 for the Mac feels like a beta release -but it creates superb enlargements.
<http://www.trulyphotomagic.com/>
An appropriate comparison of the Bayer and Foveon sensors would see howmuch information these sensors capture overall. (How much spatialinformation, that is: comparing colour would be comparing amoebas, as Iexplained in "Colour & Computers" in TidBITS-749_.) To do this, I tested anSD-10 against an SLR that was based on a larger Bayer sensor, a sensor 70percent larger than the Foveon that contained 13.8 million cells. Kodakwere most helpful in supplying this camera once they heard Doctors WithoutBorders (Medecins sans Frontiers) was to benefit (see the PayBITS block atthe bottom of this article to make a donation if you've found this articlehelpful). Also, Sigma sent me a matched pair of 50-mm macro lenses to usewith the cameras.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07840>
I copied an oil painting with a wide variety of colours and a lot of finetextural detail. With each camera I photographed a large chunk of thepainting, cropped out a small section from the centre, blew up that sectionto the same size as the original using PhotoZoom Pro (the defaults for"Photo - Regular"), and compared that blow-up to a gold standard, aclose-up that had not seen any enlargement, interpolation, or blurringfilter in front of the sensor. Before blowing them up I balanced all threephotos to be as similar as I could, then, to prevent unavoidabledifferences in colour from confounding the spatial information, I convertedall three images to black-and-white. I did this in ImageJ. First I spliteach image into its three channels, then I equalized the contrast of eachchannel across the histogram, then I combined the channels back into acolour picture, converted the new colour picture to 8-bit, and equalizedthe contrast of the 8-bit file. (See the second link below for anexplanation of contrast-equalization.) I chose a painting in which most ofthe coloured brush strokes were outlined with black brush strokes, so thatadjacent colours would not merge after conversion into a similar shades ofgrey. With my 314-dpi printer, the two enlargements are the equivalent ofchunks from a 14" x 21".
<http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/>
<http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/histeq.htm#1>
The difference between the photos from the Bayer and Foveon is very slight.The two pictures are indistinguishable unless you compare them closely.Fine, contrasty lines on the standard are finer on the Bayer, morecontrasty on the Foveon. The one that looks more like the standard dependsupon the distance from the eye and the lighting but the differences aretrivial. The two images do contain slightly different information, but theycontain comparable amounts overall.
On the other hand, for efficiency of storage and speed of processing, theFoveon wins hands down. This is how two identical pictures compared:
Foveon Bayer RAW 7.8 MB 14.7 MB 8-bit TIFF 9.8 MB 38.7 MB
If you would like to print out my test pictures, you can download them.However, for the comparison to be meaningful, you must specify a number ofdots per inch for the pictures that your printer can resolve in bothdirections. I know that an Olympus P-440 can resolve 314 dpi, with no morethan occasional one-pixel errors in one colour's registration. I have notfound any resolution that an Epson 9600 can handle cleanly in bothdirections, although I have not been able to test it exhaustively. Otherprinters I know nothing about. You will have to experiment with the testpatterns in the Printer Sharpness Test file linked below. For this purpose,only the black-and-white stripes matter.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/748/PrinterSharpnessTest.zip>
Each picture in the 5.8 MB file below is 1512 pixels by approximately 2270.If a picture has been printed correctly, the width in inches will be 1512divided by the number of dots per inch. Print them from Photoshop orGraphicConverter; Preview will scale them to fit the paper.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/751/Bayer_vs_Foveon.zip>
Remember that the question to ask is not which picture looks better orwhich picture shows more detail but which picture looks more like the goldstandard overall. I suggest that you compare the pictures upside down.Remember, too, that these are small sections from big enlargements that youwould normally view framed and hanging on a wall. Also, although thecontrast is equalized overall, the original colours were not quiteidentical and the equalization of contrast amplified some tonaldifferences. If you perceive the Bayer or Foveon to be better in one oranother area, make sure that in this area the tonality is similar. If thetonality is different, the difference there is probably an artifact. Anexample of this is the shadow beneath the tape on the left side.
I have not been able to test this but I suspect that the most importantoptical difference between Bayer and Foveon sensors may be how clearly theyreveal deficiencies in lenses. Since the Foveon sensor is sharper, I wouldexpect blur and colour fringing to show up more clearly on a Foveon sensorthan a Bayer.
Megapixels sell cameras as horsepower sells cars and just as foolishly. Tofit more cells in a sensor, the cells need to be smaller. It is possible tomake cells smaller than a lens can resolve. Even if the lens can resolvethe detail more finely, doubling the number of cells makes a differencethat is only just noticeable in a direct comparison.
On the other hand, small pixels create problems. Electronic sensors pick uprandom fluctuations in light that we cannot see. These show up onenlargements like grain in film. Larger cells smooth out the fluctuationsbetter than smaller cells. Also, larger cells can handle more light beforethey top out at their maximum voltage, so they can operate farther abovethe residual noise. For both reasons, images taken with larger cells arecleaner. Enlargements from my pocket-sized Minolta Xt begin to fall apartfrom too much noise, not from too few pixels.
In contrast, enlargements from my Sigma SD-10 have so little noise thatthey can be enormous. A 30" x 44" test print looked as though it came frommy 2-1/4" x 3-1/4" Horseman. The Sigma has less resolution than theHorseman - it's probably less than can be extracted from scanning thefinest 35-mm film - but its noise level can be reduced to somethingapproaching 4" x 5" sheet film. Such a low level of noise leaves the detailthat it contains, which is substantial, very clean. In perception, above alow threshold, the proportion of noise to signal matters far more to thebrain than the absolute amount of signal. Indeed, if I look through a boxof my old 11" x 14" enlargements, the only way I can distinguish the 35-mmphotos from the 2-1/4 x 3-1/4" is to examine smooth tones for noise. Icannot tell them apart by looking at areas with detail.
In sum, with the range of sensors used in cameras today, there is no pointto worrying about a few megapixels more or less. Shrinking cells to fitmore of them in the sensor can lose more information than it gains. Thesize of the cells is likely to be more important than their number. For thesame money, I would rather buy a larger sensor with fewer pixels than asmaller sensor with more pixels. If nothing else, the larger sensor islikely to be sharper because it will be less sensitive to movement of thecamera. For a realistic comparison of sensors as they are marketed see thischart:
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/751/SensorChart.png>
Most people believe that the quality of the lens is of primary importancein digital photography. If you have stayed with me so far, you may not besurprised to hear me calculate otherwise. With 35mm cameras, an old rule ofthumb holds that the slowest shutter speed that a competent, soberphotographer can use without a tripod and still stand a good chance ofhaving the picture look sharp is 1 divided by the focal length of the lens:1/50" for a 50-mm lens, 1/100" for a 100-mm lens, etc. At these settingsthere will always be some slight blur but it will usually be too little tobe noticed. This blur will mask any difference in sharpness between lenses.To see differences in sharpness requires speeds several times faster.
With digital cameras that use 35-mm-sized sensors, the same rule of thumbholds, but most digital cameras use smaller sensors. With smaller sensors,the same amount of movement will blur more of the picture. If you work outthe trigonometry, you'll find that you need shutter speeds roughly twice asfast for 4/3" sensors and four times faster for 2/3" and 1/1.8" sensors.(Digital sensors come in sizes like 4/3", 2/3" and 1/1.8". Those numbersare meaningless relics from the days of vacuum tubes; they are now justarbitrary numbers equivalent to dress sizes.) That means minimal speeds of1/100" and 1/200" for a normal lens. Differences in sharpness among lenseswould not be apparent until shutter speeds are several times higher again.Because of this, it strikes me that the weight of lenses matters more toimage quality than the optics. The heavier a camera bag becomes, the morelikely the tripod will be left at home.
(Note that this does not mean that 35-mm-sized sensors are best. Otheroptical problems increase with the size of the sensor. As an overallcompromise, the industry is beginning to adopt a new standard, the 4/3", orfour-thirds, which is approximately one-half the diameter of 35-mm. This isnot unreasonable.)
Frankly, I should be astonished to find any lens manufactured today thatdoes not have sufficient contrast and resolution to produce an impressiveimage in the hands of a competent photographer. I know that closecomparisons of photos shot on a tripod will show differences from one lensto another, and I know that some lenses have weaknesses, but very fewpeople will decorate a living room with test pictures. In the real world,nobody is likely to notice any optical deficiency unless the problem ismovement of the camera, bad focus, distortion or colour fringing. It iscertainly true that distortion and colour fringing can be objectionablebut, although enough money and experimentation might find some lenses thatevince less of these problems than others, as a practical matter,especially with zoom lenses, they seem to be inescapable. Fortunately,these can usually be corrected or hidden by software.
Indeed, even a certain amount of blur can be removed with software. Let'ssay that half of the light that ought to fall on one pixel is spread oversurrounding pixels. Knowing this, it is possible to move that much lightback to the central pixel from the surrounding ones. That seems to be whatFocus Magic does (see the discussion of Focus Magic in "Editing Photographsfor the Perfectionist" in TidBITS-748_).
<http://www.focusmagic.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07832>
Finally, I would like to end this article by debunking a common myth. Ihave often read that Bayer sensors work well because half of their cellsare green and the wavelengths that induce green provide most of theinformation used by the eye for visual acuity. This made no sense to me butI am not an expert on the eye so I asked an expert - three experts in fact,scientists known internationally for their work in visual perception. Ihappened to be having dinner with them. It made no sense to them, either,although I took care to ask them before they had much wine. Later Ipestered one of them about it so much that eventually she got out of bed(this was my wife Daphne) and threw an old textbook at me, Human ColorVision by Robert Boynton. In it I found this explanation:
"To investigate 'color,'" an experimenter puts a filter in front of aprojector that is projecting an eye chart. "An observer, who formerly couldread the 20/20 line, now finds that he or she can recognize only thoseletters corresponding to 20/60 acuity or worse. What can be legitimatelyconcluded from this experiment? The answer is, nothing at all," because thefilter reduced the amount of light. "A control experiment is needed, wherethe same reduction in luminance is achieved using a neutral filter.... Whensuch controls are used, it is typically found that varying spectraldistribution has remarkably little effect upon visual acuity."
In short, each cell in a Bayer sensor provides similar information aboutresolution. It is true that green light will provide a Bayer sensor withmore information than red and blue light but that is only because thesensor has more green cells.
If you want to shop for a digital camera, this article will help you makethe most important decision, what kind and size of sensor to buy, with howmany pixels. Once you have decided that, a host of smaller decisions awaityou. My next article will walk you through these. It is also going toincorporate a review of the Sigma SD-10 and will appear shortly after onemore lens arrives from Japan.
ToCPayBITS: If Charles's explanation of resolution and debunking of
the megapixel myth were useful, please support Doctors Without
Borders: <http://www.doctorswithoutborders-usa.org/donate/>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Paul Thurrott
http://www.wininformant.com/
Just two days after releasing its Firefox 1.0 Preview Release, the MozillaFoundation says it has seen over 500,000 downloads of the Web browseralternative. Better yet, various Web site metrics studies suggest thatFirefox is gaining converts from Microsoft's lackluster Internet Explorer(IE) where it matters most, with early adopters and technology influencers.CNET reports that 18 percent of visitors to its news.com site are usingMozilla Firefox browsers, up from just 8 percent in January. AndWebSideStory is reporting that overall Firefox usage is up to 5.2 percentin September, up from 3.5 percent in June. Usage in IE, meanwhile, hasdropped from 95.5 percent to 93.7 percent in the same time period, the firmsays. It's nice to see nicely designed products doing well for a change.Usually, the technology I advocate--like the Amiga, or BorlandDelphi--withers on the vine. Maybe I'm not the kiss of death after all.
A startling report about a Windows flaw causing a massive 800-plane pileupin southern California has made the rounds on the Web, with Linux andMacintosh backers pointing their fingers and nodding knowingly. The storywould be fascinating if it were true. But two separate human errors, not aWindows flaw, caused the 800-plane pileup. And a "software glitch" thatrequired technicians to essentially reboot a non-Windows communicationssystem was the only technical "flaw" that contributed to the pileup.Airport officials have known about that glitch for some time and have beenworking to fix it. So what about the Windows flaw that (ahem) caused allthe problems? It turns out the flaw wasn't a flaw at all. Instead, theWin2K Advanced Server systems that the air traffic control system uses wereimproperly integrated into the preexisting system, and although technicianswere supposed to manually reboot the machines every 30 days, a technicianforgot to do so. The machines were configured to automatically reboot every49.7 days; in this case, they did so at a pretty inopportune time. Inshort, the flaw was in the configuration, not in Windows itself. Not thatWindows is perfect, mind you, but spare me. Enough problems with Windowsalready exist; we don't need to make up stuff like this.
This week, Microsoft filed nine new lawsuits against spammers, stepping upits legal battle against unsolicited email. This particular round oflawsuits is notable for several reasons, primarily because some of themtarget large Web- based hosting companies that Microsoft says areadvertising "bulletproof" services for email marketing (i.e., spam). "Thisis the first action against a Web host catering to spammers," a Microsoftspokesperson said. "They're providing a safe place for spammers to drivecustomers to." Microsoft is involved in more than 100 legal cases againstspammers, more than 70 of which were filed in the United States.
Apple Computer has the cool and hip thing going for it with the iPod and,to a lesser degree, with the Apple iTunes Music Store. But if you dig alittle deeper than the exterior sheen, Microsoft is clearly dominant whenit comes to thinking through the end-to-end experiences people want toenjoy with digital media. This week, the company added several importantreleases to its XP Reloaded campaign, including Windows XP Media Center (XPMCE) 2005, Media Center Extenders, Windows Media Player (WMP) 10 Mobile,and Windows Media Connect, which lets third-party Digital Audio Receivers(DARs) and Digital Media Receivers (DMRs) seamlessly and consistentlyinteract with PC-based media libraries. Combined with previously releasedproducts such as Portable Media Centers, WMP 10, and the recently updatedMSN Music and scores of other compatible online entertainment, music, andvideo services, Microsoft's approach to digital media--DigitalEntertainment Anywhere--is clearly the right one. But the company isn'tdone yet. Between now and late November, Microsoft will issue other cool XPReloaded releases, including Media Center for Microsoft Xbox. The companyis spending more than $20 billion over the next 6 years to grab a share ofthe film and entertainment market, helping ensure that consumers useMicrosoft's digital media formats to distribute media electronically in thefuture.
Drawing a line in the sand and offering an interesting contrast with theever- delayed desktop search feature Microsoft has promised for Longhorn,Google unveiled a beta version of its upcoming Desktop Search tool thisweek. The tool runs locally but requires a Web browser and appears to lookand act just like its Web-based cousin. However, Google Desktop Searchsearches through your local files and email and provides familiarGoogle-like search results. The way it works is kind of obvious when youthink about it. Best of all, you can search locally and on the Web at thesame time. You can try out the excellent Google Desktop Search tool byvisiting the Google Web site.
[Note from Kevin Hisel: I love Google but I have to admit thatthis application is half-baked and apparently half-hearted. A much bettersolution is Copernic Desktop Search (
Intel put the last nail in the coffin of the MHz myth this week when thecompany canceled plans to ship a long-delayed 4GHz Pentium microprocessorso it can instead concentrate on products with "more bang for the buck."The problem is that chips with faster clock speeds are so much hotter thantheir predecessors that they require special cooling hardware. But thechips don't offer a huge performance boost over earlier versions. Soinstead of ratcheting up the clock speed, as the company has always donewith desktop speeds, Intel will now concentrate on more obscure buteffective methods of boosting actual processor performance. These effortswill include better utilization of multicore processors, which effectivelyput two microprocessors on one chip, and improvements to microprocessorcache and the chipsets that work with the processor. Intel used this tacticwith its mobile processor line, the Pentium M processor, which featuredslower clock speeds than its predecessors but better performance, batterylife, and cooling. Apparently, the Pentium M processor was so successfultechnically that Intel is now trying the approach with its desktop chips.
PC giant Dell finally unveiled some of its holiday product plans this weekby launching a slew of products, including new portable audio players andplasma TVs. The new 20GB Dell Digital Jukebox (DJ) 20 is smaller andlighter than its predecessor and, at $279, is still much less expensivethan a comparable iPod. But the Dell Pocket DJ 5, an iPod Mini competitor,is even more impressive, with 5GB of storage space for just $199, $50 lessthan the iPod Mini. Dell also announced a gorgeous 42" plasma TV that costs$2300, or $3500 for a version with High Definition (HD) resolution. Inaddition, Dell introduced two new photo printers, both of which cost lessthan $200. Expect more announcements from Dell before the holidays are over.
CorelDRAW and WordPerfect maker Corel announced this week that it'spurchasing Paint Shop Pro maker Jasc Software. "We intend to put thepowerful R&D resources of the newly combined companies behind the popularPaint Shop family, ensuring that next-generation Paint Shop products willcontinue to flourish," Corel said in a statement. Corel noted that PaintShop Pro compares favorably to Adobe Photoshop at just a fraction of thecost. Let's hope that Corel won't be the Kiss of Death (tm) that it's beenfor WordPerfect. Jasc makes some powerful photo-editing solutions, and it'dbe a shame to see Corel mess up the company. Cross your fingers.
ToCStory from BBC NEWS - Published: 2004/09/16 09:08:35 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3661678.stm
Computer users could be open to attack from malicious hackers because ofthe way that Windows displays some images.
Microsoft has issued a warning about a critical vulnerability in Windowsthat could let carefully crafted pictures act as bearers of malicious code.
The flaw was found in the code that the operating system and other Windowsprograms use to display images prepared in the popular Jpeg format.
The vulnerability has been found in more than a dozen Microsoft programs.
At risk programs include Office XP 2003, Office 2003, Windows Server 2003,Internet Explorer 6 plus some versions of Digital Image Pro and Picture It.
The software giant urged all users who are at risk to download and installa patch for the vulnerability.
Windows XP
Windows XP Service Pack 1
Windows Server 2003
Internet Explorer 6 SP1
Office XP SP3
Office 2003
Digital Image Pro 7.0
Digital Image Pro 9
Digital Image Suite 9
Greetings 2002
Picture It! 2002
Picture It! 7.0
Picture It! 9
Producer for PowerPoint
Project 2002 SP1
Project 2003
Visio 2002 SP2
Visio 2003
Visual Studio .NET 2002
Visual Studio .NET 2003
Microsoft has also produced a tool that helps users find out if they arerunning software that contains the vulnerable computer code.
It said that the flaw could only be exploited if users are tricked intoopening an image crafted to exploit the vulnerability.
Anyone falling victim to the loophole could have their computer taken overby an attacker.
Microsoft said that it had no evidence that the Jpeg loophole was beingactively exploited.
However, because Internet Explorer is one of the programs vulnerable it istheoretically possible that someone could fall victim to a virus written toexploit the flaw just by visiting a website that used such carefullycrafted images.
Any image written to exploit the flaw could prove successful because beforenow people have fallen victims to e-mail viruses when they clicked onattachments that claimed to be a picture.
The flaw in the way that Windows handles the popular Jpeg file format iscalled a buffer over-run.
Many old viruses have used buffer over-runs to get malicious code on totarget machines.
The advisory about the Jpeg flaw is the 28th advisory that Microsoft hasissued this year. Often these advisories detail several vulnerabilities.One advisory issued in April mentioned more than 20 separate loopholes inWindows XP.
Microsoft said that anyone who has downloaded and installed the SP2 updatefor Windows XP is not at risk from this vulnerability.
However, anti-virus firm Sophos said those that have installed SP2 shouldnot be complacent.
"If you are running applications on XP SP 2 which do have the flaw youcould be putting your computer at risk," said Graham Cluley from anti-virusfirm Sophos.
Mr. Cluley urged users in such a situation to download and apply the patch.
ToCYes, someone's done it.
http://ipodlinux.sourceforge.net/
ToCTidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
Apple Computer surprised both analysts and markets last week by announcingits strongest fourth quarter in nine years, with a $106 million profit on awhopping $2.35 billion in revenue for the company's final fiscal quarter of2004. Moreover, Apple shipped more than 2 million iPod music players duringthe quarter, and the quarter represents a startling 37 percent revenueincrease compared to the same quarter last year. The results include a $4million restructuring charge. Gross margins for the quarter stayed high at27 percent, and international sales represented 37 percent of revenue.Significantly, Apple's retail store revenue was up 95 percent from the samequarter last year.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/13results.html>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/>
Despite a delay caused by shortages of G5 processors, Apple says the newiMac G5 is off to a strong start; Apple shipped 836,000 Macs during thequarter, more than half of which were iBooks and PowerBooks. The 2.02million iPods Apple shipped represents a 500 percent increase over the samequarter a year ago; some 6 percent of those iPods were manufactured byHewlett-Packard as part of the companies' production alliance. What'sstunning is that Apple moved over a third of all iPods (5.7 million) eversold in just the last three months. Looking forward, the company expectsits next fiscal quarter (which includes the holiday buying season) to bestrong, with revenues between $2.8 and $2.9 billion. [GD]
ToCTidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
Apple continued to remind everyone it's the 400-pound gorilla of the onlinemusic industry by announcing it has now sold over 150 million songs on itsiTunes Music Service. What's more, just in time for the holiday shoppingseason, iTunes gift cards will now be available in Best Buy stores inaddition to Target and Apple's own retail stores. The announcement followsyesterday's financial results where Apple noted it shipped more than 2million iPods during its fourth fiscal quarter. Apple says it's sellingmore than 4 million songs a week, which puts it at a pace to sell over 200million songs per year.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/14itunes.html>
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/>
This announcement's timing on the heels of fourth quarter results permitsme to note Apple's "other music products" (anything but iPods) brought in$98 million last quarter, which is roughly a one-third increase over thesame quarter a year ago. Combined with revenue from iPods, that means rightnow roughly one quarter of Apple's revenue has to do with music, notcomputers. [GD]
ToCTidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
Further refining the retail experience of buying a Mac or iPod, Appleopened six new retail stores that feature a "mini" layout compared toexisting stores. The smaller design puts products and information along theside walls (which are made up of aluminum panels, like a real-worldFinder!), with the main floor space open. A single retail counter doublesas a Genius Bar. Most intriguing is a new self-checkout kiosk built intoone wall, where customers can scan and purchase products without employeeassistance. The stores appear to be geared toward more general users: theiPod is heavily represented, as are portables and the iMac, but the eMacand Power Mac G5 don't appear at all. Apple now operates 93 Apple Stores inthe United States and Japan. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/retail/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/14retail.html>
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
A few weeks ago, the PR person at Edelman who works with Microsoft'sMacintosh Business Unit contacted me to let me know that there would be anautomatic update to the Microsoft AutoUpdate utility, a new part of Office2004. Trying to figure out if this warranted coverage, I asked, "So you'retelling me that AutoUpdate is going to kick in automatically to updateitself to better kick in automatically?" The answer was yes, and I decidedit fit into the same news category as a tree falling in an uninhabitedforest.
But now you really do want that 927K update to Microsoft AutoUpdate (whichyou can find and launch manually in your Applications folder if you turnedoff the Microsoft AU Daemon in your Startup Items list), because theutility now has some real work to do in downloading and installingMicrosoft's 22.8 MB Service Pack 1 for Office 2004, which fixes numeroussecurity and stability issues in the Office suite of programs.
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/autoupdate/description/AUOffice2004111EN.htm>
Most important from my perspective is that Microsoft stamped out themaddening selection bug in Word 2004, by which selecting by word wouldoften also select the word preceding the selection. This fix alone makesService Pack 1 essential in my mind. Other Word improvements include theproper functioning of AutoRecover when FileVault is enabled (note that wedo not recommend the use of FileVault except in very specific situations),text correctly changing to the font selected from the Font menu, andcorrect detection of Swiss German proofing tools. For additional help withWord 2004's new features, see our just-released "Take Control of What's Newin Word" ebooks.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/word-1.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/word-2.html>
In Service Pack 1, PowerPoint 2004 sees improved performance when you playmovies in a slide show, better compatibility with fonts, and correcteddragging of objects when the ruler is turned on. The only change to Excelis also shared by Word and PowerPoint: improved security when you open adocument containing macros.
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=886633>
Entourage 2004 also picks up a number of fixes. The Entourage icon nolonger bounces in the Dock when a connection error occurs, sent messagesdisplay the sent status in the Microsoft Outlook Info Bar, modem usage hasbeen improved, SMTP over SSL has been improved, attaching photos fromiPhoto now works better, the Microsoft User Data folder can now live on anetwork volume, Entourage no longer eats certain keyboard shortcuts forAdobe's CS products, and connections both to normal POP servers and DominoIMAP servers now work better. If you need assistance learning to useEntourage 2004's new features, check out our "Take Control of What's New inEntourage 2004" ebook.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/entourage-2004.html>
Lastly, the Remote Desktop Connection client 1.0.3 is more stable when youminimize the window and when you copy and paste data to Macintoshapplications. Other stability improvements should help those using Mac OS X10.3 or later, and those running on Macs with PowerPC G5 processors.
ToCby Mark H. Anbinder <mha@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#751/18-Oct-04
Microsoft has released a long-awaited update to Virtual PC, the emulationsoftware acquired from Connectix over a year and a half ago. Virtual PC 7,which is available as a standalone product or as part of Microsoft OfficeProfessional, boasts faster performance, better integration with the Mac'sfast graphics processors, easier printing from Windows to the Mac'sprinter, and, perhaps most importantly, compatibility with the Power Mac G5.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07087>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc>
That Virtual PC was incompatible with Apple's flagship Power Mac G5desktops gave a black eye to both Apple and Microsoft, so the mereresolution of this problem makes Virtual PC 7 newsworthy. The G5 wasannounced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2003, andMicrosoft released Virtual PC 6.1 in September 2003 (and rolled it into anOffice Professional bundle) with the known limitation that it wouldn't workon a G5.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07325>
Microsoft claims performance improvement of 10 to 30 percent for Virtual PC7, which will be a welcome boost for users on the lower end of the systemrequirements curve. (Virtual PC requires a 700 MHz or faster PowerPC G3,G4, or G5 computer and at least 512 MB of RAM.)
Available now in English editions are a $250 Virtual PC 7 with Windows XPProfessional, and a $500 Microsoft Office 2004 Professional Edition,including Virtual PC. An upgrade edition of Office Professional isavailable for $330. The company says French, German, Japanese, and Swedisheditions will be available in the months ahead, as will Virtual PC versionsfeaturing Windows XP Home or Windows 2000 Professional, and standalone(without an OS) and upgrade editions.
ToCNisus Software has begun shipping Nisus Writer Express 2.0, adding morethan 30 new features to the company's streamlined word processor for Mac OSX. Improvements include user-defined styles, footnotes, endnotes, abuilt-in table tool, a Find/Replace dialog that works more like the one inNisus Writer Classic, and more. Some features, such as word auto-completionand the capability to apply bold or italic to any font (which often isn'tpossible in Mac OS X if the font in question lacks bold and italicvariants), are available only under Mac OS X 10.3. Nisus Writer Express 2.0requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later and is a free upgrade for owners of NisusWriter Express 1.0. Otherwise, it costs $60 as a download, or $70 for a CD;owners of Nisus Writer 6.0 and later can upgrade for $45 (download) or $55(CD). A free 30-day trial version is available as a 21 MB download. [JLC]
ToCby Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#746/13-Sep-04
Apple last week released Security Update 2004-09-07 to address a slew ofsecurity-related issues. Updated components include Apache 2,CoreFoundation, FTP, IPSec, Kerberos, OpenLDAP, OpenSSH, PPPDialer,QuickTime Streaming Server, rsync, Safari, SquirrelMail, and tcpdump - seeApple's site for details. Unfortunately, two of the changes may havenegative consequences.
<http://www.apple.com/support/security/security_updates.html>
The changes to Safari resulted in rendering problems on a number of Websites, though the trouble apparently originates with the Web sitesthemselves. Many sites detect browser versions and present slightlydifferent versions of their pages to different browsers. It seems that somesites were accidentally identifying this new version of Safari as Netscape4 and thus feeding it dynamic HTML that failed in a modern browser. In atleast some of places suffering from this problem (including FedEx, CompUSA,and Best Buy) the problem stemmed from a product called QuickMenu Pro, fromOpenCube. OpenCube has since fixed the problem, though it's up to the sitesto update their copies of QuickMenu Pro. Kudos to Jeff of the HyperJeffNetwork for tracking down the bug in QuickMenu Pro.
Also, to work around a security problem in the lukemftpd FTP server in theclient version of Mac OS X, Apple replaced it with the tnftpd FTP server(Mac OS X Server uses xftp instead); unfortunately the change has causedlogin difficulties for some users when connecting to upgraded Macs via FTP.The Apple support forum discussion linked below offers some solutions, butperhaps the best one is to use this problem as an excuse to switch to SFTP,which eliminates long-standing security problems with FTP. Apple willlikely release a fix for normal FTP in the near future.
<http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@@.689a720d>
The security update applies to the client and server versions of Mac OS X10.2.8, Mac OS X 10.3.4, and Mac OS X 10.3.5. The easiest way to getSecurity Update 2004-09-07 is via Software Update; otherwise you'll have topick the correct version from the Apple Downloads page. The clientdownloads are 7.6 MB; the server downloads are 12.6 MB. [ACE]
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
ToCTidBITS#747/20-Sep-04
Just after we put last week's issue to bed with a warning about SecurityUpdate 2004-09-07 1.0, Apple released Security Update 2004-09-07 version1.1, which offers two important fixes. First, the update changes the Safariversion number to provide compatibility with Web sites that improperlyidentified Safari as a different browser; Apple also offers advice ondetecting Safari's user-agent string and on object detection. The 1.1version of the security update also fixes the installation of the FTPserver (it turns out that tnftpd is just a renamed version of lukemftpd, ifyou were confused) to eliminate the user login problems, and in our testingthis appears to be true. The 1.1 version of the security update ranges insize (depending on your version of Mac OS X) from 7.1 MB to 12.6 MB and isavailable via Software Update and Apple's Software Downloads page. Thereare no other changes from the 1.0 version, but we can now recommend thateveryone install it. [ACE]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07809>
<http://www.apple.com/support/security/security_updates.html>
<http://developer.apple.com/Internet/safari/safari_faq.html#anchor2>
<http://developer.apple.com/Internet/webcontent/objectdetection.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
TidBITS#747/20-Sep-04
Apple last week released Security Update 2004-09-16 via Software Update andas separate downloads. The update includes a new version of iChat thatfixes a potential problem whereby someone could send a link that wouldlaunch an application on your Mac. After the update is applied, clickingsuch a link brings up a dialog that asks you to confirm that you want torun the application. If you don't use Software Update, three separatedownloads are available, each about 1 MB in size, depending on the versionof Mac OS X and iChat you're running. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate200409161035ichat21.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate200409161028ichatav20.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate200409161028ichat10.html>
TidBITS#748/27-Sep-04
If you were an early owner of Apple's 15-inch Aluminum PowerBook G4, youmay have found an unwelcome surprise: faint white spots on the display.Until now, Apple has been repairing them on a case-by-case basis; myPowerBook exhibited the problem once and was repaired successfully, but Iknow others whose PowerBooks went back to Apple numerous times. Now, Applehas created a repair program to get the white out. The program covers theAluminum 15-inch PowerBook G4 (1 GHz or 1.25 GHz processor) or the Titanium15-inch PowerBook G4 (867 MHz or 1 GHz processor) with a serial numberbetween V7334xxxxxx and V7345xxxxxx, or QT331xxxxxx and QT339xxxxxx. TheLCD replacement program is offered worldwide. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/support/powerbook/displayprogram/>
ToCTidBITS#750/11-Oct-04
Apple has released Security Update 2004-09-30, which fixes vulnerabilitiesin the AFP Server, the CUPS printing architecture, NetInfo Manager,postfix, and QuickTime, as well as ServerAdmin for Mac OS X Server. Theupdate is available via Software Update, or as stand-alone downloads forMac OS X 10.3.5 (1.5 MB) and Mac OS X 10.2.8 (652K). Apple also notes thatthe date on the update differs from the release date (of 2004-10-04) due topower outages the previous week at its Cupertino headquarters. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20040930macosx1035clientserver.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20040930macosx1028clientandserver.html>
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#743/23-Aug-04
If there's one question I've learned to dread over the years, it's "WhatMac should I buy?", followed closely by "When is Apple going to release newMacs?" It's not that I mind helping people, but these simple queries are,if I'm to do the topic justice, the start of at least an hour ofconversation and further questions. It's even worse when they come inemail, since then I can either cop out and give a short answer that couldbe entirely wrong, or I can start a time-consuming discussion that willlikely span numerous messages to my already overflowing In box over severaldays.
Why should this subject be so tough? After all, millions of people buy Macsevery year. But to judge from many discussions I've had over the years, alot of people find the process of purchasing a Mac daunting: they worrythat they're spending more than necessary on an already expensive purchase,or they're unhappy with the retailer from whom they purchased. In eachcase, as I've heard the specifics, I've found myself nodding my head andtrying not to tell the person where they went wrong, while gentlysuggesting what they might do differently next time.
Back when we were first dividing up titles for Take Control ebooks, Ipounced on "Take Control of Buying a Mac," mostly because I've been dyingfor an excuse to spend the time to research and explain exactly how someoneshould go about the process of buying a Mac. I've long believed that, withsome effort, I could come up with a formula that anyone could put intopractice. It's taken me longer than I anticipated, given that I've beenputting other authors' books ahead of my own, but with the able editinghelp of Caroline Rose (who, appropriately enough, edited the first threevolumes of Inside Macintosh at Apple in the early days of the Macintosh),"Take Control of Buying a Mac" is now available for anyone who plans to buya Mac in the next year, or who would like a resource to recommend toothers. It's 72 pages and costs only $5; if you're a reseller or consultantwho would be interested either in buying multiple copies to give toclients, or in reselling the ebook, drop me a note.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/buying-mac.html>
I've divided the book into five sections, each of which addresses adifferent step in the purchasing process. It is important, I've discovered,to follow the steps in order for the best results, because otherwise youend up wasting time on decisions that you have to make again to account fornew information.
There are two aspects to the decision of when to buy a Mac. First, do youreally need a Mac now, or are you just lusting after the latest andgreatest? A little techno-lust in your heart isn't a bad thing, but it'shelpful to differentiate between need and want. Once you've determined thatyou really are going to plunk down some cash, you have to figure out whento buy. Obviously, if you really need a new Mac now, you'll probably end uppurchasing sooner rather than later. However, in many situations you canwait, and, as we all know, those who wait are always rewarded with betterMacs for lower prices. So if you can wait, what are the best and worsttimes of year to buy?
I'm most proud of this section of the book, since I spent a bunch of timeresearching and recording the months in which Apple has released new Macs -both speed bumps and significantly new models - over the last five years.When you gather all that data in one place, some trends become apparent, asdo the ways in which Apple has begun to deviate from the trends of previousyears. Those of us who watch the industry closely have a gut feeling aboutwhat's likely to happen (perhaps that's why people keep asking me when tobuy!) but now I can back up my feelings with hard data.
The yearly cycle is only half the story, though, since every Macintoshmodel also follows its own update cycle, and when you buy within that cycledetermines how much you'll pay for a particular performance level. Peoplewho watch closely have seen this before: the initial release of a newMacintosh model sells at a premium, and within some number of months, Appleputs out a faster version while simultaneously dropping the price. With thehistorical perspective I provide in the book, you can anticipate suchmoves.
I bundled all these up into four rules for when to purchase, based onwhether you want to buy at initial release, during the later incrementalreleases, as a model is being replaced, and after it's obsolete. If youhave a reasonable understanding of your needs, desires, and budget, you canfollow these rules to time your purchase perfectly for your situation.
After you've determined when you'd like to buy, the time comes to figureout which Mac to get. That question comes down to whether you want adesktop or laptop Mac, and once you've made that decision, which particularmodel. I came up with a worksheet that helps you figure out whether you'rea desktop or laptop person. I am a little bummed that Tonya'stongue-in-cheek suggestion that I cast it like one of those "How to tell ifyou're compatible with your mate" quizzes in women's magazines came toolate in the production process for me to use it.
Most people probably have a decent sense of which type of Mac they want,but I think many more people will find valuable the charts I created forcomparing the consumer and professional models within both the desktop andlaptop lines. My goal there was to eliminate the confusion that many peoplehave of the difference between iBooks and PowerBooks, for instance, sinceon the surface, they seem quite similar. And as those of us who have beenaround know, there have been times when the iBooks have compared extremelyfavorably to the PowerBooks, though currently the distinctions are a bitmore clear-cut.
The last part of this section is designed to throw some light on themurkiness of all the build-to-order options and other add-ons that Appleand many other retailers offer while you're buying a Mac. Should you buy aMac with one or two CPUs? How much RAM do you need? (Lots!) Which opticaldrive makes the most sense? Do you need a larger hard disk? How about afancier video card, and perhaps two monitors? (For many people, I'd arguefor no on the video card, and yes on the multiple monitors.) AirPortExtreme? Bluetooth? (Did you know you can't add Bluetooth afterpurchasing?) Extra batteries or AC adapters? And last, but certainly notleast, should you spring for AppleCare, and if you do, should you buy itfrom Apple? (Yes, at least for laptops, and no, you can get it cheaperelsewhere.)
You can buy a Mac from six main places: local Mac dealers, Apple Stores,computer superstores, Internet- based Mac retailers, the Apple OnlineStore, and other individuals. There are no right answers about where youshould purchase, of course, but there are pros and cons to each of thesevenues, and I go through each one so you can make an informed decision.
There are also three special ways of buying below retail price of whichonly some people can avail themselves; the most notable is, of course, theeducational discount.
I added this section primarily for people who are upgrading from an elderlyMac that couldn't run Mac OS X and which likely had legacy ports like ADB,SCSI, and serial. When the iMac first eliminated the legacy ports in favorof USB and FireWire, there was a great deal written about how to keep olderperipherals in use, but the topic died down as the power users stoppedworrying about it. The necessary adapters for these older devices aregenerally still available, and since millions of Macs with those legacyports and peripherals are still in use, I wanted to make sure people had abasic reference for what they should put some effort into keeping(LocalTalk laser printers) and what they should just toss (external modems,SCSI scanners).
I also included brief discussions of several things that I usuallyrecommend people buy with a new Mac: a laptop case for those who don't havesomething to protect a new iBook or PowerBook, and a UPS (uninterruptiblepower supply) to protect a new desktop Mac from the vagaries of electricalpower. Obviously, they're not essential, but a little protection goes along way.
This last section is related to buying a new Mac only in the sense thatmany people upgrade and aren't sure what to do with Mac being replaced. I'ma great believer in keeping old Macs in active use, since they can be usedfor plenty of things if you're willing to put in a little effort.
For people who can't imagine what an old Mac could be useful for, I providea number of suggestions, and for those who would rather dispose of theirolder Macs, I run through the basic options of handing it down to someonewithout a computer, donating it to charity (and taking a tax break), orselling it. Lastly, if you are sending an old Mac on to a new home, I giveinstructions on how to restore it to a pristine state, which is not onlypolite, it's a good way to ensure that the new owner can't access any ofyour old files.
As with all our ebooks, everyone who buys "Take Control of Buying a Mac" isentitled to free updates to the book. Click the Check For Updates button onthe cover to see if we've released one; you can also sign up to be notifiedvia email on that page. The free updates to this ebook will be particularlyhelpful, since you can buy a copy now to start planning your next Macintoshpurchase and be assured that the ebook won't go obsolete before you need tomake your decisions.
So check out the book, and once you've had a chance to read through it all,let me know what you think. I'm confident my advice will be helpful, inpart because I gave pre-release copies to several acquaintances who askedme the dreaded "What Mac should I buy?" questions, and they reported backthat it was extremely informative (and they immediately bought new Macs).Better yet, Tonya is using my process right now to decide which Mac shewants to replace her 733 MHz Power Mac G4... and this time I won't be ableto quibble if she decides on a fast dual-processor Power Mac G5.
If you'd like to order the 72-page ebook for $5 directly, click the URLbelow; otherwise, the book's Web page at the beginning of this article hasslightly different information and a link to a 20-page excerpt.
ToCEric Schwartz
AmiTech-Dayton Gazette - September 2004
from: http://www.amigamccc.org/
Well, another Computerfest® has come and gone. This year's was thefirst in several that we did not run an official Amigafest, though we didhave a presence that equalled or bettered that of the previous year.Special thanks go out to Mr. Bryant Pedigo from the Amiga user group inIndianapolis, for bringing in his Amiga One system with the pre-releaseversion of Amiga OS4, which generated a great deal of interest. The systemand the new OS, while lacking for a few needed features (it is not a finalrelease, after all) showed itself to be more stable and capable (andfamiliar) than many might expect for a "beta" pre-release. Two of our groupmembers brought their own Pegasos II systems, running MorphOS, so there wasa fair deal of friendly rivalry and feature comparison going on, but noneof that "Blue troll -- Red troll" anger seen on message boards was to befound.
Our groups' tables were placed in the flea market area this year, which, asa fairly central hub for all parts of the Computerfest and MACES(Mid-America Consumer Electronics Show), allowed for some very good foottraffic and exposure. There isn't a lot of opportunity to make animpression on someone walking by, so my Pegasos spent much of its timemultitasking, playing Mp3s with AmiNetRadio, while running a combination ofmusical displays, videos, and emulated games with MAME. I've rarely triedto do as much at once, or as many things I haven't tried before with myPegasos, so I was pleasantly surprised that the machine and its OS handledthe load as well as it did, only needing one reboot as I was shutting downsoftware on the last day.
Overall, it was pleasing to see the interest generated by the new machines,especially the Amiga One. Seems there are a lot of former Amiga users outthere from the original Commodore days, and it takes a lot to catch them upto the Amiga's present (and even more to explain "related" systems like thePegasos). Many folks, often Linux users, seem to want an Amiga OS (orMorph) which runs directly on Intel/PC hardware. Luckily, we were able toshow them to Lora and Andy's table, where they had the Amiga Foreveremulator on display. As I said earlier, we had our own presence atComputerfest this year, not an official "Amigafest" (mostly because we wereunable to lure out any dealers), but in many ways we met or exceeded ourexpectations, even those of previous years, largely because we were able toshow the public no less than three modern Amiga and Amiga-like systems(Amiga One, Pegasos II, and emulation) and make an impact with them,however subtle.
ToCreported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
September 16, 2004 - President Rollins dispensed with officerintroductions since everybody knew everybody. He then thanked Tom Purl forhis demo in the Linux SIG.
Kevin Hisel was the first to welcome Steve Gast back to CUCUG after hisstroke.
Steve asked, "Do you have an HP?" He said it was the only machine that hadtrouble with the Service Pack 2 update of Windows XP. During the discussionit was said that the Windows Update version has a problem doing the SP2update.
Mark Zinzow talked about some cables he got fromhttp://www.cablewholesale.com . He was very happy with them.
Jerry Feltner told everyone about the upcoming hamfest in Peoria thisweekend. You can check it out on http://www.peoriasuperfest.com .
Richard Rollins talked about the Du Page computer show. He said attendancewas really down. He talked about a scanner with a sheet feeder for $29.There were also 21" monitors for $75. He said he and Emil ducked out of theshow and went over to Frey Electronics. He said, "This place is big!" It'sin Downers Grove. Richard said it is big enough to have a restaurant in thecenter of it. RIchard said, "It's like Radio Shack on super steroids. Ifyou want it, they probably have it." He said the prices are good on theadvertised items, but the other things they're just OK. Steve Gast made thecomment that there is a Frey's in San Franscisco. Richard said they alsohave an Apple section, which Emil made a bee line for. RIchard then talkedabout his wireless router.
Tom Purl had free OpenCD, Mepis, and Knoppix CDs available.
Kevin Hisel said he had gone to the new Computer Deli over by Barnes andNoble in Champaign. He said it was a little pricey, but otherwise nice.
ToCreported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The September meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday,September 21, 2004, 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: Richard Rollins, Rich Hall,Kevin Hopkins, Emil Cobb, Tom Purl, and Kevin Hisel.
Richard Rollins: Richard reported that the Linux SIG did GentooLinux and he thanked Tom Purl for doing the demonstration. Richard alsosaid that the PC SIG had done "Favorite Web Sites" at the last meeting.[Editor's Note: Of course, no PC people have been taking notes, so I don'tknow what they were. If you have some favorite sites, send them to me andI'll see they get listed in the newsletter.] When pressed by the newslettereditor for some of the sites, Richard came up with
Richard said there have been no volunteers for a program for next month'sPC SIG.
Rich Hall: Rich reported no money in, no money out.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin had nothing new to report.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that we had 12 members in attendance at the lastmeeting. There was a discussion about these attendance numbers. Steve Gastwas at the last meeting, so there was a discussion about how well he'sdoing.
Emil finished by saying there are no planned program for the Mac SIG nextmonth.
Tom Purl: Tom reported there is no program set for the Linux SIG nextmonth either.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin had nothing new to report.
ToCMeetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at theFirst Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The FBC-CS is located at1602 N. Prospect Avenue in Savoy, on the NE corner of Burwash andProspect. To get to the the First Baptist Church from Champaign orUrbana, take Prospect Avenue south. Setting the trip meter in your carto zero at the corner of Kirby/Florida and Prospect in Champaign(Marathon station on the SW corner), you only go 1.6 miles south.Windsor will be at the one mile mark. The Savoy village sign (on theright) will be at the 1.4 mile mark. Burwash is at the 1.6 mile mark.The Windsor of Savoy retirement community is just to the south; BurwashPark is to the east. Turn east (left) on Burwash. The FBC-CS parking lotentrance is on the north (left) side of Burwash. Enter by the doubledoors at the eastern end of the building's south side. A map can befound on the CUCUG website at http://www.cucug.org/meeting.html. TheFirst Baptist Church of Champaign is also on the web at http://www.fbc-cs.org .
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):
President/WinSIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 Vice-Pres/MacSIG: 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: Kevin Hisel 352-1002 Linux SIG: Tom Purl 390-6078 tompurl2000@yahoo.com
Email us at
912 Stratford Dr.
Champaign, IL
61821
