The copyright infringement suits expand on a new U.S. film industry initiative whose first targets were individual file-swappers.

The defendants this time run servers that use BitTorrent, now the program of choice for online sharers of large files.

"Today's actions are aimed at individuals who deliberately set up and operate computer servers and Web sites that, by design, allow people to infringe copyrighted motion pictures," said John Malcolm, head of the Motion Picture Association of America's antipiracy unit.

Malcolm, speaking at Washington news conference, declined to name defendants. He said the suits, filed in the United States and Britain, targeted more than 100 server operators.

"These people are parasites, leeching off the creativity of others," Malcolm added. "Their illegal conduct is brazen and blatant."

The suits target computer servers that index movies for BitTorrent users, but Malcolm said the MPAA is eyeing similar action against other servers as well.

Sites like BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down last year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.

The suits follow the same logic employed when the recording industry successfully sued the original Napster file-sharing network. The creators of that software used a central computer server to keep and update an index of what music files were being made available by computer users on the network.

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, suggested Tuesday's lawsuits would backfire.

"By bringing these suits, the MPAA runs the risk of pushing the tens of millions of file sharers to more decentralized technologies that will be harder to police," von Lohmann said.

Another potential wrinkle is that many of the computer servers are offshore, outside the scope of U.S. copyright law.

Hollywood movie studios contend that the unauthorized trading of films online has the potential to threaten their industry, particularly as faster Internet access in homes makes the large movie files easier to download.

By comparison, music files are far smaller and swapped at greater volume.

Last month, the studios began suing computer users for swapping digitized films online for copyright infringement. The industry has also been a party to lawsuits against Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster.

The industry has failed to persuade federal courts to shut down the services, and is awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

IBM opens 500 patents to open-source developers

The move is designed to spur innovation, the company says.

News Story by Paul Kallender
URL: http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,98876,00.html

The patents will be available to any individual or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative's definitions of what constitutes open-source software, a company spokeswoman said. The pledge is the largest of its kind ever made, according to IBM, and is designed to spur further innovation.

The OSI is a nonprofit corporation that defines software as open-source when the source code is freely redistributed and modified by programmers. The OSI also requires that those modifications be freely distributed. Common examples include Linux and Apache. The OSI's full definition of open-source is available online.

IBM won't assert the 500 named patents against software meeting the OSI's open-source definition -- although it reserves the right to do so against any party filing a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights against open-source software, according to its Web site.

The 500 patents include U.S. Patent No. 5,185,861, registered in 1993, which covers technology that helps microprocessors use their memory caches efficiently, and U.S. patent No. 5,617,568, registered in 1997, for allowing non-Windows-based systems to act as file servers for Windows-based clients, according to IBM Asia Pacific spokeswoman June Namioka.

Other examples include patents related to handwriting recognition, she said.

A list (download PDF) of the 500 patents concerned can be found on IBM's Web site.

IBM said it registered 3,248 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2004. According to IBM, that was the highest number of patents registered with the Patent and Trademark Office by any company last year, and 2004 was the 12th consecutive year in which IBM ranked No. 1 in terms of number of patents filed.

Digital inheritance raises legal questions

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/12/24/e.mailafterlife.ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- As more of our personal lives go digital, family members, estate attorneys and online service providers are increasingly grappling with what happens to those information bits when their owners die.

Sometimes, the question involves e-mail sitting on a distant server; other times, it's about the photos or financial records stored on a password-protected computer.

This week, a Michigan man publicized his struggle to access the Yahoo e-mail account belonging to his son, Marine Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, 20, who was killed November 13 in Iraq. Though Yahoo's policies state that accounts "terminate upon your death," John Ellsworth said his son would have wanted to give him access.

"He was wanting to forward his e-mail from strangers," Ellsworth said. "They were letters of encouragement. He said all their support kept him motivated. We've talked back and forth about how we were going to print them out and put them in a scrapbook."

To release those messages in such circumstances, Yahoo said, would violate the privacy rights of the deceased and those with whom they've corresponded.

"The commitment we've made to every person who signs-up for a Yahoo! Mail account is to treat their email as a private communication and to treat the content of their messages as confidential," spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement.

But Osako said the company was dealing with uncharted territory and was willing to continue discussions with Ellsworth. One option could involve Ellsworth getting a court order, which Yahoo would abide. Ellsworth said he preferred to avoid litigation.

Other service providers, including America Online Inc., EarthLink Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which runs Hotmail, have provisions for transferring accounts upon proof of death and identity as next of kin.

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company gets dozens of such requests a day and has a separate fax number, mailing address and full-time service representative devoted to fulfillment.

Nonetheless, some privacy advocates question whether that's a good approach.

"People might decide what they want family members to see or keep secret sometimes for family harmony reasons," said Peter Swire, an Ohio State University law professor who served as former President Bill Clinton's chief privacy counselor. "They may know secrets of other family members that they hold in confidence: The sister had an abortion; the father had a first marriage."

Swire said Yahoo's policies are stricter than those for medical records -- and rightly so. He said quick access to medical records is needed for emergency care, and such records are unlikely to trample other people's privacy rights, as e-mail could.

Rather than maintaining an either-or policy, perhaps service providers could ask users when they sign up whether they'd like e-mail disclosed upon death, said Jason Catlett, president of the privacy-rights group Junkbusters Corp.

"If you put money into an IRA (individual retirement account) or a mutual fund, they will ask you for the next of kin," Catlett said.

But Graham said cell phone providers and fitness centers don't make similar requests, and doing so with Internet service "is simply a turnoff and it's not necessary. We already have a process that works quite well and quite responsibly."

For now, such disputes are rare, and most struggles for access involve family members who need to obtain financial records on a computer, said Bob Weiss, president of Password Crackers Inc., a Maryland company that recovers lost passwords. Less than 2 percent of Weiss's business involves relatives of the deceased, he said.

Still, "as more of our lives go online, hosted faraway, we will want to think carefully about the disposition of those bits," said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Decades of laws and court decisions already guide physical possessions, especially when there is no will. What makes online assets different is the fact that they often involve some service contract with an outside company, said R. Michael Daniel, an estates attorney in Pittsburgh.

The easiest approach, Internet scholars say, is simply to leave behind a password.

"I think this (Yahoo) case will be helpful to people who are thinking about issues not only of inheritance but planning," said Jonathan I. Ezor, a professor of law and technology at Touro Law Center in Huntington, New York. "When one family member tells another where the important paperwork is, the will, safe deposit box key, etc., the list of passwords is going to be added to that."

FBI may scrap $170 million project

Leahy: The program is 'a train wreck in slow motion'

From Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/13/fbi.software/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A top FBI official said Thursday the bureau may have to scrap a computer program that so far has cost $170 million and was intended to be an important tool in fighting terrorism.

Bureau officials told a news briefing that they expect to find that after four years in development their much-touted Virtual Case File system does not work. But they said a suitable replacement is commercially available.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the project is being reviewed by the Justice Department, The Associated Press reported.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was in Birmingham, Alabama, Thursday, said he was "frustrated by the delays."

"I am frustrated that we do not have on every agent's desk the capability of a modern case management system," Mueller said.

"At the same time, we have made substantial changes in the way we handle information information technology within the FBI."

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the program "a train wreck in slow motion."

Leahy noted that the FBI said last May the Virtual Case File system would be completed by the end of 2004.

"Now we learn that the FBI began to explore new options last August, because it feared that VCF was going to fail," Leahy said in a press release.

"Bringing the FBI's information technology into the 21st century should not be rocket science."

He said that getting straight answers from the Justice Department and the FBI "has been so difficult that we had to take the step of asking for an independent investigation by the Government Accountability Office."

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI and contractor Science Applications International Corp. have been racing to complete the project, which is intended to speed the rapid sharing of information.

"It's like changing the wheels on a car going 70 miles an hour," the senior FBI official told reporters. "We're mission-oriented. We have no down time."

The official acknowledged the seriousness of the flaws, but insisted the problems have had no major impact on the FBI's counterterrorism efforts.

"All the information is getting there. It's just that we're doing it the hard way," the official said.

Counterterrorism information collected by agents through interviews and surveillance currently becomes available only after it is uploaded nightly into a system accessible to the nation's intelligence community.

The current program requires FBI personnel to manually enter, print, sign and scan their information into the "investigative data warehouse."

Counterterrorism information collected by agents gets top priority and is entered into the system within 24 hours.

Information dealing with such matters as violent crime, organized crime, fraud and other white-collar crime may take days to be shared throughout the law enforcement community, the officials said.

The new software program was supposed to allow agents to pass along along intelligence and criminal information in real time.

The FBI expects to learn within weeks whether it will have to scrap the system, a scenario the officials said was likely.

Before making that decision, the FBI is awaiting a final report by an independent consultant, Aerospace Corp., hired to review the state of the the software project and analyze what is available commercially.

FBI officials indicated they expect to get the consultant's conclusion by the end of the month. They predicted that at least $130 million of the $170 million project could be lost.

Meanwhile, the FBI's New Orleans field office has launched a three-month pilot project to determine whether about 10 percent of the Virtual Case File system development can be salvaged.

The office will run a prototype of the system that SAIC delivered to the FBI in December after missing previous deadlines.

"We delivered the initial operational capability of the FBI's virtual case file system as contractually agreed upon, at the end of December," said SAIC spokesman Jared Adams.

The senior FBI official said he would withhold a verdict on whether any portion of the software could be incorporated into a successor system until the trial's conclusion.

Top FBI officials cited a wide range of reasons for the software-development problems.

The rapidly changing state of technology was insufficiently understood, and an entire system was developed to replace the antiquated FBI computer and record management systems.

One official said that "next time" the FBI would seek a modular system in which capabilities can be added or changed to the existing structure.

The FBI said the changed mission of the bureau following the September 11 attacks added a burden to the case-file system developers, who launched the complex project upgrade in 2000.

FBI officials say they are awaiting a review on the status of the agency's major technology projects, which together are costing more than $500 million.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is working on a broad review of the FBI technology upgrades, including the troubled project.

Key FBI officials were scheduled to meet Thursday with the Justice Department inspector general and separately with lawmakers to discuss the developments.

No Place To Hide

[Editor's Note: Heard another very interesting program on NPR on Saturday, January 15, on America's new surveillance society - the rapid marriage between government and the data industry, since 9/11, dealing with homeland security and the future of information technologies. It poses some very thought provoking questions to ponder on. Here are just a few excerpts: ]

"When you go to work, stop at the store, fly in a plane, or surf the web, you are being watched. They know where you live, the value of your home, the names of your friends and family, in some cases even what you read. Where the data revolution meets the needs of national security, there is no place to hide."

Currently, ChoicePoint [a Georgia-based data company] has access to more than seventeen billion public records: Address, telephone number, social security number, driving records, criminal records, ... real estate records, business license records, boating license. Fishing, hunting license, Incorporation records.

ChoicePoint buys other kinds of data from private sources: identity information from credit reports; product warranties and customer surveys; some phone records. They even maintain a retail industry blacklist of employees caught shoplifting.

If ChoicePoint's 250 terabytes of data were printed on ordinary paper and the pages laid end to end, it would extend twenty-one million miles. That's roughly seventy-seven round trips to the moon.

That number grows every day. Around the clock, rivers of new and updated information about Americans flow into computer servers at ChoicePoint and other data companies. At the same time, many hundreds of ChoicePoint's customers may be looking at chunks of that data as they request it from their far-flung computers.

Every time you apply for a job, order clothing from a catalog, or get credit, it's likely that ChoicePoint or one of its competitors is helping to grease the process - or stop it cold. The data companies do so by zipping information about you to the company you're dealing with, often within a split second.

Increasingly, ChoicePoint's clients include law enforcement and national security officials. In some ways, it serves as a private intelligence operation for the government."

Biewen:

Remember the program Hank Asher created after 9/11, the one that combed through huge criminal and commercial databases to find people with certain telling characteristics? Over the following months, Asher and Seisint developed that program into something eventually dubbed "Matrix."

Asher:

Just to run it makes me excited. To know that we built it, just blows me away. It's a beautiful piece of technology. It's a thousand beautiful pieces of technology connected together in a very smart way.

O'Harrow:

What does Matrix do? An investigator sits down at a computer and types in fragments of evidence about a suspect - hair color, a digit or two from a license plate, maybe a history of flying to a certain foreign country. Within seconds, up pops a driver's license photo along with a rich dossier: all the suspect's addresses, past and present; the vehicles he's owned; and business and financial information.

Biewen:

The company Asher started, Seisint, refused to show the system to reporters, but those who've seen Matrix tend to rave.

Steve Lauer:

It certainly is brand new; it certainly has a capability that did not exist before.

Biewen:

Steve Lauer is chief of domestic security for the state of Florida. The state teamed with Asher in creating Matrix and promoting it to other state governments. Lauer says what's new about Matrix is how it allows an investigator to dip into vast oceans of both commercial data and police records.

Lauer:

It is a tool that allows him to cut to the chase, you know, cut to the core issue of ... the right-size guy, the right kind of background, the right kind of address, and focus on him. And I think that's what blows people away.

O'Harrow:

But more than that, Matrix and a growing number of other commercial systems find links among people. So the digital dossier may also include photos and records of the suspect's family and neighbors, even long-forgotten associates. Investigators can tell Matrix to choose suspects based on the kinds of relationships they have - for example, a roommate with a Muslim-sounding name. A human investigator could spend months and never see such links. With Matrix, it takes an instant.

Biewen:

Authorities believe this kind of technology could be the key to helping connect the dots. Civil liberties advocates say there's one big problem.

James Dempsey:

What it depends upon is millions and billions of bits of information about innocent people engaging in innocent daily activities.

Biewen:

James Dempsey heads the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. He argues that data mining tools like Matrix, in effect, create new information by giving investigators the power to discern patterns and apply profiles. And they do so by scanning personal records about almost everybody.

Dempsey:

It's an electronic door-to-door search."

....

That should be enough of a teaser. If you're interested, check it out.

Watch "Peter Jennings Reporting: No Place to Hide" on ABC at 10 p.m., Thursday, January 20th.

Listen to the radio documentary, produced by John Biewen and Robert O'Harrow, Jr. for American RadioWorks.

Listen:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/noplacetohide/full.ram

Transcript:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/noplacetohide/transcript.html

Cool Free Stuff

Here's a look at the Computerworld staff's favorite no-cost software.

Product Review by Computerworld staff

URL: http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,98439,00.html

DECEMBER 21, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch -- at least when it comes to software. Not every piece of freeware is of value, of course, but over the years, we've found some real gems.

Here, Computerworld reporters, editors, developers and IT staff share our favorite no-cost software downloads. From graphics applications to utilities to fun stuff -- whether you run Windows, Linux or Mac -- there's surely something here you'll want to try!

Application: Irfanview
What it is: Lightweight image viewer/manipulator
Why we like it: Small, free, fast. Allows cropping, scaling and color adjustment. Has a slide-show function, a "Set as Wallpaper" function and a nice screen-capture utility built in.
Platform: Windows
Where to get it: www.irfanview.com
Recommended by: Peter Smith, lead developer

Application: Easy Thumbnails
What it is: Batch resizer of graphics files
Why we like it: Lots of software can resize a photo -- and if you want to crop, remove red eye or otherwise fiddle with an image, this isn't the application for you. But if all you want to do is resize a dozen or two holiday photos to post on the Web, this is definitely worth a download. Easy Thumbnails does one thing and one thing only, but it's simple, quick and pain-free.
Platform: Windows
Where to get it: www.fookes.com/ezthumbs
Recommended by: Sharon Machlis, online managing editor

Application: Google's Desktop Search
What it is: It searches Web pages, Outlook and Microsoft Office files, saved AOL instant messages and text files on a local hard drive.
Why we like it: It's vastly better than the search tool in Microsoft Windows. It's very fast and gives detailed results in a format similar to Google's Internet search engine. Thumbnails of Web pages are shown. It can be used to delete files. A major limit is its inability to search Lotus Notes. There's probably some nasty security risk involved in using this tool (in fact, we published an article about one yesterday [see story]), but for now it's well worth the free download.
Platform: Windows
Where to get it: desktop.google.com
Recommended by: Patrick Thibodeau, senior editor

Application: MenuMeters 1.2
What it is: Preference pane for Mac OS X
Why we like it: MenuMeters places icons that give Mac OS X users information on how their computers are working. It shows disk activity, network traffic and throughput, memory use, paging activity and CPU use. The icons can be stylized to fit your Menu bar and can be reordered, allowing Macintosh users to monitor how their computers are doing at a glance.
Platform: Macintosh OS X 10.2 or later
Where to get it: www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters
Recommended by: Ken Mingis, online news editor

Application: Temperature Monitor 2.3
What it is: Internal temperature tracker for most recent Apple Computer Inc. computers
Why we like it: Temperature Monitor shows the current processor temperature for some Macintosh computers. The temperature can be displayed in several formats and styles, including in a standard window, in the Dock or as a "floating" transparent window. It also offers a "talking" thermometer that will speak the current temperature whenever it changes. Keep track of just how hot those processors are getting.
Platform: Mac OS X 10.2.5 or later
Where to get it: www.bresink.de/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
Recommended by: Ken Mingis, online news editor

Application: Spybot Search and Destroy
What it is: Software to clean up the spyware that gets downloaded to your PC
Why we like it: "Search and Destroy scrapes bothersome software from your PC as you would barnacles from the underside of a boat," says our sister publication PC World, naming it a "best product of 2004."
Platform: Windows
Where to get it: www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22262,00.asp
Recommended by: Gary H. Anthes, national correspondent

Application: POPFile
What it is: Spam filter
Why we like it: This isn't a plug-and-play product. That said, though, it's easy enough to install and configure, and it's a nice choice if you want to have some control over what your filter does as well as see what it's doing from time to time.
Platform: Any system that runs Perl, and a POP3 mail client and account.
Where to get it: getpopfile.org
Recommended by: Sharon Machlis, online managing editor

Application: NoteTab
What it is: Text editor with scripting capabilities
Why we like it: It's as basic as you need it to be or as complex as you want to make it. NoteTab includes some very useful built-in capabilities, including joining lines that have been broken by hard returns and stripping out HTML tags or > characters from forwarded e-mail text. NoteTab's scripting language has a bit of a learning curve, but you can use it in combination with Perl scripts for some pretty sophisticated text manipulation -- all while generating pure ASCII, so no worries about strange characters being added (like with Microsoft Word). Note Tab Light is free, but if you spring for the $19.95 Pro version, you'll get colored highlighting of HTML tags, faster "replace all" commands in multiple opened documents, spell checking and more added goodies.
Platform: Windows
Where to get it: www.notetab.com
Recommended by: Sharon Machlis, online managing editor

Application: Bricolage
What it is: Web site content management software
Why we like it: Managing the many objects and pages on a Web site is incredibly complex. Most of the software available is proprietary and expensive. Bricolage is, of course, free, yet it's sophisticated enough to power large, active sites. It doesn't have everything for everyone. But it has enough for most Web sites. The software is supported by San Francisco-based Kineticode Inc., which was founded by David Wheeler, Bricolage's author.
Platform: Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X
Where to get it: www.bricolage.cc
Recommended by: Mark Hall, editor at large/columnist

Application: Firefox
What is is: Web browser
Why we like it: Tabbed browsing, neat Find function, Extensions and Themes, built-in pop-up browser and few (none?) of the vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer.
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Where to get it: www.mozilla.org/firefox
Recommended by: Peter Smith, lead developer

Application: Gallery
What it is: Software for posting photos online
Why we like it: There are a number of open-source programs out there to let you post photos on your own Web site. But Gallery makes it easy for you to allow others to add their photos, too -- great if you volunteer to help run a school, club or similar type of Web site. Platform: Web server or host running PHP 4 not in safe mode, and either NetPBM or ImageMagick installed.
Where to get it: gallery.menalto.com
Recommended by: Sharon Machlis, online managing editor
Alternate suggestion: A friend swears by Coppermine, which requires PHP, MySQL and GD lib or Image Magick.

Application: WordPress
What it is: Blog software
Why we like it: Easy installation, PHP and MySQL based for easy "hacking," fully Web standard-compliant output. Fast and fun to use. A nice support network.
Platform: Web server with PHP and MySQL
Where to get it: www.wordpress.org
Recommended by: Peter Smith, lead developer

Application: Goban
What it is: Go board and opponent
Why we like it: An integrated and free environment for playing Go. Play against a computer opponent (based on GnuGO), on Internet Go Servers or download an .sgf file and explore variations on your games or those of others. Aesthetically very pleasing as well.
Platform: Mac OS X
Where to get it: www.sente.ch/software/goban
(Windows and Linux users can visit www.pandanet.co.jp/English/glgo/ to get glGO, which is a graphical front end for GnuGo that runs on those systems.)
Recommended by: Peter Smith, lead developer

Application: Poker Tournament Timer
What it is: Open-source tournament clock
Why we like it: Simple way for all players in a Texas Hold 'Em poker game to see how much time is left in a game.
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Where to get it: www.bacman.net/apps/poker
Recommended by: Stu Needels, senior systems manager

Application: Skype
What it is: Free Internet telephony from your PC
Why we like it: This is the sole listed application that the recommender doesn't use himself, but made the list for being "one of those disruptive technologies that has everybody talking." Free Skype works only from a microphone-equipped computer with audio capability, although you can pay to use it with a phone (1.7 cents per minute in the U.S. except Alaska and Hawaii, as well as wired phones in some international destinations).
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Pocket PC
Where to get it: www.skype.com
Recommended by: Matt Hamblen, senior writer

The PC Section:

Gates Promotes Digital Entertainment Anywhere Successes and New Initiatives

Paul Thurrott
http://www.wininformant.com/

During his 2005 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote address last night, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates outlined the digital entertainment successes his company has logged since its Digital Entertainment Anywhere launch event on October 12. He also highlighted some interesting initiatives that will drive momentum throughout 2005, including several partnerships, some of which are quite surprising.

Gates noted that Microsoft has grown Media Center PC sales almost 50 percent since launching Windows XP Media Center Edition (XP MCE) 2005 in October. At that time, Microsoft reported that its hardware partners had sold a modest 1 million units in 2 years. However, in the 3 months since the Digital Entertainment Anywhere launch event, PC makers have sold almost 500,000 new Media Center PCs. If that sales pace continues, Media Center PCs will move out of their niche status and become a more viable platform for partners.

Windows Media Player (WMP) 10--which forms the basis for all digital media content in XP MCE and Media Center PCs--is off to a blockbuster start as well. Since its September release, more than 90 million people have downloaded WMP 10, which features access to a range of online stores that sell music, video, and other digital content.

To enable its digital media plans, Microsoft will announce several interesting partnerships and initiatives that all tie back to the Digital Entertainment Anywhere theme. LG Electronics is partnering with Microsoft on a new DVD Recorder set top box that provides the familiar Media Center experience and can be used to record TV shows. The device will also be able to act like a Media Center Extender and access digital media content, including recorded TV shows, that's stored on Media Center PCs and XP-based PCs on your home network. Pricing wasn't available at press time, but Microsoft says that the device will go on sale late this year, in time for the 2005 holiday season. Pricing, I'm told, will be "aggressive."

Also on deck is a sweeping new partnership with MTV Networks, which owns cable stations such as Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1. Under terms of the agreement, MTV will broadly adopt Microsoft's Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Windows Media Video (WMV) technologies in a variety of products and services, including an online music store. In addition, Microsoft will work with MTV to deliver digital access to MTV's original content in several ways. "It will run the gamut," a Microsoft representative told me. Subscribers of MTV's eventual services will be able to access MTV content on any PlaysForSure-compatible device, including Windows- based PCs and notebook computers, Pocket PCs, Windows Powered Smartphones, and Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Centers.

In the unexpected announcement, Gates revealed that Microsoft is working with TiVo on its TiVoToGo service, which will let Windows users access TiVo-recorded TV shows on Windows-based PCs and notebook computers. "We want to make sure that Windows XP and Media Center users can easily access TiVo content and then copy it to Windows Mobile devices [including Pocket PCs, Smartphones, and Portable Media Centers]," a Microsoft representative told me. Here's how it works: The TiVoToGo desktop software will act as an intermediary between the TiVo device and your Windows PC. After you log on to verify your TiVo membership, you can freely move the content from WMP 10 to portable devices or other PCs. When I expressed surprise that Microsoft was partnering with a company that's essentially a competitor, the Microsoft representative said that the company is "building bridges with companies like TiVo. We're serious about Digital Entertainment Anywhere. Your digital media content should work no matter where you get it."

MSN previewed a new service called MSN Video Download. Although details are scarce--I wasn't able to find out Microsoft's pricing plans--the service will let you access video content, including news and sports, from Microsoft's many partners. Then you'll be able to watch that content on a PC, Media Center PC, or Media Center Extender, or copy it to a portable device such as a Windows Powered Pocket PC or Smartphone, a Portable Media Center, or PlaysForSure- compatible device. Speaking of partners, Microsoft will also announce many new services partners for XP MCE 2005's Onlight Spotlight, including Discovery Channel, Fox Sports, TitanTV, XM Satellite Radio, and Yahoo!.

Expect to hear other Media Center-related announcements. Companies such as Logitech, Philips, and Niveus will release new high-end universal remote control devices that are designed for Media Center PCs. Some even offer 2-way capabilities. For example, one of the Philips devices includes an LCD display that you can use to select a song or playlist; the LCD receives metadata information from the Media Center PC. Another Philips device is Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)-compatible and can be used to wirelessly stream audio content from a Media Center PC to headphones or a stereo system elsewhere in your house. In addition, the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) is now certifying high- end Media Center PCs that meet or exceed its exacting standards for audio and video excellence. Alienware, HP, Ricavision, and Stack9 Systems will announce new ISF-compliant Media Center PCs at the show. And ATI and NVIDIA will announce that their video cards have passed ISF certification. The companies will bundle the cards with new Media Center PCs and sell them to customers independently.

Microsoft partner Toshiba showed off a new Tablet PC that targets consumer, home, and student customers. The Satellite R15-S822 Series Tablet PC will ship later this year. Microsoft is also releasing new Tablet PC Power Toys for consumers, including a tool for copying digital entertainment to Tablet PCs.

Finally, a lot of new PlaysForSure-compatible hardware is coming down the pike. Companies such as Gateway, iRiver, and Samsung will introduce new media players at the show, as will Archos, which will debut its first-ever PlaysForSure- compatible unit. And two companies--Digitrex and Pioneer--will show off lines of PlaysForSure-compatible LCD and plasma TVs. That's right: Without any additional software, these TVs will be able to search your home network for digital audio, photo, and video content and play it back from largest screen in your home.

These announcements all add up to a dramatic improvement in Microsoft's already impressive digital media ecosystem. Although the software giant hasn't yet received the credit it deserves for building such an amazing array of compatible devices, products, and services, I suspect that Microsoft's presence at CES 2005 will open more than a few eyes. Stayed tuned for more information as it comes in.

MSN Ships Revolutionary Desktop Search Tool Beta

Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft's MSN unit unveiled a beta version of the MSN Toolbar Suite, a sweeping set of desktop and Web searching tools that promises to give Windows users many of the search features that the company originally promised for Longhorn. The MSN Toolbar Suite includes the taskbar-based MSN Deskbar, Windows Explorer and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)-based toolbars, and the MSN Toolbar for Outlook. And, unlike a hastily released rival desktop search tool from Google, the MSN Toolbar Suite keeps your local file searches on your hard disk and doesn't require a Web server to display results.

"People expect Microsoft to do a fantastic job on client code and searching within Windows and Office, and what we have delivered is what people expected of us: the best way to search your PC," Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president, MSN Information Services & Merchant Platform, said. "Our ambition for search is to provide the ultimate information tool that can find anything you're looking for." As Microsoft officials have been saying for more than a year, finding information on your hard disk shouldn't take longer than performing a search on Google does. That line was so effective, in fact, that Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs borrowed it when he introduced his company's Spotlight search technology, which will debut in mid-2005.

The MSN Toolbar Suite is most notable for the way it delivers on most of Longhorn's file-search promises, features that many users assumed would require the oft-delayed WinFS file-storage technology. But MSN should also be credited with creating a suite of add-ons that integrate somewhat seamlessly with Windows and provide logical entry points for searching on the desktop, in Windows Explorer and IE windows, and in your email application. That means you can perform searches in a more natural way than if you had to run a separate application or always use a Web browser.

Microsoft had been touting its upcoming desktop search tool for months. At the company's July 2004 Financial Analysts Meeting, Mehdi said that Microsoft would ship a beta version of the tool by the end of the year. "[It offers] local PC and email searching that we have built as a joint effort across the company, the Microsoft Office Team, the Microsoft Research Team, the Knowledge Interchange Team, the folks on the Longhorn Team, and our MSN Search engineers," he said. "We have put together a working version of Local PC File Search."

The MSN Toolbar Suite is currently available as a beta release; you can download it from the MSN Web site (see the first URL below). The final version of the MSN Toolbar Suite is expected in first quarter 2005. For more information about this exciting Windows add-on, refer to my exhaustive preview on the SuperSite for Windows (see the second URL below).

http://beta.toolbar.msn.com

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/msn_toolbar_suite_preview.asp

Microsoft Ships Public Antispyware Beta

January 6, 2005

Late last night, Microsoft shipped its public beta of Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (see the first URL below), which is based on the antispyware application that Giant Company Software previously sold. (Microsoft purchased Giant in December.) In addition, Microsoft announced that it will soon ship the first monthly installment of a malicious software removal tool that will help customers remove malware such as worms and viruses. The first version of that tool will appear January 11, the same day Microsoft issues its monthly security bulletins.

"Customers have told us that they need solutions that make it easier to keep computers protected from emerging and ever-changing threats," Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Security Business and Technology Unit, said. "The solutions we're announcing today will offer customers additional resources to help to protect their PCs against spyware and viruses on an ongoing and predictable basis."

The Windows AntiSpyware Beta 1 release visually and functionally resembles Giant AntiSpyware but lacks a few features, so Microsoft is advising Giant customers who have active subscriptions to retain that version. As WinInfo Daily UPDATE readers know, I recently wrote a lengthy overview of Giant AntiSpyware, and most of that information still applies to Microsoft's public beta (see the second URL below).

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Microsoft AntiSpyware Preview
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ms_antispyware_preview.asp

[Editor's Note: Another story on this release can be found at
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98783,00.html ]

New IE hole could perfect phishing scams

It allows attackers to create a fake Web site that looks like a genuine site.

News Story by Joris Evers
URL: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98413,00.html?source=NLT_&nid=98413

The vulnerability lets an attacker display any Web site while the address bar in Internet Explorer displays a trusted Web address -- https://www.paypal.com, for example -- and even shows the icon indicating that Secure Sockets Layer security technology is in use, security researchers warned on Thursday.

The flaw could result in more sophisticated phishing scams, which are online attacks that typically use spam e-mail messages with links to phony Web pages that look like legitimate e-commerce sites, where users are duped into revealing sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers.

The problem was discovered by a security researcher from the Greyhats Security Group and reported by Danish security company Secunia. The vulnerability lies in an ActiveX control in Internet Explorer and has been found to affect Version 6.0 of the browser running on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and earlier versions, according to a Secunia advisory.

Microsoft is investigating the report, a company spokeswoman said Friday. "We have not been made aware of any attacks attempting to use the reported vulnerabilities or customer impact at this time, but we are aggressively investigating the public reports," she said.

Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft may provide a fix as part of its monthly release of patch updates or as an out-of-cycle security update, she said. Meanwhile, Secunia suggests that users protect themselves by disabling ActiveX in Internet Explorer or setting the Internet Explorer security level to "high" for the Internet zone.

Banks are trying to combat phishing by educating their customers. For example, Citibank has a warning on its Web site that advises customers not to click on links in e-mail messages. Also, Citibank advises customers to manually enter the Web address for the bank in a Web browser to make sure they are dealing with Citibank and not a scammer.

Microsoft fixes 'critical' XP firewall issue

File and printer sharing problem could make files visible on the Internet

News Story by By Joris Evers
URL: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98347,00.html

DECEMBER 16, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp. has quietly released an update to Windows XP to fix a potentially serious configuration problem in the firewall that ships as part of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Users who installed SP2 on their Windows XP machines and also have file and printer sharing enabled may have been sharing their files and printers with the entire Internet, according to Microsoft.

By default, file and printer sharing makes changes to the SP2 firewall to give computers on the "local network" access to shared resources. However, the definition of that local network depends on the Internet service provider (ISP). In some cases, especially with dial-up ISPs, it meant the entire Internet, according to Microsoft.

"In the default configuration of Windows XP SP2, that (firewall) setting was probably a bit wider than it should have been," said Gary Schare, director of product management for Windows. "This update narrows the scope of what defines the local network."

Still, even with the update, a local network could extend beyond what users may consider a local network, Schare said. To cordon off a network and prevent unwanted access, users should place an additional firewall in front of the network, he said. For example, they could use a router with a firewall.

"If you're turning on file and printer sharing, we want you to be aware that you're sharing your files on the network, and if you are connected to the Internet, that network may be larger than you think," Schare said.

Microsoft first discussed the firewall issue in an article on its Web site in September. A "critical" update for Windows XP SP2 was released on Tuesday. However, though issued on the same day, the update was not part of Microsoft's monthly security updates. That's because security updates are only for software vulnerabilities, according to Schare.

"A vulnerability is a software bug that needs to be repaired to avoid a security issue. This is a configuration setting that shipped with Windows XP that was not optimal, but that is not classified as a security vulnerability," he said.

The update to Windows XP SP2 has been pushed out to users with the Automatic Updates feature in Windows. More information is available on Microsoft's Web site at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886185

Five years of Ballmer--the effect on Microsoft

By Ina Fried
URL: http://news.com.com/Five+years+of+Ballmer--the+effect+on+Microsoft/2100-1022_3-5535433.html
Story last modified Thu Jan 13 12:40:00 PST 2005

What's new:

Five years ago today, Microsoft's Bill Gates handed the CEO reins to longtime friend Steve Ballmer.

Bottom line:

Ballmer's hard-driving style (can you say, "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"?) has been quite a switch from Gates' more introverted approach. Still, though Ballmer has reworked the company to some extent, the software titan faces many of the same problems it did under Gates.

In the five years since Bill Gates surprised the technology world by announcing he would give up his title as chief executive at Microsoft, has the company changed?

Yes--and no. While CEO Steve Ballmer has clearly retooled some parts of Microsoft to more closely mesh with his hard-driving style, the world's largest software maker still faces many of the same challenges: open source, legal skirmishes, and slowing growth in some of its core businesses.

The eventual shift of power to longtime friend and colleague Ballmer was expected, but the announcement itself, five years ago Thursday, on Jan. 13, 2000, was something of a shock.

The ever-boisterous Ballmer presents a decidedly different face for the company than that of Gates, the more introverted techie who had headed the company since founding it with Paul Allen in 1975.

Ballmer reorganized the company into separate business units, changed the way workers are compensated and moved toward a broad strategy to expand on Microsoft's core products by slicing and dicing them in new ways.

"It's clearly Ballmer's company from a business perspective," said Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff. "The seven business units were largely his deal. It probably wouldn't have happened under Gates."

Another Ballmer-inspired change: fostering a kinder, gentler image and greater trust among both customers and partners. Ballmer issues annual missives to his troops calling on them to build products that are more useful for customers and to be more responsive to customer needs.

Ballmer tackled Microsoft's image problems almost from day one. In one of his first public appearances after taking over the CEO reins, he talked about the company's dilemma. "Microsoft is a company that, in my opinion, is not very well-understood. For some people, we're the Windows company...we're known mostly by our stock market success. We're also, I think, to some extent viewed as the scourge of Silicon Valley. Unfortunately...we're known as a legal defendant," he told the Commonwealth Club of California back in February of 2000.

Gates, meanwhile, has become the brain trust behind some of Microsoft's most complex--and risky--product strategies, such as the new Longhorn release of Windows and the company's move into home entertainment.

Trying to measure the success of the Ballmer era is tricky. Since the announcement, Microsoft has seen its fortunes fluctuate. Sales have grown from just less than $23 billion in fiscal 2000 to $36.8 billion in fiscal 2004, and the company's cash balance has more than tripled. At the same time, Microsoft' stock has foundered, dropping from $47.80 on the day Gates announced his plans to around $27 a share.

Many of the issues, though, that Microsoft has faced in recent years--security issues, slowing tech spending and the rising popularity of open-source software, are things that any Microsoft CEO would have had to face.

"It's a little hard to separate the changes that would have happened anyway from the changes that happened specifically from Ballmer becoming CEO," Rosoff said. "There's a lot of stuff that would have happened anyway that Microsoft would have had to react to regardless of who was CEO."

One of the busiest areas for Microsoft during the Ballmer tenure has been the legal front. When Gates first detailed his new career plans, Microsoft was dealing with news that the U.S. Department of Justice was considering a proposal to break up the software maker to resolve the antitrust case pending against it. A trial judge ordered such a breakup, but Microsoft had that overruled on appeal and eventually worked out a landmark settlement with the Department of Justice.

Since then, Ballmer and general counsel Brad Smith have been working to resolve many of the company's legal headaches, settling with rivals such as Sun Microsystems and AOL Time Warner and reaching deals to settle a number of consumer class-action lawsuits.

"It's sort of a way to minimize risk rather than fighting things to the end and ending up with some sort of catastrophic decision," Rosoff said.

Rosoff sees the settlements as part of a broader trend that has marked the Ballmer years. "Under Ballmer, the company has become a little more conservative," Rosoff said.

In the late 1990s, Microsoft was investing billions in cable and telecommunications companies and pouring its own development resources in a number of areas, including its MSN Internet service and a range of consumer Web services.

"They are again really focused on selling software," Rosoff said. "Part of that is Ballmer's legacy--he knows where the money is coming from."

At the same time, Microsoft has continued to diversify its technology portfolio and extend its reach into the IT market. It has moved into new areas such as enterprise software and has cast itself as a major player in the home entertainment industry via the launch of its Xbox video game console and other media-oriented products. The company is currently moving aggressively into the PC security software space; it launched a beta version of its first entry into the antispyware market earlier this month, and it detailed plans to introduce antivirus software applications later this year.

As for Gates, the shift gave him more time to spend on technical projects, but in some ways there has still not been enough Gates to go around.

In the early days, nearly all products went through a "Bill review," Rosoff said. Now only some projects find their way onto Gates' plate.

"It's harder to get in front of Gates than it used to be," Rosoff said. Gates has been most active in a few key projects, he said, including the Tablet PC and Longhorn, the company's next version of Windows. Even with all of Gates' attention, though, Longhorn fell behind schedule and had to be significantly scaled back.

On a personal level, Gates has continued to expand his considerable philanthropic efforts via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which holds claim to an endowment of about $27 billion and has contributed to everything from relief efforts surrounding last month's tsunami in South East Asia to efforts to improve the IT resources in the world's education systems. Recognized as the world's richest man, with a net worth of about $46.6 billion, Gates has also transformed his image from that of a sometimes arrogant and aloof individual to a kind of polished media darling.

The Linux Section:

HP Announces Linux-Based Media Hub

HP is set to release Tivo-like, Linux-based media hubs soon. The choice of OS shouldn't be a big surprise, since numerous other DVR's (including Tivo) use Linux. Since Windows Media Center Edition seems to be a flop (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/29/1452230&tid=188&tid=201&tid=186), I wonder how long HP will continue to offer their line of HP Media Center Photosmart PC's.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6581413126.html
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/12/027210&tid=129&tid=137&tid=106

Bluefish 1.0 Released

Everyone's favorite GTK-based HTML editor has hit 1.0. New features include performance improvements and better KDE integration. Please see the following release notes:

http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

Linux To Ring Up $35B By 2008

From the linked article:

"Framingham, Mass.-based IDC said that overall revenue for servers, desktops, and packaged software running on Linux will reach $35.7 billion in the next four years."

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=55800672

The Macintosh Section:

Mac Mini a maxi deal? Depends what you want

By Michael Kanellos
URL: http://news.com.com/Mac+Mini+a+maxi+deal+Depends+what+you+want/2100-1042_3-5533989.html
Story last modified Wed Jan 12 13:58:00 PST 2005

Mac Mini: http://www.apple.com/macmini/

video: http://news.com.com/1606-2-5532412.html?tag=macworld_vid

When it comes to Apple Computer's new Mac Mini, beauty is in the eye of the person holding the wallet.

The Mac Mini, unfurled Tuesday during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, costs about $100 more than similarly configured PCs from Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and others, according to analysts and price checks. The price delta increases as one factors in the typical standard equipment on PCs--neither mouse, monitor nor keyboard comes with Apple's Spartan box.

Adding features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth widens the spread even more. As an experiment, IDC analysts added "the stuff you'd want," and the final price came to $1,300, said IDC's Roger Kay, who nonetheless applauded Apple for putting out something that lets the company play in the bargain market.

Price considerations aside, the Mac Mini is unlike other PCs on the market. At 6.5 inches wide by 6.5 inches deep by 2 inches high, the unit, which weighs just less than 3 pounds, is far smaller and more stylish than "small" PCs. Dell's small desktop PC takes up about four times the volume. Small PC specialist Shuttle makes a unit that measures 7 inches by 8 inches by 11.4 inches and weighs 13 pounds.

"Intel and some of its industrial-design partners have done a lot of 'concept PCs', but mostly they've been trying to reverse-engineer Apple's sense of style--and without much success so far," said Peter Glaskowsky, a technology commentator and Newton user.

Sony and others now make handheld PCs complete with screens that beat the Mac Mini in size, but these cost $1,600 or more.

The question now is whether consumers will flock to the new box or watch their budget.

"A lot of whether (the Mini) is a good value or not depends on who it's targeted at and who is really going to buy it," said Steve Baker, an analyst with The NPD Group. "Is it a good value compared to the entry-level PC that you can find at Best Buy or Wal-Mart? The answer, I think, is clearly no."

Then again, "it fits the phenomenon of people adding PCs to their home--a PC in the kids' room or in the kitchen--and in those terms it stacks up pretty well, because when you've finished adding some of the basics to it, it still comes in at the sweet spot (in retail PC pricing)--the $700 to $1,100 range--and that's a good place to be," Baker added.

On Tuesday, Jobs told the Macworld crowd that "this is the most affordable Mac ever. People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses."

So far, initial reactions from the public are strongly positive, but a number of people say the price and lack of a keyboard could hamper sales.

"Steve Jobs is the Albert Einstein of the computer industry--business smarts; consumer tastes, tendencies, and trends; and marketing," Russell Rothwell wrote in a post on CNET News.com.

Wrote CNET News.com reader Stan Johnson: "Very cool design. I agree that it is not much of a bargain when you add all the needed gear. I think it is great for Mac lovers. However, one could purchase a more capable PC for the same amount of cash."

Under the hood

For $499, the pint-sized computer comes with a 1.25GHz G4 processor, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and a combination CD-burner, DVD-ROM drive. It uses ATI's Radeon 9200 graphics chip, with its own 32MB of graphics memory, and also includes connections such as a FireWire port, two universal serial bus ports, an Ethernet port, a modem and digital and analog ports for connecting a monitor. Apple adds a one-year warranty.

It does not include a keyboard, mouse, display or stereo speakers. An upgraded version with an 80GB drive and a 1.42GHz processor sells for $599.

This puts the two Mac Minis' price tags at about $100 to $150 more than those of similar PCs. Right now, an HP Compaq Presario with an Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron--configured to match the Mini's 256MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive and combination CD-burner-DVD-ROM drive--sells for $399 or $389, after a $50 rebate, via the company's HPshopping Web site.

Gateway, meanwhile, offers a $499 (after rebate) desktop with a competitive configuration to the $599 Mac Mini, but it also comes with a 17-inch monitor, a keyboard and mouse.

When upgrading the Mini, its price gap with the PC widens.

The $499, 1.25GHz Mini, when given 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive and a DVD-burning SuperDrive, as well as a keyboard and mouse, comes to $782. The $599 Mini, when receiving the same RAM, SuperDrive and peripheral upgrades (it already comes with an 80GB drive), lists for $832.

In one example of a similarly outfitted Windows PC, an HP Compaq Presario SR1000Z with an AMD Sempron 3000+, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB drive and a DVD burner comes to $519, before a $50 rebate, according to HPShopping.com. Upgrading the Presario to an Athlon XP 3200+ processor adds $30, bringing the price to $549 before the discount, while adding an Nvidia GeForce FX 5100 graphics card bumps it up another $70 to $619, before the rebate. Similar Intel processor systems from HP and other brand names such as Dell and Gateway were within about $50 of the Presario, before rebates.

When upgraded, the Mac Mini also begins to brush up against budget wireless notebooks.

Apple will likely argue that many Mini buyers already have keyboards and extra monitors on hand. But for those customers looking for a complete package, PCs from companies such as HP also have the advantage of being available in bundles with monitors.

Both Baker and Kay believe that leaving out the input devices could work in the company's favor, or at least not hurt it, because many buyers will be picking up the unit as a second, third or fourth PC. It also comes with Apple software, which often receives raves from people who use it. Apple software and machines have also been far less susceptible to viruses, noted Glaskowsky.

"A lot of PC users who are tired of giving tech support to friends and family members will simply have them go out and get an Apple Mini. At the same time, those who have never used OS X but are intrigued by it are finding that the barrier to entry--cost--has been lifted," wrote Anand Shimpi, editor-in-chief of AnandTech, an online review and benchmarking site.

Apple advocates will also probably argue that the Power processor at the heart of the unit is better than the chips from Intel and AMD. This is a tough argument. First, few benchmarks allow for comparing Power chips to x86 chips, said Kevin Krewell, editor-in-chief of the Microprocessor Report. Second, bargain consumers won't care.

"If I were to ballpark a comparison between the G4 1.25 and an x86 chip, I'd say that it would be slower than any of the midrange x86 CPUs used today (Athlon 64 3000+, Pentium 4 2.8GHz), but it would be competitive with the low-end Celerons," Shimpi wrote. "It's quite tough to draw a direct comparison between the G4 and the current generation x86 architectures. That being said, I'd say it would be competitive with anything found in similarly priced Dell systems."

In the end, the success or failure of the product may not be judged by actual sales. The Mac Mini's main appeal for Apple may turn out to be its use as bait to lure people into Apple stores. Sales reps will then try to upsell them to other models, speculated Kay.

"Overall, retail purchasers should respond to the Mac Mini, flaws and all," Tom King, a technology analyst, wrote in an e-mail. "This should allow fine-tuning of this new product line. It could also open the door to nice 'iPod Mini + Mac Mini' marketing and sales opportunities, especially with the large discounters like Target, Kmart, Wal-Mart and others."

At least one analyst said it may encourage switching.

"We believe the Mac Mini will increase the percentage of iPod-toting Windows users who purchase a Mac by almost threefold," said Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham and Co.

Apple debuts new, low-priced iPod

By John Borland
URL: http://news.com.com/Apple+debuts+new%2C+low-priced+iPod/2100-7354_3-5532091.html
Story last modified Tue Jan 11 13:09:00 PST 2005

iPod Shuffle: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

video: http://news.com.com/1606-2-5532431.html

As widely expected, Apple Computer on Tuesday introduced a new version of its popular music player--the iPod Shuffle, priced as low as $99.

Based on flash memory, rather than the more expensive computerlike hard drives that have been the centerpiece of all other iPods, the new player is aimed at the low end of the market, relatively untraveled territory for Apple. It comes in two sizes. The $99 version has 512MB of storage and holds about 120 songs, and a $149, 1GB version holds about 240 songs.

Unlike most similar devices, the Shuffle has no display screen to show songs or playlists; it consists only of a slender white rectangle with the trademark iPod navigation wheel on one side. The company is instead highlighting the random-play aspect of the device, although this is a common feature on virtually all MP3 players.

"iPod Shuffle is smaller and lighter than a pack of gum and costs less than $100," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "With most flash-memory music players, users must use tiny displays and complicated controls to find their music. With iPod Shuffle, you just relax and it serves up new combinations of your music every time you listen."

Although widely expected following a series of leaks, Apple's move into the flash market does mark a departure from the company's previous high-end strategy. Jobs has previously dismissed small-capacity, relatively inexpensive MP3 players as products given as gifts and rarely used.

The flash market overall has been larger in terms of units sold than the hard-drive market, and remains very strong overseas. The largest share of the U.S. retail market over the past year belongs to iRiver, followed by Rio and RCA. Other players include Nike/Phillips, Samsung and Creative Technologies.

Other companies have been making their own new approaches to the low end and middle of the music player market as well. At last week's Consumer Electronics Show, Rio introduced a new 2.5-gigabyte player called the ce2100, priced at $199.

The holiday season proved a successful one for some of these Apple rivals. Creative Technology said Tuesday that it had sold more than 2 million MP3 players in the quarter ending December, prompting the company to raise its yearly revenue guidance substantially.

However, Apple remains the dominant player in the hard-drive-based MP3 player market, accounting for more than 80 percent of sales between October 2003 and October 2004, according to the NPD Group. The company said Tuesday that it had sold more than 4.5 million iPods in the fiscal quarter ending Dec. 25.

Analysts said the new device will help Apple capture a new segment of the market without cutting into the older iPod's growth.

"The shuffle is where it needs to be--it is very unlikely to cannibalize the iPod while allowing Apple to be more aggressive with other flash players," said NPD Techworld analyst Steve Baker. "It also allows Apple to tap into overseas markets better where people are more sensitive to price points than here in the U.S."

The company's share prices have soared from $40 to nearly $70 in the last three months, largely on expectations of continued iPod sales growth and associated positive effects on the rest of the company's business. The Prudential Equity Group said Tuesday that it expects Apple to ship 15 million iPod units in fiscal 2005 and 22.5 million units in fiscal 2006.

The decision to eliminate the navigation screen, which will make it more difficult to find a specific song, drew mixed reviews from analysts. The device still retains a skip-and-rewind button to move forward and backward through a playlist, and a switch to toggle between shuffle and in-order play.

"It is likely that they omitted the screen in order to keep (the) retail price down," said IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian. "But looking to next-generation flash players, they're going to need to add the ease of navigation that comes with a display."

Competitors also noted this feature as a competitive advantage for their own products.

"We have seen this in the industry before, where we've gone down the path of blind (user interfaces), and customers don't respond well," said Dan Torres, vice president of product marketing for Rio. "There is that comfort where customers will look at the screen and say, 'What song am I on,' or 'What do I have queued up?' Navigation is important visually as well."

The introduction of the flash iPod may also give Apple's iTunes store a boost. Previously, none of the flash players on the market could directly play songs purchased from Apple's digital music store, although customers could burn the songs to a CD and then re-rip them to MP3 format.

By offering a lower-priced player, iTunes could attract a new segment of the market, one that previously only had access to rival download services such as Napster, Virgin Digital or MSN Music.

Apple unveils $499 PC

By David Becker
URL: http://news.com.com/Apple+unveils+499+PC/2100-7354_3-5532008.html
Story last modified Tue Jan 11 12:22:00 PST 2005

SAN FRANCISCO--After decades of being criticized for producing luxury items, Apple Computer is aiming squarely at the mass market with a new budget PC unveiled Tuesday.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new Mac Mini during his keynote address at the Macworld Expo here, promising the machine would help further expand Apple's audience beyond the Mac faithful.

Jobs also confirmed several other high-profile debuts--including a tiny flash memory iPod--that have been grinding through the Mac rumor mills, prompting the secretive company to sue the alleged source of several information leaks.

Many of the reports turned out to be true, with Jobs beginning the cavalcade of products by announcing the Mac Mini and the flash memory-based iPod.

The Mac Mini is a tiny machine with a processor, hard drive and optical drive--you supply the monitor, mouse and keyboard. Jobs said the package will settle long-standing complaints that Apple extracts too high a premium for its products. "This is the most affordable Mac ever," Jobs said. "People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses."

The new Mac Mini will go on sale Jan. 22 and will cost $499 for the base model, or $599 for one with a bigger hard drive. The device marks one of Apple's boldest moves yet to expand PC sales beyond a loyal but limited market of Mac addicts. The iPod and Apple's iTunes music store have been responsible for a dramatic surge in Apple revenue, but to date there has been little evidence that those products have done anything for Apple's PC business.

The Mac Mini will come with Panther, the latest version of Apple's OS X operating system, plus the iLife collection of digital media applications. Like almost all Mac products, it's designed for style as well as function. "This is a very robust computer, but it's very, very tiny," Jobs said.

The new breed of iPod went on sale Tuesday in two versions--a 512MB model (enough memory for about 120 songs) for $99 and a 1GB version for $149.

Both models work with a Mac or PC and have no display screen for navigating through a music library. Instead, Apple expects the players largely will be used in "shuffle" mode that serves up songs in random order.

"iPod users discovered a new way to listen to their music...shuffle," Jobs said. "With shuffle you don't have to find your music; it's shuffled up for you."

The new flash memory-based iPod Shuffle is Apple's latest bid to expand its portable music player business to more downscale consumers, following the wildly successful launch of the iPod Mini early last year.

Jobs earlier derided flash-based music players as toys with limited functionality, but plunging prices for flash memory will allow Apple to produce a capable player at a suitable price.

"We've taken a look at this market, and it's a zoo," Jobs said. "There's a zillion little flash players out there...and the products are all pretty much the same. They're trying to be as easy to use as an iPod, but they have these very tiny displays and a really tortured interface."

Jobs took credit for dramatically reducing the market for flash-based music players by pushing hard-drive models downstream. "The iPod Mini worked," he said. But there's still an opportunity to grab digital music newcomers with inexpensive models, he said. "We'd like to go after the remaining mainstream flash market," Jobs said.

In other iPod news, Jobs said Apple sold 4.5 million of the players during the final quarter of 2004, and he announced that Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan and others will follow BMW's lead in offering iPod adapters in new cars.

"We believe we have just begun this era of digital music," Jobs said. "We're going to see some very healthy progress in the next year."

In addition, Jobs confirmed iWork, a new software package that will take on Microsoft's Office in the Mac software market.

The package will include Pages, a new word processing program developed by Apple, and an updated version of Keynote, a slideshow application Apple introduced two years ago.

Like other Apple products, Jobs said one of the major advantages of iWork will be its integration with the Mac OS X operating system. "iWork is a product we've created from the ground up to take advantage of OS X," he said.

The release of iWork marks another chapter in Apple's on-and-off partnership with Microsoft, whose Mac version of Office has long been the standard productivity package for the operating system, partly out of necessity. Apple's own AppleWorks package has achieved only modest market share, mostly in educational settings, and the company's FileMaker database software has never posed a significant threat to Microsoft's similar Access.

Demonstrating Pages, Jobs and Apple Vice President Phil Schiller made it clear the application isn't counting on business letters and school reports as its sweet spot. Pages includes numerous tools for adding photos to documents and creating complex documents that look like professionally made brochures.

"It's word processing with a sense of style," Jobs said. The iWork package will sell for $79 starting Jan. 22.

Jobs also had more details on "Tiger," the next version of the OS X operating system, but he stopped short of setting a release date more specific than the first half of 2005. However, that will still be well before the next version of Microsoft's Windows, Jobs said as he revealed the slogan, "Long before Longhorn."

Major additions to the new OS, officially known as Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, include Spotlight, Apple's entry into the growing desktop search market. Jobs said Spotlight will best new desktop search offerings from Google and Microsoft, thanks to the benefits of being integrated into OS X, which can automatically update search results as the contents of a Mac hard drive change.

"When you build it into the core OS, you can do things you can't do with a tool sitting on the side," Jobs said. "You can find things on your system you didn't even know were there."

Tiger will also include a new version 7 of the QuickTime video player, and Dashboard, a new interface that will allow Mac users to quickly switch between small applications such as a calculator, language translator or weather forecasts.

"It's a place for widgets to live...to get your stuff, get in and get out," Jobs said before demonstrating a stock ticker applet displaying Apple shares. "Oh, we're down a little bit today," he said. "Well, we've still got a lot more to go in the keynote."

Jobs also touted growing support for high-definition video in an array of Mac products, including the new QuickTime and an HD-ready version of Final Cut Express, Apple's hobbyist video editing application. "2005 is going to be the year of high-definition video," Jobs said.

Kunitake Ando, president of electronics giant Sony, joined Jobs onstage to promote the HD push, including a new Sony HD camcorder. "Steve said he is a great fan of Sony products--not all of them," said Ando, whose company competes with Apple in markets such as PCs and portable music players. "Together, we can really revolutionize the way we enjoy video at home."

Rumored products that didn't appear in Jobs speech included "Asteroid," a supposed music instrument interface meant to hook into Apple's GarageBand software and the inspiration for several of Apple's suits against Mac rumor sites.

Jobs also suffered a brief technical glitch when trying to demonstrate new OS X search features, but he recovered much more quickly and gracefully than Microsoft Chair Bill Gates did during his error-riddled Consumer Electronics Show presentation last week. "That's why we have backup systems here," Jobs quipped.

Mac OS 10.3.7 Fixes Specific Bugs

TidBITS#760/20-Dec-04

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.3.7, a less-sweeping update than most of the previous Mac OS X 10.3 updates. Unlike those updates, this one focuses on specific bugs, fixing a problem that could cause intermittent DNS lookup failures, enabling TextEdit to open certain previously problematic RTF documents, solving a few problems for the World of Warcraft game, improving compatibility for 3D surfaces in Graphing Calculator, fixing the problem introduced in 10.3.6 that prevented some FireWire drives from mounting, addressing an issue that caused filenames saved to an AppleShare file server to be shortened to 31 character, improving compatibility with FireWire-based audio devices, and enabling E*Trade PDF account statements to be viewed in Preview, among others.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300385>

Note that Apple specifically recommends you disconnect FireWire drives (including iPods!) before installing the update, and there have been reports at various Mac Web sites of network-related performance problems after updating. Although we haven't seen problems, you may wish to delay installing 10.3.7 until more is known, unless you're experiencing problems with something the update explicitly fixes. Mac OS X 10.3.7 is a 26 MB update available via Software Update or as a standalone installer; a combo update that includes all the changes since 10.3 is available as a 97 MB download. [ACE]

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate_10_3_7.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxcombinedupdate_10_3_7.html>
<http://www.macfixit.com/>
<http://www.macintouch.com/panreader48.html#dec20>

AirPort Firmware Updates Fix Major Bugs

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#760/20-Dec-04

Apple late today pushed out two incremental firmware releases to its wireless base stations, AirPort Express 6.1.1 and AirPort Extreme 5.5.1, on the heels of a major release a few weeks ago (see "AirPort 4.1 Fixes Encryption Irritation, Enables Remote Control" in TidBITS-756_). These incremental fixes should finally address a perplexing and persistent problem with making reliable FTP connections across either AirPort Express or Extreme networks.

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportextremefirmware551formacosx.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportexpressfirmware611formacosx.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07897>

The release notes for both firmware updates have four items in common.

• FTP: This maddening problem meant that many users could not reliably perform FTP transactions across an Apple base station. Maddening is the most publishable word. The bug has been fixed, apparently; I was unable to test it before this article went to press.
  
  
• Hard Reset: The base stations now tell you when you've held down the reset button long enough to trigger a hard reset, which wipes all resident settings. (The behavior varies slightly between the AirPort Extreme and Express base stations for soft, hard, and factory resets.) After five seconds of holding down the reset button, both base station models flash their LEDs rapidly to indicate that the command was received.
  
  
• WDS with WPA: It sounds like gibberish, but this is a method of using the latest security for encrypting a Wi-Fi network (WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access) with wireless connections between base stations. The previous major firmware upgrade allowed WPA to work with wireless distribution system (WDS); this micro-release fixes a bug that would cause a base station to crash eventually when a WDS node was removed.
  
  
• Printers: Some printers wouldn't work with the base station printing sharing after the previous major firmware release was installed. This micro-release reportedly fixes that problem.
  
  
• PPPoE: Finally, some PPPoE setups were garbled on AirPort Extreme Base Stations after the previous major release was installed. This release also supposedly resolves that problem.

Commodore Heritage Section:

U.S. Company Acquires Rights to Commodore

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch company said Thursday it will sell the once- mighty Commodore computer brand to U.S.-based Yeahronimo Media Ventures Inc. for 24 million euros, or $33 million.

Tulip Computers International BV —which has held the rights to Commodore since 1997— said it has agreed to sell all remaining patents and the Commodore brand to Yeahronimo, best known in Europe for providing music and video downloads via the Internet.

Commodore became a household name on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1980s with its early personal computers, including the Vic-20 and C64 machines, before going bankrupt in 1994 under competition from IBM's PC clones using the Microsoft operating system.

But technology enthusiasts and devotees have kept knowledge about Commodore's machines alive on dozens of special interest Web sites.

Yeahronimo will use the Commodore name to increase awareness of its services and hopes to cash in on a recent renaissance of interest in vintage games and computers, Chief Executive Ben van Weijhe said in a telephone interview.

"We have heard a lot from the existing community of Commodore users, asking 'what's happening' with what they see as their brand," Van Weijhe said.

"We plan to talk with them and listen to them" in deciding what products and services Commodore will offer, he said.

He added that Yeahronimo was "starting to take actions" against possible copyright infringements of the Commodore name in the United States.

Yeahronimo also plans to sell its own Commodore-branded MP3 players and simple video game systems offering versions of the old Commodore games using a Web site called "Commodore World."

The deal is set to close within a few weeks.

Yeahronimo has its headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif., but has major operations in Baarn, Netherlands.

Tulip, once a maker of IBM clones, survived its own financial crisis at the turn of the century. It said in a statement it would use proceeds from the sale to fund its current businesses selling PC-related equipment and handheld tablet PCs.

Commodore brand sold to music distributor

By Jennifer Guevin
URL: http://news.com.com/Commodore+brand+sold+to+music+distributor/2110-1003_3-5507789.html
Story last modified Thu Dec 30 12:18:00 PST 2004

Tulip Computers, based in the Netherlands, has agreed to sell its Commodore International subsidiary to Yeahronimo Media Ventures in a deal worth just over $32.7 million. Yeahronimo said on Wednesday that Tulip Computers will remain active in the production of Commodore products. But just what the companies will do with the brand is unclear.

Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Yeahronimo produces software that allows for the legal downloading of multimedia content from copyright holders. No stranger to the digital music business, Tulip this year announced several products under the Commodore name, including portable USB storage devices, low-end digital music players as well as a 20GB digital music player. According to the release, the sale will give Yeahronimo the ability to continue the sale of these products as well as to "develop a worldwide entertainment concept."

A Toy With a Story

By JOHN MARKOFF
December 20, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joystick.html?oref=login&oref=login&th

AMHILL, Ore. - There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school dropout and self-taught computer chip designer.

Ms. Ellsworth has squeezed the entire circuitry of a two-decade-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single chip, which she has tucked neatly into a joystick that connects by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore 64 - the same as the computer system - her device can run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzles games from the early 1980's, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.

She has also included five hidden games and other features - not found on the original Commodore computer - that only a fellow hobbyist would be likely to appreciate. For instance, someone who wanted to turn the device into an improved version of the original machine could modify it to add a keyboard, monitor and disk drive.

Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month; since then it has been sold through QVC's Web site. Frank Landi, president of Mammoth, said he expected the joystick would be distributed next year by bigger toy and electronics retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us. "To me, any toy that sells 70,000 in a day on QVC is a good indication of the kind of reception we can expect," he said.

Ms. Ellworth's first venture into toy making has not yet brought her great wealth - she said she is paid on a consulting basis at a rate that is competitive for her industry - "but I'm having fun," she said, and she continues with other projects in circuit design as a consultant.

Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)

More significant, perhaps, is that in an era of immensely complicated computer systems, huge factories and design teams that stretch across continents, Ms. Ellsworth is demonstrating that the spirit that once led from Silicon Valley garages to companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer can still thrive.

"She's a pure example of following your interests and someone who won't accept that you can't do it," said Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first portable PC and an original member of the Homebrew Computer Club. "She is someone who can do it and do it brilliantly."

Ms. Ellsworth said that chip design was an opportunity to search for elegance in simplicity. She takes her greatest pleasure in examining a complex computer circuit and reducing it in cost and size by cleverly reusing basic electronic building blocks.

It is a skill that is as much art as science, but one that Ms. Ellsworth has perfected, painstakingly refining her talent by plunging deeply into the minutiae of computer circuit design.

Recently she interrupted a conversation with a visitor in her home to hunt in between the scattered circuit boards and components in her living room for a 1971 volume, "MOS Integrated Circuits," which she frequently consults. The book concerns an earlier chip technology based on fewer transistors than are used today. "I look for older texts," she said. "A real good designer needs to know how the old stuff works."

Several years ago Ms. Ellsworth cornered Stephen Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, at a festival for vintage Apple computers and badgered him for the secrets of his Apple II floppy disk controller.

"I was very impressed with her knowledge of all this stuff, and her interest too," recalled Mr. Wozniak, whose fascination with hobbyist computers three decades ago helped create the personal computer industry.

She attributes her passion for design simplicity to her youth in Dallas, Ore., 35 miles south of Yamhill, where she was raised by her father, Jim Ellsworth, a mechanic who owned the local Mobil station.

She became a computer hobbyist early, begging her father at age 7 to let her use a Commodore 64 computer originally purchased for her brother, and then learning to program it by reading the manuals that came with the machine.

In a tiny rural town without access even to a surplus electronics store, her best sources of parts were the neighborhood ham radio operators. She learned to make the most of her scarce resources.

"It goes back to necessity," she said. "It went back to not having enough parts to design with when I was a kid."

Her first business foray came during high school when she began designing and selling the dirt-track race cars that she had been driving with her farther. Using his service station as a workshop, she was soon making so much money selling her custom race cars that she dropped out of high school.

It was fun for several years, she said, but eventually she decided that she needed to get away from the race car scene. A friend had an early Intel 486-based PC and thought they could make money assembling and selling computers. She decided he was right: "I looked at the margins and it seemed like a great way to make money."

They went into business together in 1995, but soon had a falling out and split up. For a short time Ms. Ellsworth considered leaving the computer business. Instead, she opened a store near that of her former partner, then drove him out of business. Ultimately her store became a chain of five Computers Made Easy shops in small towns.

"My business model was to find areas that were far enough away from the big cities where the larger stores were," she said. "I could generate a lot of loyalty and charge a bit more. It worked out well for quite a while."

Eventually, the collapsing price of the PC made it impossible to survive, she said, and in 2000 she sold off her stores.

"When the machines got down to $75 margins, then even putting a technician on the phone to answer a question meant you were almost losing money," she said.

Free from her business obligations, she decided to return to her first love - hobbyist electronics. She was eager to study computer hardware design, but soon found that there weren't many options for a high school dropout.

She moved to Walla Walla, Wash., and began attending Walla Walla College, a Seventh Day Adventist school that offered a circuit design program. Her attempt at a formal education lasted less than a year, however. She was a cultural mismatch for the school, where she said questioning the professors' answers was frowned upon.

"I felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing," she said.

On her own again, Ms. Ellsworth decided to pursue her passion, designing computer circuits that mimicked the behavior of her first Commodore. She turned to a series of mentors and availed herself of free software design tools offered by chip companies.

Her hobby produced a chameleon computer called the C-1. Changing its basic software could make it mimic not only a Commodore 64, but ultimately more than nine other popular home computers of the early 1980's, including the Atari, TI, Vic and Sinclair.

Two years ago she showed it off at the Hackers' Conference, an annual meeting of some of the nation's best computer designers. To her surprise, she received a rousing ovation - and a series of job offers.

One person who took notice was Andrew Singer, a computer scientist who is chief executive of Rapport Inc., a start-up based in Mountain View, Calif.

Mr. Singer contracted with Ms. Ellsworth as a consultant and has since found that she has abilities that engineers with advanced degrees often do not.

"It's possible to get a credential and not have passion," he said. He compared Ms. Ellsworth to Mr. Wozniak and to Burrell Smith, the hardware designer of the original Macintosh. Neither had formal training when they made their most significant contributions at Apple.

Ms. Ellsworth was also discovered by Mammoth toys, which hired her to design the Commodore-emulating chip for the joystick. She began the project late last June and finished, including a frantic last-minute trip to a Chinese manufacturing factory, in early September - a design sprint fueled by Mountain Dew and 20-hour days.

"It worked out tremendously well for our company," said Mr. Landi, president of Mammoth. "It has entirely changed the way we design electronic toys." He said that he has signed Ms. Ellsworth up for a series of design projects, although he would not divulge the financial details.

Old-fashioned video games like the ones on Ms. Ellsworth's product have become less common recently because kids have grown jaded and expect a "wow" factor, like intense graphics or realistic images that older computers could not produce, said Shyam Nagrani, principle consumer electronics analyst for iSupply, a market research firm based in El Segundo, Calif. He added, however, "The parents are likely to pick this up and say, 'Why not? The kids may like it.'"

When the C64, as the joystick is called informally, appeared on QVC last month, Ms. Ellsworth watched with obvious pride.

"It was one of one of the best projects I've ever done in my life," she said. "It was a tribute back to the computer that started it all for me."

The CUCUG Section:

December General Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

December 16, 2004

The meeting began with the traditional introduction of officers.

Corporate Agent Kevin Hisel distributed some user group support material generously provided by Microsoft. He gave out 5 Microsoft Award For Customer Excellence cards, and conducted a drawing for the other three items: a T-shirt won by Kevin Hopkins, "Streets and Trips" won by Rich Hall and Encarta 2005 won by Steve Gast. Thank you to Kevin for managing this connection to Microsofot for us.

Another item included in the Microsoft promotional material was Windows Media Experience XP, which was then a topic for discussion. Wayne Hamilton took the Windows Media Experience XP disk to put it through its paces.

Then, Kevin Hisel, as CUCUG's Election Commissioner, opened the floor for more nominations for club officers. There being none, the floor was closed. A show of hands vote was taken for the slate of candidates, as moved by Steve Gast, seconded by acclamation. Richard Rollins, ever the contrarian, stood alone in opposition to his own election as President. The slate of candidates was elected. Treasurer Rich Hall was seen waving to the train as it whizzed through the station. Secretary Kevin Hopkins duly took note. Vice President Emil Cobb was too busy helping someone with their laptop to even look up.

There were 18 members in attendance.

Discussion then turned to the direction Microsoft is going to take with the OS.

Mark Zinzow said he bought an Iomagic DVD burner at Staples on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and he's getting coasters about 10% of the time. There was a discussion about media, the age of the burner (the earliest DVD burners weren't equipped with hefty enough power supplies and the drives sucked a lot of power on spin-up which caused problems, but the newer models don't have that problem anymore), the need to be at least USB 2.0, etc. The consensus was to get an RMA number and send it back.

Tere was a discussion of the new drive connection system, serial ATA. Someone asked if the drives were different. Harold Ravlin said they're the same drives, just a different interface.

George Krumins mentioned a new 80 GB hard drive that's 1 1/2" across.

Talk ranged over appliances with computers in them and products with embedded IRs for tracking products. There was a court case concerning the latter.

Richard Rollins reported that Intel says it will kick up their roadmap 2 or 3 more speed bumps and that'll be it. The chips will be going multi-core.

George Krumins talked about motherboards with dual video cards or dual GPUs on a single card.

In line with a discussion on the topic, the group looked up flash drives on Staples.com and found a 4 GB unit for $130.

Richard Hall gave the Annual Treasurer's Report. Phil Wall asked some informative questions.

Kevin Hopkins brought up the latest story that Google is going to digitize 5 large libraries, constructing the Google Virtual Library. Kevin Hisel mentioned that this is in line with work they've already done with catalogs and their Google Print program.

http://print.google.com/
http://www.forbes.com/execpicks/2004/10/07/cx_da_1007topnews.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3417941
http://www.iwr.co.uk/IWR/1160176
http://catalogs.google.com/

December Board Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

The December meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, December 21, 2005, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Richard Rollins, Emil Cobb, Rich Hall, Kevin Hopkins, and Kevin Hisel.

Richard Rollins: Richard thanked Emil Cobb for getting the refreshments for the December meeting. He commented that the train ran over us in the election.

Richard noted we still have the same problems - no one is volunteering to do programs. He said, "They don't have to be elaborate affairs. Please do 10 to 15 minutes." Kevin Hopkins noted that we haven't done a survey in a while to see what the membership is into and wants to see.

The Board discussed how our friend and founder Steve Gast is progressing in his recovery.

Richard said we need a volunteer to produce and manage a survey to find out the direction the members would like us to go in.

In closing, Richard said, as of now, there is no PC program for next month.

Emil Cobb: Emil said he just got a digital camera which he might be able to do a Mac program on, as soon as he's had more time to play with it.

Emil reported 18 or 19 people at the meeting.

Rich Hall: Rich said he had nothing to report.

Kevin Hopkins: Kevin brought up the need for the email address to be requested on the membership form. He received several forms from the December meeting that had no email address on them. Emil said that had already been taken care of - he had just been using up the old forms. Emil said he needed a membership list for badge production. Kevin said he would provide that as well as a list of those members that had yet to renew in order for Kevin Hisel to send out his reminders. Kevin reported that club membership topped out at 41 this year.

Kevin Hisel: Kevin said namesecure.com may be a possible hosting service for the club discussion board and our web site. President Rollins authorized the expense.

The Back Page:

Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The FBC-CS is located at 1602 N. Prospect Avenue in Savoy, on the NE corner of Burwash and Prospect. To get to the the First Baptist Church from Champaign or Urbana, take Prospect Avenue south. Setting the trip meter in your car to 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 the right) 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; Burwash Park is to the east. Turn east (left) on Burwash. The FBC-CS parking lot entrance is on the north (left) side of Burwash. Enter by the double doors at the eastern end of the building's south side. A map can be found on the CUCUG website at http://www.cucug.org/meeting.html. The First 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 mid year.

Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by email. All recent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user group exchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. As a matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.

For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):

   President/WinSIG:   Richard Rollins      469-2616
   Vice-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          406-948-1999           contact/index.html
   Linux SIG:          Tom Purl             390-6078         tompurl2000@yahoo.com

Email us at http://www.cucug.org/ contact/index.html, visit our web site at http://www.cucug.org/, or join in our online forums at http://www.cucug.org/starship/ .