News Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of themonth: Thursday, November 18th, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Churchof Champaign in Savoy. The Linux SIG convenes, of course, 45 minutesearlier, at 6:15 pm. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of thisnewsletter.
The November 18 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. The LinuxSIG will have Anthony Philipp and Tom Purl presenting some free softwarethat allows you to create, copy, and enjoy multimedia files. They will goover the following topics:
The Macintosh and PC SIGs are open for anything anyone wants to bring in.
ToCCUCUG will soon be electing officers for next year. The offices ofPresident, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Corporation Agent areopen for nominations. The actual election will take place at the December"Annual" meeting. If you'd like to serve your club, or know of someone whoyou would like to see in a position of leadership in CUCUG, be consideringyour nominations. The election guidelines appear later in this newsletter.
ToCIt's that time of year again to renew your membership in CUCUG. We rely onour members and their talents for our strength and vitality. You can renewat any of the meetings remaining this year or through the mail at our P.O.Box address. We sincerely hope to have you with us in the new year.
ToCfrom Mark S. Zinzow
The next PCUG meeting will be this Wednesday, November 17th, from 7 to 9 pmin Room 1310 of the Digital Computer Laboratory (DCL).
I will continue my presentation that began with our Sept. meeting on soundfile software by demonstrating some batch files I've written to automatesome common LAME encoding tasks via the Windows Explorer Sendto menu, andwill review some perl scripts that I have also found to be very usefulincluding:
http://www.lameb.fsnet.co.uk/
Lameb - Lame Batch encoder
Let your PC do the hard work, encoding multiple CDs with id3 tags
http://www.nightmedia.net/docs/convertmp3.html
Converting MP3 files - step by step tutorial using EAC
Perl batch mp3 conversion preserving ID3 tags with LAME
The C64 DTV is coming your way on November 26! How has this informationbeen corroborated? The creator of the device told me so!
C= ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the creator of the C64 DTV30-games-in-one joystick... Jeri Ellsworth. In a long phone call tonight,Jeri revealed to me that Tulip/Ironstone has given permission to revealsome details (but not all) of this reincarnation of the beloved Commodore64.
So much information to sort... well, here goes.
Designers/engineers/troubleshooters of the C64 DTV - Jeri Ellsworth,Jason Compton, Adrian Gonzalez, Robin Harbron, Per Olofsson, and MarkSeelye. Heroes all!
Production details - 250,000 C64 DTV's have been produced or are inproduction at the Mammoth Toys factory, one hour outside of Hong Kong.Presently, only NTSC units are being built. 30,000 units are going to thewarehouse of QVC, the television shopping network.
Vendor details - QVC has theexclusive rights to sell the C64 DTV until the first of the year. (Afterthe first of year... unknown) QVC will start selling the units, startingon November 26. On that first day, QVC will advertise the DTV as "Today'sSpecial Value", which means an ad for it will be shown once an hour. Estimated price - $25 US, though QVC will set its own price. Unknownwhether QVC will sell the DTV from the QVC website.
Note: QVC is looking to sell the DTV against a backdrop of aclassic C64 keyboard and original boxes of the DTV included games (seebelow). If you have good-looking boxes of the games, then let it be known,and your boxes can show up on t.v.!
DTV game details - All games have been legally obtained andmodified for use in the DTV. Games are from Epyx, Hewson, and others. Thegames are: Championship Wrestling, Cyberdyne Warrior, Cybernoid, CybernoidII, Eliminator, Excelon, Firelord, Gateway to Apshai, Impossible Mission,Impossible Mission II, Jumpman Jr., Paradroid, Pitstop, Pitstop II,Ranarama, Silicon Warrior, Speedball, Summer Games, Supercycle, Sword ofFargoal, Tower Toppler, Uridium, Winter Games, World Karate Championship A,World Karate Championship B, Zynaps, (games split out from others)bull-riding, flying disc, sumo-wrestling, and surfing.
DTV details - Exterior color unknown, though pre-productionmodels were black. Two firebuttons, four function buttons. Battery-powered, using four double-A batteries. Lifespan of batteries inthe unit -- long (Jeri says that she has used hers for 5 hours without anysign of the batteries weakening.) Composite video-out. Paper box, noplastic "blister" pack. No second port for connecting another joystick. Warranty unknown at this point.
Nitty-gritty details - The DTV board is roughly the size of aplaying card. Under what look like 3 blobs of epoxy on the board lies acustom ASIC chip at .35 microns. The 6 volts of battery power is regulateddown to 3.3 volts on the board. Jeri emphasizes that the ASIC is verycompatible in terms of being a C64. The DTV is hard-coded to run at 1mhz.. There is 128K RAM and 2 meg of ROM. 256 colors available on-screen. Single SID sound with the 3 voices and "volume" mixed externally. Thesolder pads are there on the board; in other words, enterprising hackerscan solder on a serial port in order to connect a Commodore-compatibledrive and can attach a PC keyboard.
Trivia details - Jeri spent hundreds of hours developing the ASICfor the C64 DTV. In her quest to get the C64 DTV just right, she traveledto China and stayed there for a week, making daily journeys between herhotel in Hong Kong and the Mammoth Toy factory, working usually until 10 atnight. While in China, she tired easily of the food. The people with whomshe had contact spoke English well. Many women had top engineeringpositions at Mammoth Toys.
She also went to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada for a few days to partnerup with Robin Harbron, who worked on converting the games for the DTV.
| Psyched to buy a C64 DTV, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group http://videocam.net.au/fcug |
He and his sister were convicted of sending thousands of illegal junk e-mails
News Story by Linda Rosencrance
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,97229,00.html
NOVEMBER 04, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - A brother and sister were convictedyesterday of three felony charges of sending thousands of junk e-mailsthrough servers located in Virginia, according to Virginia Attorney GeneralJerry Kilgore.
The convictions of Jeremy Jaynes, who was sentenced to nine years inprison, and his sister, Jessica DeGroot, who was fined $7,500, were thenation's first-ever felony spam convictions, Kilgore said in a statement. Athird defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was found not guilty, the attorneygeneral said. The cases were heard in Loudoun County Circuit Court.
The case was prosecuted by members of the attorney general's ComputerCrimes Unit under Virginia's new antispam law, which took effect last year.
"This is a major victory for Virginians and all Americans," Kilgore said inthe statement. "Spam is a nuisance to millions of Americans, but it is alsoa major problem for businesses large and small because the thousands ofunwanted e-mails create havoc as they attempt to conduct commerce."
Jaynes was rated the world's eighth-most prolific spammer by the Registerof Known Spam Operations, Kilgore said.
DeGroot was convicted after prosecutors proved she had used her credit cardto purchase domain names for the purpose of sending spam. Jaynessurrendered to authorities in Raleigh, N.C., last December. DeGroot turnedherself in to authorities in April.
According to the indictment, the spam was sent in 2003 between July 11 andAugust 9. And spam sent on July 16, 19 and 26 of that year exceeded 10,000messages during each 24-hour period, according to the statement. Kilgoresaid those numbers don't reflect the total number of messages sent, becausethey were based solely on actual complaints made by customers to theirInternet service providers.
The indictment also alleged that the sender falsified transmission orrouting information to prevent recipients from knowing who had sent themessages and how to contact the sender.
This falsified information is what makes such spam a crime in Virginia, andthe volume of e-mails sent during the period is what elevated the charge toa felony, according to the statement.
Jaynes' Virginia attorney, David Oblon, could not be reached for comment.
ToCFor those of you who just can't get enough of the last election, here aresome interesting maps summarizing the results.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
Here is another site to ponder over when considering election results.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm
ToChttp://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/11/spark.dvd/index.html
(CNN) -- The electronics and entertainment industries are shaping up forthe biggest format battle since the "video wars" between VHS and Betamax todecide the future of DVD.
Two rival "next generation" DVD formats look set to be launched onto themarketplace next year.
Both are backed by powerful and well-known Japanese manufacturers, witheach staking their claim to an industry worth billions of dollars.
And with the DVD market unlikely to support parallel formats, the loserfaces the prospect of squandering millions spent on research, developmentand marketing costs.
Both "Blu-ray", principally backed by Sony, and "HD DVD", which has beendeveloped by Toshiba, are based on the same basic technology.
Both replace the red lasers found in current DVD machines with blue lasers,utilizing their shorter wavelength to store data at the higher densitiesneeded to record high-definition movies and television.
But with both parties determined to prove the superiority of their product,a protracted dispute could be damaging to the industry as a whole,increasing production costs for DVD manufacturers and making buyers nervousabout investing in a format that could quickly become obsolete.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chaprek recently told the DVDForum, an industry association of 220 electronics and media companies, thatlaunching two formats simultaneously risked "potentially crippling the nextgeneration format" and "utterly confusing or aggravating the customer."
With Blu-ray recorders already on sale in Japan, Toshiba looks set to enterthe fray with HD DVD models early in 2005.
But the real battle looks set for next Christmas, when both major playersplan to have DVD players in the shops.
By that point the entertainment industry, and particularly Hollywood, willlikely have chosen sides; and history suggests that the format with thegreater selection of movies will prevail.
Sony has been stung before by that scenario, having seen its groundbreakingBetamax format starved out of the video market by the wider selection oftitles made available in VHS format.
This time, however, Sony seems to have learnt its lesson. Not only does itnow have VHS pioneers Matsushita, better known for its Panasonic brand, onside but its success with the Playstation games console provides a templatefor a successful marketing campaign.
Despite its limited previous experience in the gaming industry, Sony wasable to corner the market despite competition from Sega and Nintendobecause of the depth and quality of its games range.
Sony is already maneuvering for the fight. In September it announced thatit was adopting Blu-ray as the format for Playstation 3, currentlyscheduled for release in 2006.
And with Sony Pictures already in the Blu-ray camp, a Sony-led consortiumalso recently acquired MGM, along with their back catalogue.
Furthermore, Blu-ray has the backing of Hewlett Packard and Dell, whichtogether control around 30 percent of the global PC market.
"In terms of technology, we have no weak points. Our format is superior onall counts," Sony executive officer Kiyoshi Nishitani said recently.
Toshiba however has not been cowered by Sony's efforts, retaliating toSony's Playstation-Blu-ray collaboration by announcing that it wouldintroduce notebook computers with HD DVD in the last quarter of 2005.
HD DVD is also backed by rival manufacturers Sanyo and NEC while last yearit was also approved by the influential DVD Forum, which has said it willfinally endorse just one format.
Toshiba also claims the support of Time Warner, in which it owns a smallstake and with which it worked closely to establish the current DVDstandard in the mid-1990s.
It has also had senior engineer Hisashi Yamada commuting between Japan andthe U.S. in an effort to court the support of undecided studios such asParamount, Disney and Universal.
"If Sony is so sure it is winning the battle, it wouldn't have felt theneed to buy MGM," says Yamada.
Toshiba claims HD DVD's biggest advantage is the format's low transitionalcosts. Because the discs are physically the same as existing DVDs many ofthe existing components used by DVD manufacturers will still function.
But the monumental task faced by Toshiba and its allies was summed up bythe gadgets weblog Gizmodo, which declared in a recent feature that"Blu-ray has already won."
"Blu-ray is not only technically superior to HD DVD, it has a far strongercorporate backing, and has demonstrated the ability to have more contentavailable to push the format," said Gizmodo.
While a duel layer HD DVD can hold 30GB, a duel layer Blu-ray disc alreadyhas a 50GB capacity, and Sony claim the format could eventually hold asmuch as 200GB on an eight-layered disc.
Sony is also working hard to bring costs down, announcing earlier this yearthat it had developed paper Blu-ray discs.
"I don't think Toshiba will back down," says analyst Carlos Dimas. "Sony isunlikely to give up either. Inevitably there is going to be some confusionin the market and there's going to be another standard war.
"In the initial phase the consumer will probably lose. It is a big risk forpeople who actually buy products for either format without knowing who thewinner is."
But, in case you've only recently made the switch from DVD to video and arealready sweating over the cost of replacing all your favorite films, don'tworry. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD will still play your old DVDs.
---Reuters contributed to this report.
ToCBy Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
November 5, 2004
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1714680,00.asp
Has Microsoft been trying to retroactively claim IP (intellectual property)rights over many of the Internet's basic protocols? Larry J. Blunk, seniorengineer for networking research and development at Merit Network Inc.,believes that might be the case.
Blunk expressed these concerns about Microsoft's Royalty Free ProtocolLicense Agreement in a recent note to the IETF's Intellectual PropertyRights Working Group. Specifically, Blunk suggested that Microsoft seemedto be claiming IP rights to many vital Internet protocols. And by so doing,"Microsoft is injecting a significant amount of unwarranted uncertainty anddoubt regarding non-Microsoft implementations of these protocols," Blunksaid.
Blunk pointed out that Microsoft is claiming some form of IP rights over "atotal of 130 protocols which Microsoft is offering for license."
"Many of the listed protocols are [IETF] RFC [request for comment]documents, including but not limited to the core TCP/IP v4 and TCP/IP v6protocol specifications," he said in his note.
Some of the RFC protocols that Microsoft asserts that it may have IP rightsover, such as the TCP/IP protocols and the DNS (Domain Name System), formthe very bedrock of the Internet's network infrastructure.
"Microsoft does not specify how this list of protocols was derived and towhat extent they have investigated their possible rights holdings overthese protocols," Blunk said. "The list appears to be a near but notcompletely exhaustive list of public protocols implemented in Microsoftproducts.
"It is quite likely that an individual or organization would be intimidatedinto signing the license agreement simply due to Microsoft's vast financialand legal resources," he said. "Further, because Microsoft provides noreference to any proof of applicable rights holdings [such as patentnumbers], it is impossible to ascertain whether Microsoft indeed haslegitimate rights holdings."
Does Blunk, who is an engineer, have a legitimate point with his IP legalconcerns? Several lawyers said they think he does.
Lawrence Rosen, a partner in the law firm Rosenlaw & Einschlag and authorof "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law,"said he thinks Blunk "raises very interesting and important questions."
"As much as I can tell, this is the same license that the open-sourcecommunity found unacceptable in the Sender ID matter," Rosen said."Microsoft now seems to be imposing that agreement on many other potentialIETF standards.
"This is probably Microsoft's strategy, to impose licensing friction in theopen-source distribution process," he said. "IETF's failure to respondappropriately to the Sender ID proposal has left the door wide open forthis mischief."
Click here (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1649726,00.asp) to readabout how the IETF shut down the MARID (MTA Authorization Records in DNS)working group because of Sender ID concerns.
Glenn Peterson, an IP attorney and shareholder with Sacramento-based lawfirm McDonough Holland & Allen, agreed with Blunk "It is not clear to whatdegree, if any, that Microsoft has enforceable intellectual property rightsin the 130 protocols identified in the so-called 'royalty-free' licenseagreement."
"Thus, by signing the agreement as it presently stands, one might beagreeing to certain things gratuitously, meaning simply that the licenseeagrees to give Microsoft continuing control over how the protocols areused," Peterson said. "Among other things, the agreement gives Microsoftongoing control over enhancements and updates, including the right tocharge a license for them in the future."
"The Technical Documentation compliance requirement ensures that Microsoftmaintains control over interoperations and improvements to the protocols,"he said, adding that this is of even more concern. "Basically, it prohibitsresearchers from making enhancements designed to improve interoperativeperformance."
Moving along, Peterson said, "The agreement also allows Microsoft toterminate the licensee on 30 days' notice, and subjects the licensee to thejurisdiction of Washington state courts. It further provides that Microsoftrecover legal fees incurred in any dispute over the agreement."
What this all adds up to is that the "lack of specificity of rightsholdings combined with the restrictive requirements of the agreement areboth cause for concern and require further discussion," Peterson said."Without refinement and clarification of the rights actually conveyed inthe agreement, licensees may be shackling themselves with significantcontractual burdens that would not apply in the public domain."
"To me, this looks a lot like Tom Sawyer's unpainted fence. Thought to be agrand opportunity at first, Huck Finn soon realized that he was justpainting someone else's fence for free," Peterson said.
Microsoft, however, has said it believes the issue is really just amisunderstanding.
"Microsoft is aware of the letter to the IAB and is working on a responseto the concerns raised by the letter author and on providing clarity aboutour participation in standards-setting activities," said Mark Martin, aMicrosoft spokesperson. "In the end, we believe this is simply amisunderstanding which we are working hard to clarify."
ToCby Charles Maurer
TidBITS#755/15-Nov-04
In my last article, "Sense & Sensors in Digital Photography," I tried tocut through some of the mythology about image sensors and bring somesense to the subject. Today I shall explain what I look for whenexamining a camera for purchase. Instead of doing this in the abstract,I shall detail my thinking earlier this year when I bought my lastcamera, a Sigma SD-10. You will have different needs than I, but thisapproach ought to help you figure out what features may be important andwhat gadgetry to ignore. This article will also provide a detailedreview of the SD-10.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07860>
<http://www.sigma-photo.com/html/Cameras_sd10.htm>
The first question to ask yourself is what you want to use the camerafor. Be very specific here. The more specific you are, the easier yourdecision will be. I defined three uses: (1) to take portraits offriends, some to be framed and some for use as publicity photos, (2) toprovide illustrations for a book I am working on, and (3) to takepictures during a month of hiking in the Himalaya. The publicitypictures and illustrations need to be of commercial quality and theillustrations require maximal flexibility. For the Himalayan shots Iwanted sufficient clarity and detail that I might enlarge them to theposter size and hang them on a wall. I still owned my professionalworkhorse, a 2-1/4" x 3-1/4" rangefinder camera that offers all theswings and tilts of a view camera. I did not want to buy a digitalcamera offering less control or quality.
Once you have clarified the camera's purpose, you can decide on thelevel of image sensor that you need. That was the subject of theprevious article, so I shall not discuss it here. Do read it now if youhave not. For me the answer was clear: I wanted either the best of theBayer sensors or the larger Foveon.
Knowing the sensor and your purpose, you can decide on the level ofcamera. I put digital cameras into three categories: (1) simplepoint-and-shoot, (2) fully featured but compact, with a lens that isfixed to the body and cannot be swapped for another, and (3) fullyfeatured with interchangeable lenses. I own the first and, forconvenience, I would have preferred to buy the second, but to obtain theversatility and quality that I wanted, I had to buy the third. A checkthrough the database at Digital Photography Review showed me that mychoices were a Sigma SD-10 that cost $1,500 including two lenses, ormodels from Kodak and Canon that cost $5,000 and $8,000 for the bodyalone (i.e., the camera with the lenses yet to buy). I had no intentionof spending more than $5,000, especially for technology that is changingso quickly and for electronic devices that usually prove impractical torepair a few years down the line. For me the choice was either the SD-10or sticking with what I had.
Since I wanted big blow-ups that would compare to those from my 2-1/4" x3-1/4" camera, I first checked to see whether the SD-10 could providethem. I downloaded a raw image from Sigma's Web site, an image thatappeared to be taken with a tripod and that would be a hard test of asensor and lens, then I enlarged the image to 30" x 44" using PhotoZoomPro (see the previous article) and had the image printed out. I couldsee excessive colour fringing and other flaws but they would have beencorrectable with software. Even without any other image-processing, theoverall appearance was surprisingly good. I decided to examine thecamera in person.
I have three absolute requirements for any level of camera. The first isthat all menus be labeled in English. Chinese ideograms are notmemorable. When I am taking a picture, I do not want to have to look upin an instruction book what some hieroglyphics on a camera's display aresupposed to mean. If a menu isn't in English, it might as well not bethere. If all the menus are not in English, I do not want the camera, nomatter how good it is, not matter how cheap it is, no matter what. TheSD-10 has menus in English, so I looked further.
Second, if I am to use a camera, I must be able to see through itsviewfinder. I must be able to see clearly and sharply the entire framewhile wearing my glasses. Many cameras do not permit this even withsimple eyeglasses, and I wear graduated lenses that are the equivalentof trifocals. The eyepiece of the SD-10 can be adjusted to let me seesharply through the portion of my glasses that I need to look through.It also lets me see the entire frame, because the viewfinder shows a lotmore than the frame. This extra space is convenient for composition andis one reason I liked my big rangefinder camera. It compensates for oneawkwardness: glasses make it difficult to see a digital readout that isat the very bottom of the viewfinder, below the extra space.
The third requirement is that I be able to focus the camera reliably. Acamera's focusing system affects sharpness more than almost anythingelse and focusing can be more problematic than it seems. Focusinglooks easy in a good rangefinder camera, because lines suddenly line up,but this is merely a precise display. The display can mask any amount oferror in the shape of the cam that actually adjusts the lens. Asingle-lens reflex camera (SLR) has no hidden mechanism - what you seeought to be what you get - but eyes are not built to focus cameras.Nobody can see the point of sharpest focus, all we can do is move thelens back and forth through that point, notice when the focus begins toget worse on either side, and try to find the midpoint. Few cameras arestill made with big, bright, optical focusing systems, becauseelectronic focusing systems are cheaper to make and easier to sell, yetmost electronic devices have coarser discrimination than the eye, andthey have other weaknesses as well, like motors that cannot stopinstantaneously. On top of that, no automatic focusing system can knowwhat it is that you want to focus on, all it can do is focus on themiddle of the frame.
When I tried to focus the SD-10 with the cheap lens that came with it, Ialmost decided not to buy the camera. The small, dim image in theviewfinder did not facilitate manual focusing, and the automaticfocusing did not always put the lens at the same place when I startedwith the lens set too close and when I started with the lens set too faraway. However, after playing with the camera for a while, I concludedthat when I pointed the camera at something easy to focus on, thevariability in the automatic focusing was no worse than my ownvariability and was probably close enough, considering the depth offield. I still do not like it but I have been able to make it work. Themost important factor to getting well focused pictures has proven to bea switch on the lens that turns automatic focusing on and off. I switchit on, depress the shutter halfway to focus on what I want to, switch itoff, then frame and take the photo. For maximum reliability I havelearned to do this habitually. I also focus with the zoom lens extendedwhenever I can. I still mistrusted the system enough to buy a magnifierfor the viewfinder (Nikon's fits), but I have found it to beunnecessary. More important is a better lens that has a larger apertureand thus is brighter. Such a lens makes it easier to focus manually inlight that is too dim for the autofocus.
The criteria above are absolute requirements for me. Since the SD-10 metthem, I examined it further.
One advantage of digital cameras is that you can see if your photographis acceptable before you leave the scene - if you can see it, that is. Aliquid-crystal display (LCD) on the back needs to be bright enough to bevisible in bright sun. On the other hand, you need to be able to dim itenough that you can stand to use it at night. The SD-10 offers threelevels of brightness, which I have found to be sufficient. The SD-10also comes with a transparent plastic cover to protect the LCD. Fortaking pictures that cover stays in place but you can pop it off to usethe menus.
On a digital camera, a perfect exposure will record specular reflectionsof the sun as pure white but will record any whites containinginformation that matters with enough tonality - just enough tonality -to show detail. A histogram on the LCD ought to inform you of thisclearly. The SD-10 does this well. It overlays the three colour channels(red, green and blue), and if you click the + button to enlarge theimage, it graphs only the enlarged portion. This approach beats any formof exposure meter hands down. I take a very quick picture withoutaiming, check that the highlights are properly exposed, make anynecessary adjustment, then take the picture for real.
Colour slide film is designed for a range of seven f/stops betweenhighlights and shadows that are not completely white or black. Squeezingsunlit scenes into this range can be a trick. Digital sensors need tohave at least this much "dynamic range," and more is better. Much moreis much better. For pictorial photography, dynamic range usually mattersmore than resolution. It doesn't matter if the sensor is able to resolvefine detail on an object if you cannot see the object at all because itis buried in shadow. You can do a quick-and-dirty test of dynamic rangeeven in a camera shop by systematically underexposing photos of aphotographic grey scale. I found the dynamic range of the SD-10 to beremarkable. If highlights are correctly exposed, shadows can be 10 to 11stops darker yet still retain some coarse detail. The pair ofscreenshots (linked below) from Sigma's PhotoPro software show howeasily and effectively this detail can be extracted. This photo wasexposed perfectly for the highlights. The dark version shows a normaldynamic range, about what a colour slide would have shown. The lightversion shows additional detail in the shadows that was recorded by thesensor and brought out by the Tonal Adjustment sliders.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/755/MonkRaw.jpg>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/755/MonkAdjusted.jpg>
Although digital cameras offer you a choice of film speeds or "ISO"speeds - sensitivity would be a better term than speed - there isactually no ISO standard that can be applied sensibly to digitalcameras. That's why I am putting quotation marks around "ISO." I havenever seen a credible comparison of the sensitivity or exposure-meteringof two digital cameras, nor do I think it's particularly important,since any differences are likely to be small and you can see theexposures instantly. However, I was curious to see how carefully theSD-10 was calibrated, so after I bought it, I checked it at "ISO" 100.In sunlight and in normal room light, the exposure metering on thecamera agreed almost perfectly (to within 1/3 of an f-stop) with mystudio exposure meter. When I photographed a scale of calibrated greysat different exposures, the correctly exposed 95-percent white wasexactly where it ought to be, 2/3 to 1 stop below washing out. (Notethat with a digital camera, increasing the "ISO" speed does not make thesensor more sensitive, it amplifies the signal and, at the same time, itamplifies the noise. "ISO" 100 is normal for most cameras and speeds upto 1600 are commonly available, but any speed over 400 is not likely tolook very good.)
Some cameras offer a choice of metering modes - spot, segment, averaging- so you can choose the one most likely to be accurate for the picture youare about to take. This is the sort of silly featuritis that makes so manyelectronic devices difficult to use. There is no point to trying to figureout how to set the meter to read a scene the most accurately, it's as fastand more certain to take a quick test picture and adjust the control thatnudges the automatic exposure up or down. Automatic exposure-bracketing isalmost as useless: there is rarely reason to bracket exposures when you canidentify the correct exposure when you make it. The SD-10 dedicatespush-buttons and primary display space to both of these "features."
Something else I can't see worrying about is how the camera reproducescolour. As I explained in "Colour & Computers" in TidBITS-749_, this istantamount to complimenting or castigating an amoeba on its figure.There is even less reason to worry about the colour reproduction oflenses. If a lens tints the image that it projects onto the sensor, thetint will be systematic and slight, and it will be correctedautomatically by whatever software converts the raw image into a usableone.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07840>
It is possible and highly desirable for a camera to compensate somewhatfor camera shake by moving the sensor in the direction opposite theshake. The SD-10 does not do this. Sigma sells a telephoto lens thatdoes, but the feature would be more useful built into the camera.
Speed of operation is a weakness with many digital cameras. They cantake a long time to switch on and there can be long delays forprocessing the picture and writing it to memory. Check out any camera tomake sure its speed is adequate for your purposes. The SD-10 respondsquickly but takes long enough to process each picture that sometimes Ifind myself waiting for it to catch up. Fortunately, there is aworkaround for this problem that is more practical than it may sound:have the camera combine two or four pixels into one, to halve or quarterthe amount of data that it processes for each exposure. Although thisapproach reduces resolution, usually when I need to take a lot of framesquickly, I have little control over the lighting or the subject. Inthese situations, the overall quality of the picture is rarely optimalso the loss of resolution will never be noticed. On the SD-10, mediumresolution still records as much information as can be reproduced on afull page of a glossy magazine. See the last article, "Sense & Sensorsin Digital Photography," for a discussion of this topic.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07860>
Dust is the bete noire of image sensors. In almost every camera withinterchangeable lenses, dust wafts into the camera whenever you remove alens, then it lands on the sensor and creates innumerable specks in anenlargement. Preventing dust from entering the camera saves a lot oftime cleaning up pictures. The SD-10 covers the opening behind the lenswith a sheet of transparent plastic. Some dust manages to get on thesensor anyway but much less than the norm.
For studio photography, it is useful to be able to plug the camera intoa laptop computer and see your pictures immediately at a reasonablesize. The SD-10 can connect by USB or FireWire. When connected byFireWire, pictures show up in Sigma's PhotoPro application in seconds.To light the poster linked below, I used four strobes and three halogenlamps. I found it quicker and easier to balance them and find theexposure by viewing the image than by using a meter.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/748/HectorVasquez.jpg>
Digital cameras incur hidden costs for memory cards. Price them early inyour shopping. In this respect the SD-10 has a significant advantageover its competition: it stores raw images from its Foveon sensor inonly one-half the space required by an equivalent Bayer sensor (see mycomparison of the sensors in "Sense & Sensors in Digital Photography").Also, writing a picture to memory can take a while and some cards arefaster than others. Lexar make some of the faster cards and use someproprietary technology they call write-acceleration. The SD-10 supportsLexar's write-acceleration technology.
Another hidden cost with digital cameras is spare batteries, especiallyif the batteries are proprietary. I planned to use my camera far fromelectricity in the Himalaya, so it had to run on disposable batteries.The SD-10 uses AA or CR-V3 batteries but it turned out that they need tobe lithium cells. Despite what the manual says, other kinds don't work.Also, I have found the SD-10's battery life to be disconcertingly short,especially in cool temperatures.
Long before the batteries die, they act dead then come to life for a fewpictures after the battery tray is removed and replaced, and they willcontinue do this a number of times. It looks to me as though thecamera's tolerance for both internal resistance and voltage drop areunrealistically demanding. A second pair of batteries in parallel seemedcalled for and can be had by buying an accessory grip/power-pack ($130)that screws onto the base. I bought one immediately upon my return fromIndia. It adds a bit of weight and size, but in compensation, it makesthe camera more comfortable to use. On the other hand, it leaves thecamera wobbly on a tripod. I tried it with ordinary alkaline cells andit worked, but only for a short while. (For an explanation of howbatteries fail in digital cameras, see page 9 of this discussion ofbattery recycling.)
<http://www.ife.ee.ethz.ch/~zinniker/batak/ICBR2003_Zinniker.pdf>
For snapshots, a built-in flash is useful. Outdoors, it is oftenconvenient to have a built-in flash to fill in shadows. I wanted one forthe latter purpose especially, but the SD-10 does not have one, so Ibought a Sigma on-camera unit purportedly designed for the SD-10. Thisflash zooms (with a scale for a 35mm cameras), bounces in alldirections, and adjusts its exposure automatically. Like all such units,I find it top-heavy, gimmicky, and inaccurate. Indoors I prefer a largeflash with a handle that I can detach from the camera, hold at arm'slength, and point toward a wall. Fortunately, I have not yet had to usethe thing. I bought it primarily for fill light in the field but thecamera's broad dynamic range and a "Fill Light" adjustment in Sigma'ssoftware have obviated it.
Assessing quality of construction is not high on my list because I haveno idea what on a digital camera is likely to break, aside from obviousthings like hinges and latches. In my experience, the structures thatfail in electronic boxes are rarely visible or predictable; they areusually things like solder joints, foil traces, and the contacts ofswitches. If the outside of the camera is mostly plastic - well, theairplane that delivered it used a lot of plastic too, and the SD-10 doeshave metal innards. What gives me comfort is a camera by Kodak. TheSD-10 shares many, if not most, of its mechanical parts with one ofKodak's newest professional cameras and feels comparable mechanically.If Kodak's camera turns out to be a hunk of junk, it will be a veryexpensive hunk of junk aimed at a market that values reliability aboveall else, so their engineers must have reason to think that Sigma knowhow to construct a camera.
Most camera buffs wax expansively and expensively on the necessity ofgood lenses and which are the best. This strikes me as the last thing toworry about. As I explained in "Sense & Sensors in Digital Photography,"the only way to tell the difference between lenses is to compareidentical test photos shot on a tripod. Unless the lens has an unusualamount of colour fringing or distortion, nobody will ever look at aphoto and say, "Gee, the lens you used was a dog."
That said, some lenses do produce objectionable amounts of colourfringing, especially when used on digital cameras. I don't know whydigital cameras show it more. I've read lots of hypotheses, but none canexplain the problem completely, and digital cameras sure can show a lotof colour fringing. Look at the inset close-up of the cello's endpin inthe photo linked previously. (The upper photo shows its original state.As discussed in "Editing Photographs for the Perfectionist" inTidBITS-748_, I used Asiva Shift+Gain to even out the lighting on thecello and clean up the colour fringing.) Unfortunately, this problem isexacerbated by the Foveon sensor, which can produce a fringe every bitas sharp as the line that is fringed. A Bayer sensor would be a littleless sharp but a little more forgiving.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07832>
Even expensive lenses on film cameras can be freakish. I used to swearat a Leitz 90mm lens that I bought for my megabuck Leica M4s. It wassufficiently problematic that Leitz replaced it. The replacementfocused more accurately but was no better optically. To maintaincontrast and to avoid artifacts from flare light (optical noise), I hadto use it more carefully than any other lens I owned.
Brochures often display graphs of modulation transfer functions (MTF)that purport to summarize the optical quality of a lens. However, thosegraphs are the results of a simplified mathematical model. Even if youcan visualize image quality from them - I certainly cannot - you willnot visualize, because they do not capture, unpredictable flaws like theblue in the cello's endpin. Neither do fancy diagrams of lens elementsmean anything, nor the number of asymmetrical elements, nor the numberof elements of exotic glass. The design of a lens is an art, not ascience. If a lens uses a lot of elements, all you know is that theartist used a lot of paint.
I really don't know any sensible way to compare lenses without tryingthem. Indeed, I don't always know what "better" means. Imagine twolenses: when the sun is behind you, one gives a sharper picture, butwhen the sun is in front of you, the other one does. Which is better?Since software can correct most deficiencies, it strikes me that themost important factor is not the degree of perfection but the degree ofperfectibility. Consider two marginal lenses. One is soft but consistentand can be sharpened digitally; the other is sharper but showsoccasional failings that cannot be helped. I would prefer the former.
I do share the prejudice that expensive lenses are likely to be better,but "likely" is an important qualifier. Ease of production, the size ofproduction runs, and marketing arrangements can all have significanteffects on price. When I bought film cameras, I indulged my prejudiceand bought only expensive lenses. I knew that this was silly - one of myLeicas' lenses made this manifest - but I found commercial film shootsso stressful that I wanted to feel as though I was doing everything Icould to minimize the risk of something's going wrong. Digitalphotography is different, though. Digital images appear instantly andthey are malleable. With digital cameras I cannot see any reason to buythe dubious insurance of an expensive brand name.
The most important thing to consider about lenses is not their qualitybut the optical perspective they provide. Imagine that you are standinga few feet back from a small window looking out at your garden. Youdon't see it all but the part that you do see looks natural. Now imaginethat somehow your entire garden becomes squeezed into the purview of thewindow. You would see everything in the garden, but the garden wouldlook bizarre. Next imagine that the window were a photograph. The lenson the camera would have created the perspective of that photograph. Alens "seeing" the same angle as your eye would create a realisticphotograph, a lens "seeing" more than your eye would create a distortedphotograph.
The eye can take in a scene about 45 degrees wide without moving. Whenyou look at an enlarged photograph, you will probably tend to hold it sothat it subtends an angle of about 45 degrees around your eye. For thisreason, if you are looking at an enlargement, a lens that "sees" about45 degrees will usually provide the most normal perspective. Smaller andlarger angles of view distort perspective. There is a range of whatlooks incontestably natural, and it is not clearly defined, but thisrange does not extend beyond 20-30 degrees on the narrow end or 60-70degrees on the wide end. Narrower and wider angles of view begin todistort perspective. This distortion can be effective artistically ifhandled with care, but it is distortion nonetheless. Although distortioncan make quite a splash, it does not usually wear well.
In round numbers, with 35mm cameras, the range of natural perspective iscovered by lenses running from 30mm or 35mm to 80mm or 90mm. Nowadays,most cameras come with a zoom lens that cover this range. Often the lenswill cover more than this range. Lenses that zoom over a wider rangesell more cameras, so manufacturers push zoom ratios as they pushmegapixels. However, image quality tends to deteriorate rapidly withfocal length, not for optical reasons but because longer lenses magnifythe effect of a shaky hand. This problem is amplified by the small sizeof most digital image sensors. When you halve or quarter the size of theimage, the same amount of movement doubles or quadruples the blur. Idon't want to find out from blurry pictures that I slid accidentallyinto a focal length that demanded a tripod, so I do not want ageneral-purpose lens that extends beyond the equivalent of 80mm or 90mm.
That said, if I am buying a camera with interchangeable lenses, I dowant to have a lot of focal lengths available. For my SD-10 I boughtadditional lenses above and below the normal range. My observations ofseven lenses for the SD-10 will come at the end of the article.
Most people think of digital cameras as optical devices, as ordinarycameras with electronic gadgetry replacing film. I think it's moresensible to see them as digital computers, digital computers that arefed by optical devices instead of spinning disks. Some sensors feed moreinformation than others but as I showed in "Sense & Sensors in DigitalPhotography," the differences are smaller than they seem. Far greaterdifferences come with the way that the image is processed, with the wayit is interpolated, balanced, cleaned of noise, and sharpened.
To convert a raw image into a usable one, a typical image- processingprogram will:
The image-processing program in a camera does all of this by defaultwith every picture it touches. Needless to say, it cannot look at thepicture and do this knowledgeably, it can only follow rules. Mostreviews of digital cameras examine JPEG files produced by the cameras,so they are really not examining the quality of the optics and sensor,they are examining the results of the algorithms employed by thebuilt-in image-processing software.
If you are satisfied with snapshots from a point-and-shoot film camera,then a digital camera's built-in image-processing will do fine, but itwill never extract the most from a picture or enable the bestenlargements. You can change the camera's settings, but a camera doesnot offer anything like the convenience and control of a personalcomputer. For me, and I suspect for many TidBITS readers, it makes moresense to buy a camera that will save files in a raw, unprocessed format,and do all of the processing afterwards on a computer.
The SD-10 is unique among digital cameras in that it does no digitalprocessing whatsoever. To me this is a significant advantage. Not havingthis software built in markedly simplifies the camera's menus. With theSD-10, it is never necessary to negotiate a complicated tree of commandswith lots of hidden submenus. If I want to change the brightness of theLCD, I can see immediately how to do it. Furthermore, with the SD-10 itis not possible to lose pictures by leaving some image-processingparameter in the wrong setting.
For processing images, Sigma provides a program called PhotoPro. Atfirst blush PhotoPro is disappointing. It looks and feels like a portfrom Windows, it embeds a Windows sRGB profile (see "Colour &Computers"), it hogs the CPU while idling in the background, and,incredible for a graphics package on the Mac, it does not "know" aboutthe monitor's calibration, so that the colour you see in PhotoPro is notthe same as the colour you see in Photoshop or iPhoto or coming off yourprinter. Nevertheless, PhotoPro's controls are so simple and implementedso well that I prefer it to the raw-file converter in Photoshop. (Seethe screenshots linked above for a look at PhotoPro's interface.) If youwant to adjust pictures individually, PhotoPro provides excellent tools,and if you want to save a folder full of files automatically as JPEGs,it can do that too. Moreover, if you also copy the raw files to yourhard drive, you can always revert to them to redo something.
All in all, I think buying the SD-10 proved to be a sensible decision,considering what I wanted it for. The camera is priced for amateurs, butit feels and functions like a professional camera and I can extractpictures from it that look as though I had shot them on 2-1/4" x 3-1/4"film. I could not ask for more.
Although the SD-10 suits my purposes, it may not suit yours. I amwilling to put enough time into pictures to perfect them; you may notbe. If you prefer to trade time for money, a full-frame Bayer sensorwill give comparable potential quality with less care. A Bayer sensorthe size of the SD-10's Foveon sensor will be a bit more limited inoverall quality but more forgiving. If you have been happy with thequality of 35mm film, then you may be served just fine by a more compactcamera with a smaller sensor.
Whatever you decide, if you are buying anything more than apoint-and-shoot, do consider your computer alongside the camera. As Ishowed in "Sense & Sensors in Digital Photography," the amount ofinformation in pictures is much less than people think. What matters tothe eye is less the amount of information than how that information ispresented, how clearly the information makes it through blur, grain,pixelation, and other forms of visual noise. The camera codes opticalinformation plus optical and electronic noise; a computer decodes all ofthose into a visible image and removes the noise. Although this computeris usually buried inside the camera, you can use your Mac instead.Better software is available for your computer than for your camera.That is why I started this series with an article on image-processingsoftware ("Editing Photographs for the Perfectionist," linked above).Before you buy a camera, skim that article to get an idea of what ispossible and what you might be willing to do. Keep that in mind when youdecide what to look for and consider the cost of the software when youshop.
Finally, for Canadian readers, I should like to add a little aboutbuying these products in Canada. In March, 2004, I tried to find anSD-10 in a shop. I could not. While I was asking around, two salesmenwarned against my buying any Sigma camera, not because of the productbut because of Sigma's Canadian distributor, Gentec International. Icame to see why. Gentec never had in stock a single item that I wantedto buy or that I wanted to borrow for this review. Everything had toawait delivery from Japan. Predicted delivery was sometimes weeks butmore often months, and prices were higher than in the U.S., where Icould buy the product off the shelf. I was expected to purchase theproducts sight unseen, yet they were so unusual that no shop wouldcountenance their return for any reason. I hate to say it but the onlypractical vendors for these products are mail-order houses in the U.S.Not only are they faster and cheaper, they are more likely to acceptreturns. If you ever need to return something and recover the tax, thepaperwork required is the one-page "Informal Adjustment Request" formB2G that can be downloaded from:
<http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/E/pbg/cf/b2g/b2g-02b.pdf>
I have tried seven lenses with the SD-10. Except as noted, all of themseem to be well constructed, but all of them tend to produce colourfringing toward the corners that is broad enough to be noticeable inenlargements if you are looking for it. Except as noted I based myjudgements of sharpness on test pictures made at infinity.
The cheapest basic lens is an 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom that Sigma packageswith a couple of kits. (It's not priced on its own but adds $10 or $100to the other items.) At 50mm this lens seems respectably sharp but at24mm and 18mm it seems softer. The lens often shows excessive colourfringing and below 50mm it suffers from convex "barrel" distortion thatis asymmetrical, so that it cannot be corrected perfectly with software.The lens feels cheaply built and is slow (dim) enough to make focusingdifficult in dim light, although closing down the aperture only onef-stop brings it almost to maximum sharpness. If I spend enough time infront of the computer, I can make most of its pictures look as good asany - its images are usually perfectible - but I do not think it iscomparable in quality to the camera.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/18_50_DC.htm>
In the last few months Sigma started offering an alternative, an 18-50mmf/2.8 zoom (street price $500). I borrowed one to review and decided tobuy it. It shows less colour fringing, especially at 50mm, itsdistortion is more symmetrical, and it is sharper at 24mm and 18mm. Itis maximally sharp from f/5.6 through f/11 at all focal lengths. Thislens complements the camera nicely.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/18_50_EX_DC.htm>
The cheapest telephoto lens available is a 55mm-200mm f/4-5.6 zoom(street price $140). On an SD-10, 200mm is the equivalent of 340mm on a35mm camera. That is the equivalent of 8x binoculars. It reaches out sofar that sharp pictures of distant objects require not just a tripod butalso clear air without thermal currents. This lens feels so cheapmechanically that I mistrust it, but it is competent optically and issmall and light. As a telephoto to carry for casual use it would beappropriate for anybody, amateur or professional. For maximum sharpnessthe aperture needs to be closed down two or three f-stops.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/55_200_DC.htm>
For my last article, I borrowed Sigma's latest 50mm f/2.8 macro (streetprice $250). Since I had it in the house, I compared to the 18-50mmf/2.8 at 50mm. At infinity the macro lens was a little softer and moresensitive to flare. Since a macro lens is designed for close-up work, Ialso tested it on a copy stand. There it was a little sharper. At bothdistances the zoom lens showed less colour fringing. I would buy themacro only for technical work. For all pictorial photography, includingextreme close-ups, I would prefer the zoom.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/50_DG.HTM>
For a wider wide-angle lens, I bought a 14mm f/2.8 (street price $900).This lens is big and heavy. With 35mm it pushes some limits of practicaloptics and with the SD-10 it is a mixed blessing. When the sun is behindme, and there isn't much white in the picture, and I am very far awayfrom everything in the photo, it is respectably sharp from f/8 throughf/16 with no more colour fringing than the usual. At distances closerthan a very distant infinity, the corners soften. Where the picturecontains a lot of contrast, flare light softens the image further andincreases colour fringing, sometimes to remarkable amounts. Also, whenthe sun is near the subject, the lens tends to produce severereflections that cannot be corrected at all. It has noticeable barreldistortion as well, although that can be corrected.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/14_ex.htm>
I dislike the 14mm, so for this review, I borrowed the only alternative,a 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 (street price $670). It is even bigger and alsostretches practical optics for 35mm, but it has an opposite character.Compared to the 14mm, in front-lighted, distant scenes without muchwhite, it looks softer, but in other circumstances it looks sharper inthe corners and sometimes in the centre as well. It shows similar barreldistortion but very little colour fringing and no untoward disturbancefrom flare light. It is more difficult to focus and slower, but itcovers a wider angle and zooms through a range of focal lengths. I don'tparticularly care for this lens either but I prefer it to the 14mm. Whenstopped down to f/11 or f/16 its softness can be overcome with FocusMagic, whereas nothing can fix some of the 14mm's flaws. Compared to the18-50mm f/2.8 zoom at 18mm and 24mm, the 12-24mm is usually softer butit has less colour fringing and distortion and is comparable insharpness at f/16, which is beyond the peak of the 18-50mm. Forarchitectural and landscape photography, to maximize depth of field Ioften stop down to f/16. In this circumstance I would choose the12-24mm. I am going to replace the 14mm with this lens, but I am alsogoing to hope that Sigma come out with a 12mm or 14mm lens that isdesigned for the SD-10 and works better.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/12_24_ex.htm>
The 15mm fish-eye (street price $450) is of modest size although it,too, is designed to cover 35mm film. On an SD-10 it covers only a littlemore than the 14mm lens but it provides a unique perspective. It is afish-eye perspective, so that straight lines end up curved, but only thecentral portion of the image is captured on the small sensor of theSD-10, so the curvature is not severe. On the other hand, unlike anordinary wide-angle lens, it does not magnify objects near corners andit does not distort any angles. This means that for scenes containing nostraight lines, the lens provides a more natural perspective. Thedifference is subtle but to my eye it is significant. I carried thislens and the 14mm in the Himalaya. I rarely used the 14mm, but I usedthis one often. It's maximally sharp from f/5.6 through f/11 and is thesharpest of the three wide-angle lenses.
<http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/pages/15_ex.htm>
None of the wide-angle lenses accepts a filter in front; they acceptonly gelatin filters in back, but that is of little consequence. Withall digital cameras, software supplants colour- balancing filters and Iwas pleasantly surprised to find that with the SD-10, software alsosupplants polarizing filters for their primary use, which is to increasethe saturation of colours that are washed out by the glare of the sun.(I don't know about polarizers with other digital cameras, because Idon't know why they aren't necessary on the SD-10.) On the SD-10, theonly use I have found for a polarizing filter is to reduce patternedreflections off windows and water, but that use is more common inphotography books than in the field.
All of these lenses can be fitted to many cameras besides the SD-10 butI have no idea how they would work on any other camera. The opticalcharacteristics of an image sensor interact with the lens in so manyways that I do not know how to divorce the two.
ToCPayBITS: If Charles's approach to buying a camera helped
you, he asks that you make a donation to Doctors Without
Borders: <http://www.doctorswithoutborders-usa.org/donate/>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Paul Thurrott
http://www.wininformant.com/
The Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) team has been making the rounds this week,doing a bit of damage control in the wake of the recent release of browseralternative Mozilla Firefox 1.0, and I got to speak with IE Product ManagerGary Schare yesterday. Schare made a lot of good points, which I'll summarizein a Windows IT Pro UPDATE commentary on Tuesday, but I want to discuss onepoint now. Several other publications have misreported Schare's comments aboutfuture IE versions, so let me clarify. The IE 6 security features thatMicrosoft released in XP SP2 won't be back-ported to other Windows versions, hesaid, although Microsoft will continue to issue security patches and fixes forIE 6 on all supported Windows versions. As for future versions, the next IErelease will ship as part of Longhorn, not earlier, and will include many ofthe features users have been requesting, such as (likely) tabbed browsing. Thecompany has no plans to ship any IE upgrades or add-ons before then. However,considering the success that MSN and third-party developers have had shippingIE add-ons, the IE team is leaving open the possibility that it couldtheoretically ship an add-on of some sort for IE 6 users between now and theLonghorn release. Again, the company has no plans to actually do so at thistime.
Dell, the world's largest PC company, announced record earnings and a 25percent jump in profits for its most recent quarter. The company logged a netincome of $846 million on sales of $12.5 billion and noted that demand for itsPCs, especially from businesses, has risen dramatically. Indeed, Dell's salesto businesses increased 20 percent in the quarter, well ahead of the 12 percentindustry average, and Dell's sales in the United States are growing 3.7 timesfaster than any of the competition. The company also made market share gainsand now owns 18.1 percent of the worldwide PC market, up from 16.9 percent inthe same quarter a year ago. Dell also announced that it expects sales for thecurrent quarter to improve 20 percent over the same quarter a year ago.
I received several e-mail messages from beta testers this morning stating thatMicrosoft has issued new beta versions of the x64-based Windows 2003 SP1 and XPversions that run on AMD64- and Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T)-based systems. Interim release build 1260 is now available to testers,according to the e-mail announcement readers forwarded to me. The Windows 2003version is particularly interesting because it includes the long-awaitedSecurity Configuration Wizard, which uses the roles-based administrationfeatures in Windows 2003 to lock down unnecessary server ports and services.
ToC-Kevin Hisel
The free version of the AVG Anti-Virus program was recently updated to V7.0.It's slicker and seems to have a few more options available compared to theprevious version. But here's the downside: AVG maintains a lousy update server.Downloads of new virus definitions are slow or sometimes can't connect at alldepending on how busy the server is. There's an easy solution in V6.0 whichinvolves making some very minor modifications to the url.ini file but this doesnot seem to be possible in v7.0 as the server name is hard coded in many placesin the executable file.
I installed v7.0 to try it out about noon on a Saturday and I was never able toeven connect to the update server. So, I uninstalled v7.0 and reinstalled v6.0and made the change to the url.ini file and I'm back in business.
If you're curious about the v7.0 free AVG client, it can be found here:http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5
If you'd like to read about the modification to the url.ini file to speed updownloads for v6.0, go here: http://tinyurl.com/4j69k (you must be a registeredmember of the CUCUG Starship II forums).
ToCMark Joseph Edwards
Microsoft announced that it will offer advance notice of impending securitybulletins to all customers 3 days before the actual release of those bulletins.As you know, Microsoft typically releases new security bulletins on the secondTuesday of each month, and we've all had to wait patiently to know what'scoming down the pipeline in the way of patches. With the advance notice, peoplewho support Windows systems will now be able to plan a few days ahead for patchmanagement workload.
For this month, the company has announced that it will release one securitybulletin on November 9. According to the Web page where advance notices are nowposted, the bulletin and patch are related to Microsoft Internet Security andAcceleration (ISA) Server. The advance notice indicates that the "greatestmaximum severity rating for this security update is Important. This securityupdate may require a restart."
Microsoft also posts a caveat with the advance notices which states that the"information contained in this notification is subject to change due to thecomplexity of testing security updates. Therefore, the notification should notbe viewed as definitive."
Starting in December you'll be able to sign up for advance notices via e-mail.Check the Advance Notice Web site next month for details.
ToCMark Joseph Edwards
On November 4, Microsoft announced that so far it has distributed Windows XPService Pack 2 (SP2--released in August) to more than 110 million customersworldwide. The new service pack introduces a new Windows Security Center to XPdesktops, which provides a centralized location to view and manage a system'ssecurity-related components.
So far 29 antivirus vendors have integrated their products into the SecurityCenter's interface, which can direct customers to a special Web site if theirantivirus software needs updates. Microsoft said that so far 12.5 million usershave visited that Web site and the company views the level of traffic as anindication of the success of XP SP2.
ToCPaul Thurrott
The Mozilla Foundation announced this morning that it has shipped Firefox 1.0,its long-awaited milestone release of the most popular Web browser alternative.Already in use by several million users in pre-1.0 form, Firefox is expected togarner millions of more users with the 1.0 release and continue eating away atmarket leader Internet Explorer (IE). Officials from the Mozilla Foundation saythat Firefox's popularity is due to two factors: First, it's excellentsoftware. And second, Microsoft has essentially stopped updating the buggy andinsecure IE.
But Firefox isn't entirely a recent phenomenon. The genesis of this softwarebegan in 1998, when Netscape started Mozilla.org, later renamed to the MozillaFoundation, to develop open source versions of its browser technology. Initialreleases of Mozilla.org browsers were entire browser suites that included e-mail, chat, and other applications, and indeed, the company still issues such aproduct. About two years ago, several members of the Mozilla Foundation begandeveloping a standalone browser, originally named Phoenix, but later renamed toFirebird and the Firefox after it was discovered that those names were alreadytaken for use in products by other software companies.
Firefox has always impressed technical users, thanks to its advanced features,like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, inline searching, and better security.But lately, Firefox has also begun resonating with average users, many of whomare tired of IE being the primary conduit for malware on their PCs. This year,Firefox and other Mozilla.org browser have raised their market share to 6percent, up from 3.5 percent in early 2004. Now, the Mozilla Foundation saysits goal is to grab at least 10 percent of the market from IE, and with over 8million downloads of pre-release Firefox downloads under its belt, theorganization may very well hit that target.
Mozilla Firefox is completely free. For more information about Firefox 1.0 andthe free download, please visit the Mozilla Foundation Web site athttp://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ .
ToCIntel will deliver the last of its speed-fueled Pentium 4 processors later thismonth.
The chipmaker plans to quietly roll out its 3.8GHz Pentium 4 570 for desktopPCs on Nov. 15, sources familiar with the company's plans indicated.
The chip will offer an extra helping of clock speed for high-end PCs, asPentium 4 chips are now only available at speeds of up to 3.6GHz. But the 570will likely be known more for its place in history, because it will, in asense, represent the end of an era for the chipmaker. Intel focused for yearson driving its PC processors' clock speeds higher, but this year it beganfocusing more on other elements that augment chip performance.
The chipmaker began discussing its efforts to build PC platforms, such asCentrino notebooks and living room PCs; introduced a new naming systems forprocessors that de-emphasizes clock speed and reflects other chip features; andshuffled its processor road map, canceling the high-speed Tejas chip andshifting its focus to so-called dual-core chips. A dual-core processor packstwo processor cores into a single piece of silicon in order to increaseperformance. Past chips only had one core.
Last month, Intel also canceled its 4GHz Pentium 4, which had been slated forfirst quarter of 2005. Instead, the chipmaker said it would deliver Pentium 4chips that derive performance gains from features other than clock speedincreases. The first such chips will be Pentium 4s that use 2MB of cache anddouble the main pool of onboard memory.
The first mainstream Pentium 4 with 2MB of cache will run at 3.8GHz and comeout early next year, Intel representatives have said. Previously, only Intel'sPentium 4 Extreme Edition processor, mainly for game PCs, has offered more than1MB of main cache.
The 3.8GHz 570 chip, like all brand-new processors, is likely to appear in afew high-end desktops at first. Dell, for one, has said it would offer the 570chip in its Dimension XPS game PC.
"It does show that Intel is continuing progress with speeds," said DeanMcCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
But the chip isn't likely to see large sales volumes at first, he said, becauseit's coming to market fairly late in the game for manufacturers to be able tobuild it into PCs that will reach store shelves in time for the holidays.Instead, major PC makers are likely to offer it in systems sold directly tocustomers.
ToCfrom Tom Purl (tompurl2000@yahoo.com)
It has been a great month for Linux/BSD community when it comes to newsoftware. There are new releases from the Red Hat, Novell/SuSE, Mandrake,FreeBSD, and OpenBSD organizations. Also, the Linux world is enjoying evenmore support from the business world and there are more ways than ever toconnect proprietary hardware and software using Linux and BSD.
The latest version of is the beginning of the 5-STABLE branch and includesimproved hardware support and bug fixes. For more information, please seethe following link:
The release of 10.1 Official coincided with published financial reportsthat show that Mandrake their most profitable third quarter ever. Topurchase the "Official" copy of this distribution, please visit thefollowing link:
To get the "Community" version of the distribution (which is NOT"unofficial" and much less expensive), you can visit a plethora of cheapLinux resellers like cheapbytes (http://cheapbytes.com) and Discount LinuxCD's (http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/).
Novell claims that the latest version of their Linux distribution, "... isthe first complete Linux package to harness both the improved Linux kernel2.6 and the recently enhanced GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.3 user desktopenvironments". Funny, I had all of this running on my Gentoo box 2 monthsago, and I didn't have to pay $90 bucks for it.
Also, Novell announced that they would release the first version of NovellLinux Desktop, which is a "cut down" version of SuSE Linux. It's supposedtarge audience isn't Windows users, but Unix workstation users. For moreinformation, please see the Slashdot story:
Netatalk is a suite of software that allows you to run a Linux/BSD as anAppleTalk server for file and printer sharing. The latest version hassupport for the latest version of Appleshare and is supposedly a majorimprovement over the previous version. Please see the following link formore information:
Enhancements include SMP support (!!!) for i386 and amd64 hardware, newnetworking features (like the tcpdrop command), and the inclusion ofOpenBGDP, which is apparently a very fancy thing that you used to only beable to get from Cisco. Please visit the following site for ftp mirrors:
Also, you can visit the following link for a BitTorrent link:
Fedora, Red Hat's "community" version of their Red Hat Linux distribution,has been released. For more information about download mirrors orBitTorrent links, please see the following Slashdot story:
Well, the Linux business community finally has 2 800 pound gorillas, andDell supports both of them. In addition to supporting Red Hat Linux, Dellnow also support SuSE. For more information, please see the followingSlashdot article:
This isn't huge news, but it's nice to see that they finally replaced theirold logo (which was really horrible) with a new one that is quite nice.To see the images, please visit this link:
ToCby Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#753/01-Nov-04
Apple last week fulfilled the wish of every Internet discussion- forumenthusiast who's longed for the capability to view photos on a tiny colorscreen. The new iPod Photo incorporates a color screen into the existingiPod form factor, enabling users to view digital images in addition tolistening to music. The 220 by 176-pixel screen can display up to 65,536colors. Like iPhoto, the iPod Photo can display screens of thumbnails (25images at a time), or single photos by themselves, using the iPod's scrollwheel and middle button. It can also display album art for songs as theyplay. The device comes in two configurations: a 40 GB model for $500 and a60 GB model for $600; both are available now.
<http://www.apple.com/ipodphoto/>
In a bit of a conceptual disconnect, photos and photo albums aresynchronized using the Auto-Sync capabilities of iTunes 4.7, which wasreleased as a free 10.5 MB download. iTunes was probably chosen as theconduit because iPhoto doesn't exist under Windows; it can also pick upphotos from Windows applications Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 and AdobePhotoshop Elements 3.0, or from a designated photos folder on eitheroperating system. The Auto-Sync process converts your photos tolower-resolution versions for display on the screen, but you can opt tostore high-resolution versions on the iPod, too.
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/>
If the iPod's screen is too small for your taste, an included AV cableconnects the iPod Photo to a television for slideshow playback. An iPodPhoto Dock, included with both models, adds an S-video connector.
Contributing Editor Glenn Fleishman pointed out that these connectors makethe iPod Photo a remarkably compact presentation manager: load up yourPowerPoint or Keynote presentation (after converting the slides toindividual images), plug in a video projector, and leave the laptop in yourhotel room. It's not far from what Adam did with his Canon PowerShotdigital camera at a user group presentation when a projector failed to showup (see "The PowerShot Presentation" in TidBITS-669_).
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/.3c534fdf>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07095>
Apple claims that battery life is improved on the new model, with up to 15hours of continuous music or 5 hours of continuous slideshows with music.
Does the iPod Photo herald the imminent arrival of a video iPod? Althoughthe existing color screen wouldn't realistically be suitable for videoplayback, having video-out capabilities could, in theory, turn the iPodinto a portable video playback device - a portable TiVo, if you will, forwatching movies and television shows while you're on the road. The problemis, you can already do that with a PowerBook or iBook. And Steve Jobs hasmade it clear that Apple believes photos are more compelling on a portabledevice such as the iPod right now, compared to other video devices that arealready on the market. I do think that Apple is slowly laying the pavingstones required to someday offer videos on portable devices and via theiTunes Music (Media?) Store, but only according to Apple's schedule.
In other iPod news, Apple announced the iPod U2 Special Edition model. Inaddition to engraved signatures of the members of the band U2, the frontface is black instead of white, with a red scroll wheel; it's availableonly in a 20 GB configuration. It also includes a $50 gift certificate thatcan be applied to "The Complete U2," a digital boxed-set of the band'smusic containing 400 songs and 25 unreleased tracks. (Contrary to somereports, no music from U2 is included on the iPod.) An included exclusiveU2 poster will no doubt seal the deal for some fans. The iPod U2 SpecialEdition will be available in mid-November for $350.
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/u2/>
Finally, Apple also announced that it has launched a European version ofthe iTunes Music Store. Previously available in the U.S., France, Germany,and the United Kingdom, the EU iTunes Music Store now also supportsPortugal, Spain, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece, Austria, Belgium, TheNetherlands, and Finland, all with songs priced at EU0.99 apiece. Applealso says it finally plans to launch its iTunes Music Store in Canadaduring November.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/26itmseu.html>
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/>
Also noteworthy is news that a version of the iTunes Music Store forIreland (the only country in the Euro currency zone not included in lastweek's announcement) was apparently planned for the EU rollout, but somelast-minute glitches held it up. Hopefully we'll see it come online soon.
<http://www.macinformation.com/>
<http://www.euro.ecb.int/en/what/countries.html>
TidBITS#755/15-Nov-04
Maybe it's a generational thing: you see, I think of receiving underwearfor the holidays as, well... kind of a let-down. But here's Apple to therescue! Starting in early December (pre-orders available now!), iPodaficionados can purchase a $30 six-pack of iPod Socks! First seen at therecent unveiling of the iPod Photo, the knit socks come in orange, pink,blue, grey, purple, and green, and fit all sizes of iPod. According toApple, "just slide your iPod into the sock to keep it safe and warm.Slide it out to dock or change playlists." No word yet on how thesesocks might or might not accommodate iPod add-ons like voice recorders.
<http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9720G
But so many unanswered questions! Cotton? Wool? Maybe a blend - ooh!With spandex for elasticity? Do I wash them with similar colors? Dodryers eat iPod Socks? Do cats chase them? And when can I pre-order someiPod Shoes? [GD]
ToCby Mark H. Anbinder <mha@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#754/08-Nov-04
On 05-Nov-04, Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.6, a free update to Mac OS X10.3 Panther. The update includes a new version of the Safari Web browserthat will no longer stop trying to load a Web page or submit a form after60 seconds, but will instead keep trying until the user cancels theattempt. Apple has also fixed a bug with iDisk synchronization for .Macusers; 10.3.5 did not correctly update the volume's size if the user'sspace allocation changed.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300080>
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/>
Apple has also improved file sharing via AFP (AppleShare-style networking),NFS (Unix file sharing), and SMB (Windows-style networking), and thecapability to open applications from a network volume. The update providesnew versions of the Calculator, DVD Player, and Image Capture, as well asseveral other patches.
The Mac OS 10.3.6 update is available either through Software Update or asa standalone updater; via Software Update, it may be as small as 14 MB for10.3.5 users with recent security patches already installed, but can beconsiderably larger (up to 34 MB) for users without some recent updatesinstalled. (Software Update may be able to reduce the installation size ifsome files can be modified instead of replaced.) The update is alsoavailable as a combo installer (a 92 MB download) that will update anyversion of Mac OS X 10.3 prior to 10.3.5.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate_10_3_6.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxcombinedupdate_10_3_6.html>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25799>
Apple also released Mac OS X Server 10.3.6, which updates Open Directory,File Services, Fibre Channel Utility, Mail Server, and LDAP, in addition tothe changes in the Mac OS X 10.3.6 update.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300100>
We've noticed two unintended consequences with Mac OS X 10.3.6, one bad andone good. First, the Safari update renders the June 2004 developer previewversion of Safari unusable; developers can download a new developer previewfrom Apple, provided they have another Web browser (such as Camino orFirefox) available. Second, Apple appears to have fixed a recent tendencyof iBooks and PowerBooks to require several seconds to over a half minuteto fall asleep when closing the lid or selecting the Sleep command. Thedelay, which quietly vanished after the upgrade to 10.3.6, could over timehave resulted in excessive wear to laptop hard drives from being movedbefore the computer is fully asleep. (When I close my laptop, I want to putit in its case now, not in 40 seconds!)
ToCTidBITS#754/08-Nov-04
Unfortunately, Apple no longer publishes a list of USB printers that arecompatible with the AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme Base Stations(those models include a USB port that turns the base station into a printserver for any computer on your wireless network). When I asked why, Applesaid the list had become unwieldy. That's a shame, since there's nodefinitive place on manufacturers' Web sites to find out which printerswork with these Apple base stations. You don't want to buy a base stationand find out your USB printer is incompatible; nor do you want to buy aprinter for your base station only to find out that it's incompatible.
A new list has appeared: the iFelix Unofficial AirPort Extreme and ExpressPrinter Compatibility List. It features several simple layers ofinformation: printers that were on Apple's list at one point are in bold;those added later are in plain type; those James Clay (the author of theiFelix list) himself has tested are in dark red. The page also lists knownincompatible printers and known compatible Wi-Fi-enabled printers. It's agreat list, and I suggest that if you have information to add, youcontribute to it and hope that iFelix keeps up the good work. A thread atthe Apple Discussions for AirPort Express may also be of use. [GF]
<http://www.efelix.co.uk/tech/1013.html>
<http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@241.xeJJaayPASb.1@.6898602a>
TidBITS#753/01-Nov-04
Lost temporarily in the news of the recent update to Microsoft Office 2004(see "Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 1 Squishes Bugs" inTidBITS-751_) was the fact that Microsoft also updated the older Office Xon 13-Oct-04. The improvements in the Microsoft Office v.X for Mac SecurityUpdate (10.1.6) include proper functioning of Word X's AutoRecover whenFileVault is enabled (not that we recommend FileVault in most situations),and a fix to a bug that caused Entourage X to stop responding when certaincorrupted email messages were received with the Junk Mail Filter enabled.Word X, Excel X, and PowerPoint X all receive an added level of securitythat affects macros that open other macro-containing Office documents. It'sa 38.4 MB download. [ACE]
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=883952>
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886633>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07858>
TidBITS#755/15-Nov-04
The Mozilla Organization has released version 1.0 of Firefox, anopen-source Web browser. The news is a little more exciting for Windowsusers looking for better security than is provided by Internet Explorer,but Mac users will find that the Mac OS X version is as snappy as Safariwith a few extra features thrown in. For example, new Live Bookmarksread RSS feeds and provide a list of current articles (such as weblogentries or news updates); the Search field includes other search enginesbesides Google; and Firefox offers the capability to install third-partytoolbars (such as Amazon's A9 search toolbar). Firefox 1.0 is a free 8.6MB download, and requires Mac OS X 10.1 or later. [JLC]
<http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/>
<http://toolbar.a9.com/>
Over the last few days, news of a malicious shell script known as "Opener"has appeared on MacInTouch, and several news organizations picking up thereport have incorrectly started calling it a virus. It's not a virus, andfrankly, it's not even that big of a concern. Opener is a shell scriptthat, if installed and activated on a Mac, turns on file sharing and remotelogin, disables the firewall, extracts passwords, creates an admin-leveluser, installs a password sniffer, and more. That sounds bad, but Openercan't do any of these things unless someone with an administrator passwordor physical access to the Mac installs and runs it. More to the point, ifsomeone has your administrator password or physical access to your Mac,Opener is just one of many possible worries.
<http://www.macintouch.com/opener.html>
So, unpleasant though it is, Opener doesn't really change much aboutmaintaining a secure Mac. Make sure to install Apple's security updates asthey're released, since some plug holes that could allow the necessary rootaccess for a cracker. Be sure your administrator password can't be guessedeasily. And most important, never enter your administrator password whenprompted unless you know why it is being requested and trust the source ofthe request (a Trojan Horse carrying Opener could be extremely dangerous).In my mind, this is Apple's largest mistake with security; I'm prompted formy administrator password so often that it's easy to enter it reflexively,without considering who's asking and why. [ACE]
ToCby TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#752/25-Oct-04
Each new iBook model has begged the question: "Should I buy a PowerBook oran iBook?" The PowerBook line has been the professional workhorse, withmore slots and options than the education- and consumer-directed iBook. Butthe iBook hasn't trailed far behind in speed and basic features, making itappealing to people who don't need the fastest processor and features suchas a PC Card slot. Last week, Apple nudged the specifications of the latestiBook configuration closer to the current PowerBook lineup, forcingpotential Mac laptop buyers to reevaluate the question.
At the same time, Apple also reintroduced a single-processor Power Mac G5configuration and added more storage to its top Xserve RAID configuration.
The new iBooks bump up a variety of system specifications, but the mostnotable feature is the inclusion of AirPort Extreme cards in all models,not just the top-end one. Previously, adding the card to theAirPort-capable models was an $80 add-on. All models also support anoptional internal Bluetooth module for $50.
The entry-level 12-inch model now starts at $1,000, a $100 price cut fromthe previous low-end configuration. It includes a 1.2 GHz PowerPC G4processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a 30 GB hard drive. Two 14-inch models,priced at $1,300 and $1,500, come with 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 processors, 256MB of RAM, and 60 GB hard drives. The higher-priced model includes aSuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW), while the other models include Combo Drives(DVD/CD-RW). They also come pre-installed with iLife '04.
Apple must have heard the word: having the cheapest entry-level Power Macpriced at $2,000 was restricting the market. The company has added asingle- processor 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 to its lineup, priced at $1,500. Theprimary difference between it and the dual-1.8 GHz model (aside from thelack of the second processor, of course) is a 600 MHz frontside bus,compared to the dual model's 900 MHz frontside bus. This shouldn't meanmuch for performance given the single processor disadvantage.
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/>
Just in case you need to store a few billion more photos, Apple has bumpedthe Xserve RAID storage unit's top configuration from 3.5 terabytes (aterabyte is 1,024 GB; or approximately 1 trillion bytes) to 5.6 TB. Thecost for this large configuration is $13,000.
<http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/>
ToCby Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#752/25-Oct-04
Apple recently released version 2.1 of Apple Remote Desktop, adding a slewof new and improved features (see "Passing the Remote to Apple RemoteDesktop 2.0" in TidBITS-746_). You can now control and observe remotecomputers in full-screen mode, and you can also now control and observeboth screens of computers that have multiple monitors attached. In suchsituations, both screens appear in a single window, which may require thatyou turn off the Fit Screen in Window option and scroll around to accessthe full extended Desktop. In control mode, Remote Desktop now passesscroll wheel and right-click events to the remote Mac, reducing the need tochange working habits. Apple also claims improved support for third partyVNC viewers and VNC servers, though I haven't tested the various programsI'd had trouble with before.
<http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07821>
Other improvements include multiple line output from Send Unix Command;this makes Send Unix Command significantly more useful for managing remoteMacs without having to initiate an SSH session (which still isn't somethingRemote Desktop can help you do). The Install Package command can now detectwhether a package needs to restart the destination Mac and will optionallydo so after installation. Remote data collection has been improved, andApple also improved printing of hardware and software reports. AlthoughApple says that Remote Desktop 2.1 features "improved file copy fornetworked home directories," it's unfortunately no easier to copy files toor from remote machines in normal usage. Minor enhancements includeimproved client authentication using Active Directory and two additionaldirectory services groups, better column sorting in the Remote DesktopAdmin application, saving of settings if the Admin quits unexpectedly, andsaving of the ordering of network scanners.
You must upgrade the Remote Desktop client software as well, althoughthat's easily done with the Upgrade Client Software command in the Managemenu; the Remote Desktop Admin application upgrades the client software onits Mac on launch. However, the Remote Desktop Admin application complainedabout the fact that my Remote Desktop client software (which was turned offat the time) wasn't up-to-date on the first launch (I had to force quit theadmin application), and for two tries after that, wouldn't launch if theRemote Desktop client was turned off. To avoid this and other weirdnesses,I recommend enabling the Remote Desktop client software before installing.
Apple Remote Desktop 2.1 is a free update; it's an 18.5 MB download viaSoftware Update, or you can download the admin application (16.4 MB) andthe client (7.1 MB) separately. Both parts require Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/appleremotedesktop21admin.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/appleremotedesktop21client.html>
TidBITS#755/15-Nov-04
In a bittersweet move sure to bring a tear to the eye of skin-switchingmusic lovers everywhere, Panic Inc. have decided to retire theirlong-standing digital audio jukebox program Audion. But rather thansimply yanking the product off their servers, Panic has decided to makeAudion available for free, and even sent a discount coupon tocustomers to thank them for their support.
In the early days of MP3 players on the Macintosh, Audion was locked ina neck-and-neck battle with SoundJam (then published by Casady & Greene,and which eventually became Apple's iTunes). Audion distinguished itselfby adopting "skins" - essentially, modules which changed theapplication's look and interface - as well as offering power-userfeatures like hierarchical playlists, user ratings, play counts, andeven an audio editor. However, over time, Audion couldn't carve out aniche amidst Apple's ever-growing digital music offerings, and, althoughAudion can still manage tracks on an iPod, it can't support the iTunesMusic Store's DRM protection, or offer support for Apple products likethe AirPort Express. Still, Audion is a mature, capable music jukeboxwith features which will probably never be available in iTunes, and -for free! - it's a heck of a deal. Kudos to Panic for standing by theircustomers and freeing the product; Panic also offers the Usenet and FTPclients Unison and Transmit, as well as a selection of Mac utilities.Audion 3.0.2 is available for Mac OS 8.6 or higher, or any version ofMac OS X. Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser has published a humorous andrevealing account of Audion's evolution - worth reading if you'recurious what it might be like to receive email from Steve Jobs onChristmas Eve. [GD]
<http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/>
ToCreported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The October 21, 2004 General Meeting of CUCUG was one of our socialgatherings, so there was nothing specific to report. As Mike Latinovichwould say, "The doughnuts were good."
ToCreported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The October meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday,October 26, 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, Emil Cobb,Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, Rich Hall, and Kris Klindworth.
Rich Hall: Rich reported that he paid the room rent for nextyear, noting that this rental is 97% of our expenses. Other expenses thismonth were for the doughnuts and soda pop for the meeting.
Rich then reported on our investments. It was noted during discussions ofincome that membership renewal time is coming up.
Tom Purl: Tom reported that next month Anthony Philipp will be doing apresentation of ABCDE - A Better CD Encoder - for the Linux SIG. ABCDE is acommand line "ripper" program. When asked about what Linux people use toburn a CD, TOm pointed to CD Record, Arson, and K3B as capable burners.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin had nothing new to report.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin joked that "BBS usage is down." He then remindedeveryone that CUCUG elections are coming up. Everyone kind of looked ateach other and it was determined that the current slate of officers werewilling to run for office again. It was stressed that anyone desiring tonominate someone for office or to run themselves is welcome to do so.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that there were 13 members and 3 guestsat the last meeting.
Richard Rollins: In Mike's absence from the Board meeting,Richard stated "The doughnuts were good." At the last meeting, Richardsaid, we has some interesting discussions - time flew by. Some of thetopics were the Google desktop and viruses.
Richard said he'd like to see a proper swap meet at the Decembermeeting, so if you have any hardware or software you'd like to trade orsell, December is the time to swap it.
ToCI. Offices available A. The President - basically, the coordinator for the entire club. Appoints committee chairs and presides over the general meetings. B. The Vice President - performs the President's duties in his absence. C. Treasurer - in charge of the financial affairs of the club. He/she pays the bills. D. Secretary - in charge of keeping all of the procedural documentation, e.g., meeting minutes, as well as correspondence with members, non-members and other clubs. E. Corporation Agent - in charge of all matters dealing with CUCUG's corporation status.II. Candidates A. Potential candidates should contact the chairman of the Election Committee prior to the November meeting so that they may coordinate the forum, etc. Kevin Hisel 217-352-1002 B. Nominations will be accepted from the floor at the November meeting. C. Candidates will be given equal time in a forum to express their views or present their platforms at the November meeting. D. The Nominating Committee will verify that anyone nominated is a member in good standing. Otherwise, they will not be allowed a forum. E. Candidates' names will be published in the December newsletter.III. Voting A. Who can vote 1. Every member in good standing (i.e., dues paid) may vote. 2. Must have and present the current (2004) membership card. B. Voting at the general meeting in December 1. Secret ballots will be distributed to each member that presents a valid membership card at the December meeting. 2. The Secretary will prepare the official ballot forms. No candidates' names will appear on the ballots themselves. Candidates' names and the offices they seek will be posted at the meeting place by office and then alphabetically by candidate. C. Proxy voting 1. If you cannot attend the December meeting, you may request a special proxy ballot from Kevin Hisel (217-352-1002) no later than December 6, 2004 (the Monday of the week prior to the week of the meeting). 2. Place filled-in ballot in a blank, sealed envelope. 3. Place blank envelope along with your valid membership card in another envelope. 4. Address this envelope to: CUCUG, 912 Stratford Dr., Champaign, IL 61821, clearly print the word BALLOT on the front and mail it. 5. These proxy votes will be opened and verified only by the Tellers at the December meeting and counted along with the general ballots. 6. All proxy ballots must be received at the CUCUG post office box no later than December 16, 2004 (the day of the meeting). D. Who you may vote for 1. You may vote for anyone. Write-in (non-nominated) votes will be accepted and counted. The candidate with the most votes for a particular position wins that position. In the event of a tie, the Tellers will require a recasting for that position only. 2. To assume office, a candidate must be a member in good standing both in 2004 and in 2005. If a winning candidate cannot be verified, the office goes to the next verifiable candidate with the most votes. If there are no verifiable winners, a second balloting will take place. Proxy ballots will be counted each time.IV. Chronology A. October meeting 1. Announce protocol to general membership. 2. Solicit candidates. B. November newsletter 1. Re-cap the election protocol. C. November meeting 1. The membership will appoint a Nominating Committee. 2. Accept nominations from the floor. 3. Nominations will close. 4. Candidates will be given equal time in a forum to express their views or present their platforms. D. December newsletter 1. Candidates' names will be published in alphabetical order with the offices they seek. E. December meeting 1. Nominated candidates names and the offices they seek will be posted in alphabetical order. 2. The President will appoint 2 or more Tellers to distribute ballots and count the votes. 3. Votes will be taken and counted by the Tellers. Winners names will be announced by the President. F. January newsletter 1. Winners names will be published. G. January meeting 1. New club officers will be installed.ToC
Meetings 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
