News Common PC Mac C= CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: Thursday, February 17th, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The Linux SIG convenes, of course, 45 minutes earlier, at 6:15 pm. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of this newsletter.
The February 17 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. For this month's Linux presentation, Tom Purl will be offer the introduction to the Python programming language he was unable to get to last month. The Macintosh and PC SIGs are open for anything anyone wants to bring in.
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We'd like to welcome the newest members of our group, joining us in the last month: David Noreen (PC Desktop), Charles Lam (PC Desktop), and Thomas Kapelanski (PC Clone).
We'd also like to thank renewing members Edwin Hadley, Selena Kay Douglass, John Baird, Wayne Hamilton, and Jim Lewis.
We welcome any kind of input or feedback from members. Run across an interesting item or tidbit on the net? Just send the link to the editor. Have an article or review you'd like to submit? Send it in. Have a comment? Email any officer you like. Involvement is the driving force of any user group. Welcome to the group.
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From: Mark S. Zinzow
We'll be meeting next Wednesday, 2/16/05 7-9pm as usual in 1310 DCL.
We've no big presentation planned, but our general Q&A discussions generally fill the two hours and many interesting topics come up.
Earlier that day CITES will begin its training on the new CITES Spam Control for technical staff, so we may get a report on what's in the works from someone who attends that.
I've also spoken with several members interested in more discussion of Usenet news issues, and expect several folks will be happy to share their recent experiences in rediscoverying this Usenet resource that predates the Internet as we know it today and is still relevant to modern needs.
I look forward to seeing many old friends, and encourage everyone to invite new ones as we start another year of meetings.
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By MATTHEW FORDAHL
Feb 8, 12:26 AM (ET)
URL: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050208/D8844QS00.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Setting up a battle for the future of computing, engineers from IBM, Sony and Toshiba unveiled details Monday of a microprocessor they claim has the muscle of a supercomputer and can power everything from video game consoles to business computers.
Devices built with the processor, code-named Cell, will compete directly with the PC chips that have powered most of the world's personal computers for a quarter century.
Cell's designers say their chip, built from the start with the burgeoning world of rich media and broadband networks in mind, can deliver 10 times the performance of today's PC processors.
It also will not carry the same technical baggage that has made most of today's computers compatible with older PCs. That architectural divergence will challenge the current dominant paradigm of computing that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Intel Corp. (INTC) have fostered.
The new chip is expected to be used in Sony Corp. (SNE)'s next-generation PlayStation game console in 2006. Toshiba Corp. plans to incorporate it into high-end televisions that year as well. And IBM Corp. has said it will sell a workstation with the chip starting later this year.
Beyond that, companies are remaining coy about where it might be used and whether it will be compatible with older technology.
Supercomputer claims are nothing new in the high-tech industry, and over the years chip and computer companies have steadily improved microprocessor performance even without altering chips' underlying architecture.
And while its competitors may well match the Cell chip in performance by the time it debuts, it differs considerably from today's processors in constitution.
Cell is comprised of several computing engines, or cores. A core based on IBM's Power architecture controls eight "synergistic" processing centers. In all, they can simultaneously carry out 10 instruction sequences, compared with two for today's Intel chips.
The new microprocessor also is expected to be able to run multiple operating systems and programs at the same time while ensuring each has enough resources. In the home, that could allow for a device that's capable of handling a video game, television and general-purpose computer at once.
"It's very flexible," said Jim Kahle, an IBM fellow. "We support many operating systems with our virtualization technology so we can run multiple operating systems at the same time, doing different jobs on the system."
Later this year, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) plan to release their own "multicore" chips, which also increase the number of instructions that can be executed at once. IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) already sell chips with multiple cores, mainly for business servers.
On Monday, Intel announced that it has completed the first product runs of its dual-core processors and said it plans to deliver two separate dual-core Pentium chips and chipset lines in the second quarter.
Cell appears to have an advantage in the number of transistors - 234 million compared with 125 million for today's latest Pentium 4 chips. Traditional chip makers, however, have regularly doubled their number of transistors every 12 to 18 months.
(AP) Jim Kahle, IBM Director of Technology for Cell Technology, holds up a silicon wafer of hundreds of... Full ImageCell is said to run at clock speeds greater than 4 gigahertz, which would top the 3.8 GHz of Intel's current top-speed chip.
Cell's designers said they are running a variety of operating systems on the processor at their lab in Austin, Texas. But they would not say whether Microsoft's Windows is one of them. In fact, they only confirmed running Linux, the open source environment.
The PC industry has seen a long line of chips attempt to usurp the x86 architecture pioneered by Intel that dominates today's computers. But all have failed, and Intel remains the world's largest chip maker.
In the 1990s, IBM, Motorola Inc. (MOT) and Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) pushed the PowerPC architecture. Though it's still used by the Apple Macintosh as well as IBM workstations and servers, it failed to dethrone Intel.
Most recently, Transmeta Corp. (TMTA)'s Crusoe was supposed to challenge Intel's dominance in notebooks. Launched at the twilight of the tech boom in 2000, it gained only marginal acceptance and the company is now considering plans to focus on licensing its patents.
Intel has since developed its own mobile chip technology, Centrino.
"Transmeta was also a disruptive influence in the market. And because of Transmeta, we've got Centrino and the advances that have happened in mobile computing," said Steve Kleynhans, a Meta Group analyst. "Unfortunately, we don't really have Transmeta anymore."
For a challenger to succeed in displacing x86, it will have to perform considerably better since it also will break computing's long-standing tradition of backward and forward compatibility, said Justin Rattner, who oversees Intel's Corporate Technology Group.
"They're going to have to show they're able to do things that conventional architectures at least at the moment are incapable of doing," he said. "That's the fundamental question."
The Cell's specifications also suggest the PlayStation 3 will offer realistic graphics and strong performance. But analysts cautioned that not all the features in a product announcement will find their way into all systems built on the device.
"Any new technology like this has two components," Kleynhans said. "It has the vision of what it could be because you need the big vision to sell it. Then there's the reality of how it's really going to be used, which generally several levels down the chain from there."
Cell links:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1.ars/1
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2.ars
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=38754
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/technology/07chip.html?oref=login
from the second link, written by By Jon "Hannibal" Stokes:
The Cell and AppleFinally, before signing off, I should clarify my earlier remarks to the effect that I don't think that Apple will use this CPU. I originally based this assessment on the fact that I knew that the SPUs would not use VMX/Altivec. However, the PPC core does have a VMX unit. Nonetheless, I expect this VMX to be very simple, and roughly comparable to the Altivec unit on the first G4. Everything on this processor is stripped down to the bare minimum, so don't expect a ton of VMX performance out of it, and definitely not anything comparable to the G5. Furthermore, any Altivec code written for the new G4 or G5 would have to be completely reoptimized due to inorder nature of the PPC core's issue.
So the short answer is, Apple's use of this chip is within the realm of conceivability, but it's extremely unlikely in the short- and medium-term. Apple is just too heavily invested in Altivec, and this processor is going to be a relative weakling in that department. Sure, it'll pack a major SIMD punch, but that will not be a double-precision Alitvec-type punch.
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Search tool to back up each factual query with results from online encyclopedia.
February 1, 2005 - 6:39 AM EST
URL: http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/01/technology/microsoft_search.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. has unveiled the full-release version of its search engine, turning up the heat on Web search leader Google Inc.
The world's largest software maker also revamped its MSN.com Web portal to make its search engine more prominent and also tweaked the site's content and advertising to remove clutter, said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's vice president in charge of content and services at the MSN Internet division.
At stake are advertising dollars as well as bragging rights in one of the technology industry's more interesting growth areas.
"We really are about answers and not about links," Mehdi told Reuters, taking a swipe at MSN Search's nearest competitors, which also include Yahoo Inc. (Research)
"There's a huge amount of room for improvement" in online searches, Mehdi said.
To make answers to factual questions more relevant, Mehdi said MSN Search would include the full range of information contained in Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft's electronic encyclopedia.
Users will be able to get definitions, calculations, geographical and historical information, and other information, and also view encyclopedia articles and content for any two-hour session via MSN Search.
"We aim to have an answer for every query," Mehdi said.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (Research) decided nearly two years ago to build its own search engine after seeing Google take the lead and profit from the billions that advertisers pay to have their own ads displayed alongside search results.
Since then, Google (Research) has gone public and Yahoo has beefed up its own search offerings as both company's face the prospect of competing against Microsoft and its deep pockets and army of software engineers.
The launch of MSN Search comes three months after the release of an initial beta, or test version. Microsoft had been using Yahoo unit Inktomi to power its search services, but will no longer do so with the full release of its search engine, which uses Microsoft's own technology to sift through the Web.
Microsoft's new search engine will be culling results from a database index of more than 5 billion Web documents and pages. Google's index database is more than 8 billion pages.
Microsoft has also integrated results that link directly into its MSN Music service, which was launched in September of last year.
One new capability that Microsoft will be introducing with Monday's launch is the ability to create RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, feeds that allows users to track search results through an incoming data feed on their personal computers.
Mehdi also said that Microsoft would market its search engine through a marketing campaign directed at online users as well as television viewers. He did not disclose any projections for advertising spending.
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URL: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/01/21/digital.rights.electronics.reut/index.html
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (Reuters) -- The world's four biggest consumer electronics companies have agreed to start using a common method to protect digital music and video against piracy and illegal copying, they said on Thursday.
Japan's Sony Corp and Panasonic-brand owner Matsushita Electric Industrial, South Korea's Samsung Electronics and Dutch Philips Electronics formed the alliance because they want buyers of their products to watch or listen to "appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content," they said in a joint statement.
Such interoperability does not exist at the moment. Songs bought in Sony's Connect store on the Internet, for example, can only be played on portable music players from Sony or companies that license its digital rights management (DRM) system.
Digital encoding and decoding formats also differ per store, with Apple using AAC in its iTunes Music Store and Microsoft using Windows Media. The lack of interoperability slows down the success of digital entertainment and the subsequent sales of devices, they feel.
If they do not offer their own protection system, as Sony does, the consumer electronics makers have to chose sides and license someone's DRM system for inclusion into products.
Together, the companies sell consumer electronics worth tens of billions of euros (dollars) every year.
The alliance, called the Marlin Joint Development Association (Marlin JDA), gives the companies standard specifications to build DRM functions into their devices that support commonly used modes of content distribution.
"(This) promotes interoperability while maximizing efficiency (when creating new products)," they said.
Intertrust Technologies, a small United States-based company which owns many of the crucial patents for digital anti-piracy protection, is also part of the alliance.
The technology can be used in all products that get their content via the Internet, broadcast or mobile phone networks.
The Marlin-based DRM systems will be offered alongside existing systems. The statement did not say if members such as Sony would give up their proprietary systems, but senior Sony executives have said in the past they favor interoperability in order to accelerate sales of digital electronics.
A first version will come out by the summer of 2005, and it will support another, longer-term initiative, called Coral, which is aimed at developing a set of DRM-neutral agreements to ensure interoperability between all DRM systems and standards.
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From: David Weintraub
Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:25:06 -0800
As you've probably heard, there is a new Super Computer made up of Apple Xserves at UIUC. It consists of 640 Apple Xserves - each with 2 2GHz G5 processors.
Pictures can be found at:
<http://www.cse.uiuc.edu/turing/Images/FrontView.html>
and
<http://www.cse.uiuc.edu/turing/Images/FourRacksPlusNet1.html>
The Web page describing the project can be found at:
<http://www.cse.uiuc.edu/turing/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07945>
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Feb 7, 6:52 PM (ET)
By MATTHEW FORDAHL
URL: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050207/D883VUMO1.html
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - After getting a taste of the radio business in college, software designer Craig Patchett never lost his interest in broadcasting. But without a job in radio, it seemed likely to remain one of those unfulfilled passions - until something called "podcasting" came along.
Now, Patchett's creating shows and sending them out to the masses every day - not over the airwaves to radios but over the Internet, from his personal computer in Carlsbad, Calif.
His listeners download his shows to their iPods and other digital music players.
Patchett, 43, is among a growing number of people getting into podcasting, which is quickly becoming another of the Internet's equalizing technologies.
Less than a year old, podcasting enables anyone with a PC to become a broadcaster. It has the potential to do to the radio business what Web logs have done to print journalism. By bringing the cost of broadcasting to nearly nothing, it's enabling more voices and messages to be heard than ever before.
"It was just one of those things where you read about a technology and it clicks in your head: This is perfect and something I want to get involved with," said Patchett, whose podcasts focus on Christian and family programming.
For listeners, podcasting offers a diverse menu of programs, which can be enjoyed anywhere, anytime. Unlike traditional radio, shows can be easily paused, rewound or fast-forwarded. The listener doesn't need to be near a PC, unlike most forms of Internet radio.
The number of regular podcasts is well over 800 and growing daily. Many focus on gadgets, technology and podcasting itself. Others highlight new bands and music or discuss the latest developments in politics, movies and sports. There are podcasts for beer lovers and wine aficionados, even a few for astronomy buffs and for activities performed in the buff.
Productions range from stream-of-consciousness rants punctuated by "uhs" to highly professional shows complete with sound effects and music. Unlike radio, there's no time limit, deadlines or government oversight of what's said.
"There are going to be podcast stars who are just entertaining to listen to," said Adam Curry, a former MTV personality and a driving force behind podcasting. "There will be Howard Sterns who can use the seven dirty words on their shows."
Before podcasting arrived, Curry was frustrated by the state of broadcasting on the Internet, which is often done by streaming feeds. Unlike with traditional radio, streaming costs grow with the audience, and it's difficult for listeners to save the show or do anything else with it afterward.
By comparison, regular downloads of audio files can be more evenly distributed over time and let listeners move programs to portable devices. Before podcasting, however, there was no simple mechanism to do that automatically.
Curry saw potential in a technology called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which automatically feeds text from Web logs and other sites to subscribers so they can read summaries from many sites at once.
After meeting with Curry in 1999, RSS co-inventor Dave Winer updated the protocol so that attachments, such as MP3 audio files, could be sent along with text.
But there was no program that could automatically transfer the files to a music player - until last summer when Curry taught himself the AppleScript programming language and created a small program called iPodder.
It caught the attention of programmers.
"Within in a week, not only had people improved the script dramatically, but they started creating their own versions in Python, Perl and Java" programming languages, Curry said. "A whole new category of software had been created."
Curry also started up a podcast, "Daily Source Code," to give the programmers something to listen to. But it didn't take long for other shows to appear.
"Basically, it was a radio show for a very small community, which just grew astronomically," he said. "Before I knew it, people were sending me links and clips from their own podcasts. We didn't even have the name 'podcast' - we were calling them shows, audioblog posts all kinds of different names."
It was in a Sept. 15 online post that Dannie Gregoire of Louisville, Ky., coined "podcast." [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ipodder-dev/message/41 ]
When entered into a Google search, the word now returns 1.6 million results. Curry says his own podcast now has 50,000 listeners, and Gregoire has created a portal that organizes podcasts by content [http://www.podcast.net]. A number of Web sites do the same, including Curry's ipodder.org and Patchett's godcast.org.
But is there money to be made? Maybe, podcasters say.
Gregoire, who runs one of the go-to Web sites for anyone interested in the phenomenon, says he's looking at a number of business models, including offering a service to host shows or simple tools to put them online.
"Even though it's relatively easy, there are still stumbling blocks," he said.
Real radio stations are also taking note. Public radio's WGBH in Boston has started podcasting its weekly "Morning Stories" segment, which saw its downloads jump from 30 downloads in the first week to 57,000 in December.
"Those are the kinds of trend lines that get your attention," said Bob Lyons, the station's director of radio and new media initiatives. "They certainly got ours."
The corporate world is also jumping in. Thomson Petersons, best known for its college guides and test-prep books, was expected to announce plans Tuesday to begin podcasting 10-minute audio files offering students general advice on college admissions, financial aid and standardized tests.
Podcasting isn't likely to threaten traditional broadcasting any time soon, as the number of digital music players is only in the tens of millions, compared with hundreds of millions of radios. But as the player market grows - and more devices such as cell phones become capable of play audio files - it could pull away advertising dollars, especially those that target younger generations.
Public radio is showing the most interest, both in distributing traditional programs as podcasts and looking for new voices.
"It's easier for us to jump into this because our profit model is still very similar to the profit model of podcasting, which is put something out there and then figure out how to ask money for it," said Brendan Greeley, site editor of the Public Radio Exchange, a distributor of programming.
Some podcasters still see podcasting as just a fun hobby.
Mark VandeWettering, a Pixar Animation Studios technical director, podcasts from his El Sobrante, Calif., home on a range of subjects, including fatherhood, baseball and telescope building.
"It would be great if I made a fortune doing it, but I don't see how that could possibly happen," he said. "I'm not really trying for it, either. I'm hoping to meet some interesting people and establish some good communications with people on weird topics."
---On the Net:
Podcasting portals:
| http://www.podcastalley.com |
(Chris McIntyre) |
| http://www.godcast.org | (Craig Patchett) |
Adam Curry's iPodder software: http://www.ipodder.org
Dannie Gregoire: (http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2005/01/24/story3.html)
Podcasting coined - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ipodder-dev/message/41
Podcasting defined -
http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2004/09/29
Dannie Gregoire's site - http://www.podcast.net
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Media Minutes: February 4, 2005
URL: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/mediaminutes/archive/mm020405.mp3
The telecom world is abuzz with the news that SBC Communications is buying AT&T for $16 billion dollars. According to Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America, "It's ironic to see a baby Bell eat its parent." And, similar to the old Ma Bell, whose break up created SBC, in the thirteen states where SBC has its core businesses, it's already considered a monopoly.
"SBC essentially has 90% of the residential telephone business. It has gathered around it the wireless business. They just bought AT&T Wireless a few months ago. They're trying to pick up the long distance business. So, they really do dominate the telecommunications part of the communications market."
News of AT&T's acquisition sent ripples through the telecom sector, leading to talk of other potential mergers to compete with a beefed up SBC. But Cooper says there's really not that many companies left to conduct similar transactions.
"Four telephone companies, which are the four remaining Baby Bells, four huge cable providers and a couple satellite providers, barely eight or ten companies completely dominate the communications space."
This entire trend of consolidation in telecommunications goes against the expectation of lawmakers when they passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The law was intended to stimulate competition among local phone service providers. Instead, competition occurred at the long distance level while local level phone companies, those who actually control the copper wire network infrastructure, used that control to keep competitors out, As a result, Cooper says, American consumers pay higher prices for low service quality, especially relative to other industrialized nations. A stark example of this can be found in the provisioning of broadband Internet service.
"In the last four years, because we don't have vigorous competition, we don't have open networks, the US has fallen from third in the world in high-speed Internet adoption to fifteenth. Americans pay 30 times as much as the Japanese on a megabit basis, 10 times as much as the Koreans, twice as much as many of the Europeans."
The acquisition still requires the approval of the FCC and Department of Justice's Anti-Trust Division, a process which could take more than a year. However, those skids have been well greased over the last four and a half years during which SBC and AT&T spent a combined $166 million dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions in Washington D.C. Consummation of this corporate marriage is also expected to cost 13,000 employees their jobs.
A significant victory for media reform: the federal government has decided not to appeal last year's ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals blocking implementation of new FCC media ownership rules which would have allowed big media companies to grow even bigger. Andrew J. Schwartzman is president of the Media Access Project and the lead attorney in the lawsuit that led to the judicial stay. He say, "Although the National Association of Broadcasters and many of its corporate clients have gone ahead with the Supreme Court appeal, without government backing, that appeal is likely to fail." Ultimately, that means the FCC will have to revisit the issue of media ownership from square one.
"The easiest way to describe it is that it's a do-over, but it's a do-over under a different set of rules with a court watching over the FCC's shoulder."
One advantage to judicial review of any new ownership rule revisions is that the public interest is guaranteed a spot at the table.
"The Court of Appeals had chastised the FCC for being inadequately attentive to public comments the first time around, so we would expect that the FCC will be more attentive this time around."
While an industry appeal is pending, the FCC may hold off on a rewrite of media ownership rules, especially given that the positions of chairman [Michael Powell, Secretary of State Colin Powell's son] and chief of the agency's media bureau [W. Kenneth Ferree] will be vacant in a month. Schwartzman says this gives public interest advocates at least a few months of time to prepare for the second round of this battle.
"I would assume that with the turnover at the FCC and the Supreme Court considering it, we won't see any action until spring."
Any FCC rewrite of the media ownership rules is expected to occur incrementally, as opposed to the wholesale revision attempted in 2003. And, any new proposed rules will probably not even be formalized until early 2006.
[More on Michael Powell - http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/mediaminutes/archive/mm012805.mp3 ]
[Media Access Project - http://www.mediaaccess.org/ ]
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Media Minutes: February 11, 2005
URL: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/mediaminutes/archive/mm021105.mp3
Recently, the New Millennium Research Council published a report that viciously attacked municipal and community wireless broadband networks, faulting them for taking business away from the private sector and likening the spread of community wireless to the encroachment of socialism. But the New Millennium Research Council is no garden variety think tank. It was set up six years ago by Issue Dynamics Incorporated, a company that specializes in public relations management for corporate clients, many of whom just happen to be telecom companies, like Comcast, SBC, Bell South, Verizon, Sprint and Quest. It seems like a pretty clear cut case of research for hire, although NMRC Executive Director Alan Hepner would like you to believe otherwise.
"Since its inception, the NMRC has been financially supported by a number of IDI clients, but as a matter of policy, the NMRC doesn't disclose individual funders."
Meanwhile, the NMRC's corporate clients continue a state by state crusade to kill or cripple the growth of community wireless networks. New bills to do just that have been introduced this year in the state legislatures of Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Oregon and Texas, and similar telecom company sponsored laws are already in effect in at least 14 states.
[New Millennium Research Council - http://www.newmillenniumresearch.org/ ]
[Editor's Note: Champaign-Urbana has one of these community wireless networks - http://www.cuwireless.net/ ]
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Media Minutes - January 21, 2005
URL: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/mediaminutes/archive/mm012105.mp3
Carnivore is no more, so says the FBI who ditched the controversial computer network wiretapping software after only two years in operation. Carnivore was developed and deployed in 1999 at a cost of more than $3 million dollars, but new congressional reports uncovered by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center claim Carnivore hasn't been used since fiscal year 2001. Why not? Because advancements in commercial computer snooping software made Carnivore obsolete. The FBI uses those commercial products now in a new surveillance system it calls DCS 1000. In fiscal years 2002 and 2003 that system was employed 13 times in various investigations.
[Electronic Privacy Information Center - http://www.epic.org/ ]
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URL: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/01/20/tech.phishing.reut/index.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Internet "phishing" scams are becoming more difficult to detect as criminals develop new ways to trick consumers into revealing passwords, bank account numbers and other sensitive information, security experts say.
Scam artists posed as banks and other legitimate businesses in thousands of phishing attacks last year, sending out millions of "spam" e-mails with subject lines like "account update needed" that pointed to fraudulent Web sites.
These attacks now increasingly use worms and spyware to divert consumers to fraudulent sites without their knowledge, experts say.
"If you think of phishers initially as petty thieves, now they're more like an organized crime unit," said Paris Trudeau, senior product manager for Internet-security firm SurfControl.
Phishing attacks have reached 57 million U.S. adults and compromised at least 122 well-known brands so far, according to several estimates.
At the end of 2004 almost half of these attacks contained some sort of spyware or other malicious code, Trudeau said.
One attack, first documented last month by the Danish security firm Secunia, misdirects Web surfers by modifying a little-known directory in Microsoft Windows machines called a host file. When an Internet user types a Web address into a browser, he is directed instead to a fraudulent site.
This technique has shown up in attacks spoofing several South American banks, said Scott Chasin, chief technical officer of the security firm MX Logic.
The convergence of all of these threats means "we can expect to see some large attacks in the near term," he said.
Another more ambitious attack targets the domain-name servers that serve as virtual telephone books, matching domain names with numerical addresses given to each computer on the Internet.
If one of those computers is compromised, Internet users who type in "www.bankofamerica.com" could be directed to a look-alike site run by identity thieves.
Domain-name servers are tougher to crack, as they are typically run by businesses rather than home users, but hackers can find a way in by posing as a company's tech-support department and asking new employees for their passwords, Trudeau said.
Domain-name hijacking is suspected in incidents involving Google.com, Amazon.com, eBay Germany and HSBC Bank of Brazil, Chasin said.
Even straightforward phishing attacks are getting more sophisticated. Spelling errors and mangled Web addresses made early scams easy to spot, but scam artists now commonly include legitimate-looking links within their Web addresses, said Kate Trower, associate product manager of protection software for EarthLink Inc.
Consumers who click on links like www.citibank.com in these messages are directed to a fraudulent Web address buried in the message's technical code, she said.
MasterCard International has caught at least 10 phishing scams involving www.mastercard.com over the past two months, said Sergio Pinon, senior vice president of security and risk services.
Consumers can protect themselves with software that screens out viruses, spyware and spam. But online businesses will have to take steps as well, perhaps by issuing customers a physical token containing a changing password, Chasin said.
Internet engineers should also figure out a way to authenticate Web addresses, much as they are currently figuring out how to make sure e-mail addresses are legitimate, he said.
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[Editor's Note: This ought to get some folks' blood pumping. :-) ]
Why do PC users put up with so many viruses and worms? Why isn't everyone on a Mac?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, February 4, 2005
URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
So about a year ago, the SO [significant other] finally upgraded her Net connection to DSL, carefully installed the Yahoo! DSL software into her creaky Sony Vaio PC laptop and ran through all the checks and install verifications and appropriate nasty disclaimers.
And all seemed to go smoothly and reasonably enough considering it was a Windows PC and therefore nothing was really all that smooth or reasonable or elegant, but whatever. She just wanted to get online. Should be easy as 1-2-3, claimed the Yahoo! guide. Painless as tying your shoe, said the phone company.
She got online all right. The DSL worked great. For about four minutes.
Then, something happened. Something attacked. Something swarmed her computer the instant she tried to move around online and the computer slowed and bogged and cluttered and crashed, and multiple restarts and debuggings and what-the-hells only brought up only a flood of nightmarish pop-up windows and terrifying error messages and massive system slowdowns and all manner of inexplicable claims of infestation of this worm and that Trojan horse and did we want to buy McAfee AntiVirus protection for $39.95?
Four minutes. And she was already DOA.
My SO, she is not alone. This exact same scenario, with only slight variation, is happening throughout the nation, right now. Are you using a PC? You probably have spyware. The McAfee site claims a whopping 91 percent of PCs are infected. As every Windows user knows, PCs are ever waging a losing battle with a stunningly vicious array of malware and worms and viruses, all aimed at exploiting one of about ten thousand security flaws and holes in Microsoft Windows.
Here, then, is my big obvious question: Why the hell do people put up with this? Why is there not some massive revolt, some huge insurrection against Microsoft? Why is there not a huge contingent of furious users stomping up to Seattle with torches and scythes and crowbars, demanding the Windows Frankenstein monster be sacrificed at the altar of decent functionality and an elegant user interface?
There is nothing else like this phenomenon in the entire consumer culture.
If anything else performed as horribly as Windows, and on such a global
scale, consumers would scream bloody murder and demand their money back and
there would be some sort of investigation, class-action litigation, a
demand for Bill Gates' cute little geeky head on a platter.
Here is your brand new car, sir. Drive it off the lot. Yay yay new car. Suddenly, new car shuts off. New car barely starts again and then only goes about 6 miles per hour and it belches smoke and every warning light on the dashboard is blinking on and off and the tires are screaming and the heater is blasting your feet and something smells like burned hair. You hobble back to the dealer, who only says, gosh, sorry, we thought you knew -- that's they way they all run. Enjoy!
Would you not be, like, that is the goddamn last time I buy a Ford?
I see it all around me. All Chronicle employees receive regular email warnings from our IT department about all sorts of viruses that are coming their way and aiming for company PCs. The AP tech newswires are full tales of newly hatched viruses and worms and Trojan horses and insidious spyware programs sweeping networks and wreaking havoc on PCs and causing all manner of international problems, and all exploiting this or that serious flaw in the Windows OS.
Oh yes, the Serious Windows Flaw. This is astounding indeed. It seems not a month goes by that Gates & Co. isn't announcing yet another Microsoft Security Bulletin, one that could cause serious problems for users and networks and millions of Web sites alike, could compromise your personal data and make it very easy for any 10-year-old hacker to waltz right into your hard drive and swipe your credit card info and wipe out all your porn and read your secret emails to the babysitter and won't you please hurry over to Microsoft.com and download Major Windows Security Bug Fix #10-524-5b?
There have been not a few of these dire warnings. There have been dozens. Maybe hundreds. Each more dire and alarming than the last.
And with very few exceptions, every Mac owner everywhere on the planet simply looks at all this viral chaos and spyware noise and Microsoft apologia and shrugs. And smiles. And pretty much ignores it all outright, and gets back to work. (By the way, yes, I own a tiny handful of Apple stock. Do I need to advocate for Mac? Hardly. I'm already happy as can be thanks to the success of the brilliant, world-altering iPod.)
It's very simple. The Mac really has few, if any, known viruses or major debilitating anything, no spyware and no Trojans and no worms, and sure I've been affected by a couple email bugs over the years, but those were mostly related to my mail server and ISP. For the most part and for all intents and purposes, Macs are immune. Period.
I know of what I speak. I am not a novice. I've been using Macs almost daily for 15 years. I am online upward of 10-12 hours a day. I run multiple Net-connected programs at all times. I receive upward of 500 emails a day, much of it nasty spam that often comes with weird indecipherable attachments that try, in vain, to infiltrate my machine. My Mac just shrugs them off and keeps working perfectly. I dump them all in the trash and never look back.
I'm a power user. And I have yet to suffer a single debilitating virus or worm or spyware or malware whatsoever. Not one problem in 15 years, save the time I spilled water in the keyboard of my PowerBook and I took off the back and let it dry out for two days and it worked perfectly.
Oh, I know all the arguments as to why Macs aren't the dominant system in the world. I know Apple screwed up 20 years ago by not licensing its OS, and Gates stumbled in and made a killing by stealing the Mac's look and feel but mangling the actual usability and thus irritating about 150 million people for the next 20 years.
I know Macs are (well, were) more expensive, even though they're really not, when you finally jam that ugly cheapass Dell with enough video cards and sound cards and disk burners to make it comparable to a Mac that comes with all of it, standard.
I know Macs are not perfect, that there have been a handful of serious Apple security fixes over the years, and even a few rumored viruses and spyware apps (though rarely any reports of major server attacks or system shutdowns). I know Apple releases regular security updates of its own. The Mac is not flawless. But it's damn close.
And I know, finally, the argument that says that if the world was using Macs instead of PCs, the hackers would be attacking the Macs. It's a game of numbers, after all. Anti-Mac pundits always mutter the same thing as they install yet another PC bug fix: there just aren't enough Macs out there to warrant a hacker's attention.
Which is, of course, mostly bull. I'm no programmer, but I know what I read, and I know my experience: the Mac OS architecture is much more robust, much more solid, much more difficult to hack into. Apple's software is, by default, more sound and reliable, given its more stable core. (For years throughout the '90s, a Mac org whose name I forget ran a rather amazing hacker competition: they offered a $10,000 cash prize to anyone in the world who could hack into the company's unprotected Mac server and alter the contest's home page in any way. Needless to say, no one ever could).
Perhaps there is something I'm missing. Maybe there's something I don't understand as to why there is not a massive rush of consumers and IT managers to dump PCs in favor of Macs (or even Linux OS). Surely thousands (millions?) of work-hours have been lost nationwide as tech departments spend untold months debugging and installing PC virus protections and keeping abreast of the latest and greatest worm to come down the pike, all due to Microsoft's lousy software.
Am I being unfair? Maybe. Hell, I'm sure Windows has its gnarled and wary defenders, war-torn and battle-tested folk who still insist that, because there's more software available for the Windows OS, it's somehow superior -- though I challenge them to name one significant, common activity the Mac can't do as well as, if not better than, PCs. For 97 percent of users in the world, Macs would be a more elegant and intuitive and appealing solution. Period.
So then. Here's hoping the new, incredibly affordable Mac Mini converts a hundred million people to Mac in the next year. Here's hoping the borderline illegal and monopolistic domination of Microsoft comes to an end in the next decade. Apple appears poised, finally, again, ready to take over the consumer world. Hell, thousands of glorious iPods have already infiltrated the Microsoft campus up in Redmond, causing MS management no end of humiliation and frustration. Can revolution be far behind?
And what about my SO's PC woes? Well, after her Vaio was so violently debilitated, and after being told by various experts that it would require nothing short of a complete (and very expensive) Windows system debugging and OS reinstall followed by a mandatory soak of the machine in a tub of bleach and then spraying it with a thick coat of road tar as she waved a burning effigy of Steve Ballmer over it while chanting the text of the Official Microsoft 'Screw You Sucker' Windows Troubleshooting Guide, she promptly dumped the useless hunk of sad landfill and bought herself a beautiful new iBook.
And of course, in a year of solid use, she has yet to have a single problem.
Oh wait. I take that back. She has had one nagging issue with her Mac. One program keeps crashing in the middle of her work, for no apparent reason. It is baffling and frustrating and makes you shake your head and want to scream.
The program in question? Microsoft Word.
---Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters/.
ToC
Paul Thurrott
InstantDoc #45407
February 11, 2005
URL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott/Article/ArticleID/45407/windowspaulthurrott_45407.html
ToCMy Advice for HP
Drop the Overlapping Brands, Spin Off Printers, Demand iPod Compatibility
HP finally dropped the bomb on Carly ("Worst. CEO. Ever.") Fiorina and is looking for a new leader. I have a few somewhat obvious pieces of advice for the suddenly struggling company. First, get rid of all the overlapping Compaq/HP product brands. An almost identical Compaq model seems to exist for every HP computing product, which confuses customers. Second, spin off the printer business or, better yet, spin off the rest of HP (maybe as Compaq), and make HP simply a printer and imaging business. Third, come through on last year's promise to make Apple Computer let you add Windows Media Audio (WMA) compatibility to the iPod for the sake of all your customers who use digital media receivers, HP Media Center PCs, PCs, Pocket PCs, and other devices that are completely incompatible with Apple's Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format. If Apple continues to deny you that obvious need, bail from the iPod. You sold a piddling amount of the devices last year, anyway.
Intel Preps 64-Bit Pentium 4 Processor
A year after promising to adopt the x64 platform across all its mainstream processors, Intel is finally getting ready to release x64-compatible Pentium 4 chips. The Pentium 4 6XX family, as the chips are cryptically known, will feature an 800MHz front-side bus, 2MB of L2 cache, and Intel's x64-compatible EM64T technology, according to the company. It will also feature advanced power-management features not found on other Pentium 4 chips. Due as early as this month, the Pentium 4 6XX won't offer many advantages over 32-bit systems for the short term. But Windows XP Professional x64 Edition's release to manufacturing (RTM) is due in late March, and the product will be widely available in April; then Intel's offering--like competing AMD Athlon 64-based systems--should suddenly become quite interesting.
Microsoft Erects New Defense Against Spammers
Microsoft and the Pfizer pharmaceutical company have launched parallel lawsuits against Web site operators and spammers who advertise cheap and illegal Viagra rip-offs to Internet users. The companies say they spent more than 7 months investigating the advertising to discover who was behind it. Pfizer is suing two companies, Canadian Pharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct, and Microsoft is targeting three unnamed spam advertisers. Although this news is heartening, I'd still like to know why my spam filter is fooled by such obvious misspellings as V1agra.
CNET Touts Longhorn Beta 1 Schedule I Published in January
A Microsoft executive told CNET this week that Longhorn Beta 1 will ship by the end of second quarter 2005 (i.e., June), publicly corroborating the schedule I published on the SuperSite for Windows in January. According to Microsoft, beta 1 will target developers, as previous alpha builds did. And unless something dramatic changes during the next few months--and it could--don't expect anything too dramatic from the beta. According to my sources at the company, current build 5xxx versions of Longhorn look almost exactly like XP and don't have many interesting new features. If Microsoft doesn't pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat soon, Longhorn is going to edge so far into joke territory that no one will be interested.
Microsoft Considers Being More Transparent to Developers
Microsoft is thinking about releasing the source code for its Windows Forms UI technology and other projects, although problems remain (key among them that Avalon will soon replace Windows Forms, I presume). Microsoft executives call this strategy being more "transparent" to developers by giving them a deeper understanding of how things work. However, given Microsoft's mixed success with pseudo open-source releases, I suspect that people in the open-source movement will see transparency in Microsoft's motives, not in its actions. Maybe I'm just cynical.
IBM Announces Cell Processor
IBM revealed details this week about its upcoming Cell Processor, which the company co-developed with Sony and Toshiba. Described by eager fans as the answer to every problem ever posed, the Cell Processor is, in reality, just an evolution of the PowerPC processor that offers some interesting advantages over other chips. The Cell Processor can simultaneously execute 10 processor instructions, compared with just two for most Intel chips. It should also scale up to enormous clock speeds, starting at 4GHz--faster than any Intel chip. The problem, I think, is the way IBM is marketing the chip. As it did with the original PowerPC, IBM is touting the Cell Processor as a hugely versatile chip that will run every OS known to man and will power (ahem) devices as unrelated as cell phones, game machines, and PCs. Will it fly? Sony is going to use the processor in the PlayStation 3, so maybe it has a future. But I doubt that we'll see any mainstream computing platform adopt the Cell Processor any time soon.
New Spyware Targets Mozilla Browsers
Mozilla users who assumed they were safe from the spyware ills that bedevil Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) users got a rude shock this week when the dark side of their browser's success became clear. Security experts are now warning users of Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox about spyware that's specifically written to attack those products. This event confirms what I've always thought about security: Hackers go where the victims are. That's why IE is so unsafe (well, that and bad technology such as ActiveX) and why Mac OS X, with its tiny user base, is so infrequently attacked. But Mozilla is still a lot safer than IE. Thanks to the way the product works, to be compromised by the new spyware a user would have to agree to download and install the offending code. But hackers are industrious, and they'll fool many users by hiding nasty code inside something that doesn't look dangerous. I'll be interested to see how The Mozilla Foundation responds to what I feel is the first serious security attack on its products.
Microsoft Preps Fix for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005
XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 is a gotta-have upgrade for any Tablet PC user; it's full of useful new functionality and features. There's just one problem: One of the release's biggest improvements, the Tablet Input Panel (TIP), apparently has a glaring memory leak that eats up the system's resources over time, killing performance. The only solution now is for Tablet PC users to routinely reboot their machines. Microsoft is working on a fix, which the company hopes to release soon. In this meantime, Microsoft's advice is simple (if inelegant): Reboot that Tablet PC once a day.
Longhorn Laptop Secondary Displays at VSLive! Show
I've seen a few reports this week touting a VSLive! presentation during which a Microsoft executive showed off secondary displays for upcoming Longhorn-based laptops that are based on the company's Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT). I don't understand why the reports I've seen present this information as if were new. Although these displays, which sit on the outside of a laptop shell, are a cool idea, they're not new. In fact, Microsoft first showed them publicly almost a year ago at Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2004. And as you might expect, I posted pictures on the SuperSite for Windows at that time.
Record Earnings for Dell--Again
Dell roared to record revenues of $13.5 billion in the most recent quarter, up from $11.5 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Income, however, was lower than expected, thanks to a one-time tax charge. The company posted income of $667 million; before the charge, its income was $947 million--higher than analysts had expected (the income, not the charge). Flush with its most recent success--this was the 16th quarter in a row that the company met or exceeded expectations--Dell now says that it expects to post its first $80 billion year in fiscal 2005. For the quarter ending December 31, overall shipments grew 19 percent, with Dell's printer business growing 111 percent and its desktop PC sales jumping 16 percent. With 17 percent of the market (compared with HP's 16 percent), Dell is again the largest PC maker in the world.
Rank of Top PC Makers Changes a Bit
And speaking of market share, while juggernauts Dell and HP continue their one-two lockstep atop the list of best-selling PC makers worldwide, the rest of the top five has changed quite a bit as companies such as Acer and Gateway made huge gains in the most recent quarter. Acer sales jumped 44 percent in the quarter, launching the company back into the top five and displacing Toshiba. And Gateway's acquisition of eMachines appears to have paid off. Strong sales of Gateway and eMachines PCs propelled Gateway into the number four spot. IBM, incidentally, was number three.
Mark Joseph Edwards
InstantDoc #45385
February 9, 2005
URL:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/WindowsSecurity/Article/ArticleID/45385/45385.html
Reported February 8, 2005 by Microsoft
VERSIONS AFFECTED
DESCRIPTION
Microsoft has released a cumulative update for IE. The update also includes new patches for vulnerabilities related to improper handling of drag-and-drop events, improper handling of URLs, improper handling of Dynamic HTML (DHTML) methods, and improper handling of content from across more than one domain. All of the problems could allow a remote intruder to take complete control of a user's system.
VENDOR RESPONSE
Microsoft has released Security Bulletin MS05-014, "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (867282)," which explains the update and its caveats in more detail.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms05-014.mspx
ToC
Paul Thurrott
InstantDoc #45344
February 8, 2005
URL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/45344/45344.html
Yesterday, as promised, Microsoft issued a massive number of security bulletins and fixes as part of its regularly scheduled monthly security update release schedule. The company released 12 security bulletins for various products, including several Windows versions, Microsoft Exchange Server, Office XP, Windows Media Player (WMP), MSN Messenger, and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). Eight of the bulletins are rated critical, the company's most serious rating. "Microsoft is committed to delivering security updates on a predictable and consistent monthly schedule," a company representative said yesterday. "As we do every month, Microsoft will hold a technical Webcast on Wednesday morning to discuss this month's updates. This Wednesday's Webcast has been extended to last for 2 hours." You can sign up for the security Webcast on the Microsoft Web site.
The eight critical security bulletins include fixes for the Licensing Logging Service in Windows; the Windows Server Message Block (SMB) service; the OLE and COM technologies in Windows, Exchange Server, and Office; the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) Editing Component ActiveX Control in Windows; Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE); the Hyperlink Object Library in Windows; Office XP; and the PNG processing facility in Windows, WMP, and MSN Messenger. You can download these and the other updates issued yesterday from the Microsoft Security Web site.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspx
ToC
Paul Thurrott
InstantDoc #45339
February 8, 2005
URL:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott/Article/ArticleID/45339/windowspaulthurrott_45339.html
Microsoft has quietly started testing its Microsoft Update service, which will replace Windows Update later this year. Like Windows Update, Microsoft Update will give Windows users a central location to download Windows-related patches and software updates. But Microsoft Update will also provide update downloads for all supported Microsoft non-Windows applications, including Microsoft Office.
Microsoft has been planning the move to Microsoft Update for some time. I first wrote about the service way back in July 2003 (http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/39545/39545.html). But moving to Microsoft Update required a large amount of back-end work. First, Microsoft moved to the V5 software update engine that now provides the foundation for the current versions of Windows Update, Automatic Updates, and the company's other software update products. With that engine in place, the company is finally turning its attention to Microsoft Update.
The beta Microsoft Update site, which went live last night and is available (if temporarily) to the public (http://update.microsoft.com/), is clearly a work in progress. The site is still branded Windows Update, not Microsoft Update, and no non-Windows updates are yet available. Sources at Microsoft tell me that the Microsoft Update beta will be made available to beta testers and Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2005 attendees in second quarter 2005 and that the final release is scheduled for third quarter 2005.
ToC
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
24-Jan-05 marked the 21st birthday of our favorite smiling friend, Macintosh. If you have a BitTorrent client (I'm currently using Azureus), go to the last URL below and download the video (21 MB QuickTime) of the Mac's introduction. Steve Jobs's bow tie alone is worth the download. [JLC]
<http://www.bittorrent.com/>
<http://azureus.sourceforge.net/>
<http://www.industrial-technology-and-witchcraft.de/1984.html>
TidBITS#762/17-Jan-05
Fresh on the heels of its Macworld Expo product announcements, Apple released its first quarter results for fiscal year 2005, with CEO Steve Jobs boasting the "highest quarterly revenue and net income in Apple's history." The quarter ending 25-Dec-04 gave the company a net profit of $295 million, compared to a net profit of $63 million in the first quarter a year ago. Revenue was $3.49 billion, up 74 percent, and gross margin was 28.5 percent, up from 26.7 percent, from the year-ago quarter.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07504>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07853>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/12results.html>
In the first quarter, Apple shipped 1,046,000 Macintosh computers and 4,580,000 iPods, representing an impressive 26 percent increase in CPUs and a stunning 525 percent increase in iPods over the same quarter a year ago, which includes the traditional holiday shopping period running from late November until Christmas. The company has now sold over 10 million iPods. [MHA]
ToC
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
Apple today pulled the wraps off an update to the PowerBook line that increases CPU speeds to 1.5 GHz and 1.67 GHz, bumps all hard drive speeds to 5400 rpm, adds an 8x SuperDrive, and introduces a pair of interesting new technologies - the scrolling trackpad and Sudden Motion Sensor - the latter of which you hope you'll never need.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/31powerbook.html>
<http://www.apple.com/powerbook/>
Faster PowerBook!
In a not unexpected move, Apple bumped up the clock speeds of the PowerPC G4 used in the current PowerBook line. The end result is a $2,700 1.67 GHz 17-inch PowerBook that comes with a 100 GB hard disk, an 8x SuperDrive (CD-RW/DVD+-RW), an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor with 128 MB of video memory, Dual Link DVI support that can drive Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD Display, and internal Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. Other specs remain the same: 512 MB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, 56 Kbps v.92 modem, built-in 54 Mbps AirPort Extreme, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and 800 ports, optical digital audio input and output, and an illuminated keyboard with the ambient light sensor.
The addition of the backwards-compatible Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) is somewhat notable, given that Apple is the first major company to build the technology in by default. Bluetooth 2.0 triples the maximum data rate from 1 Mbps to 3 Mbps and in doing so, thanks to the side effect of transmitting for shorter periods of time, reduces power consumption. Of course, nothing else supports Bluetooth 2.0 right now, but that will undoubtedly change soon. The final Bluetooth 2.0 specification was ratified in November 2004, with the first ratified chips appearing in December, meaning that Apple turned on a dime to build them into these new PowerBooks.
<http://www.apple.com/bluetooth/>
<http://www.bluetooth.com/news/releases.asp?A=2&PID=1437&ARC=1>
The 15-inch PowerBook comes in 1.67 GHz and 1.5 GHz models ($2,300 and $2,000, respectively). Compared to the 17-inch PowerBook, the 15-inch 1.67 GHz model includes only 64 MB of video memory (128 MB and Dual Link support are optional), comes with an 80 GB hard disk, and lacks digital audio input and output; the 1.5 GHz model also trades the SuperDrive for a Combo drive (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) and loses the option of Dual Link support.
With the 12-inch PowerBook, Apple offers a pair of 1.5 GHz models. The $1,700 model includes an 80 GB hard disk and an 8x SuperDrive; the $1,500 model instead provides a 60 GB hard disk and a Combo drive. Both models also rely on an Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200 graphics processor with 64 MB of video memory, and they offer only 100Base-T Ethernet and FireWire 400 instead of the faster ports sported by their larger siblings. As with previous models, the 12-inch version does not offer the illuminated backlit keyboard.
All models come with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, iLife '05, Art Director's Toolkit, QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, GraphicConverter, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and a variety of trial versions of other programs.
Scrolling Trackpad
Raging Menace Software's $15 utility SideTrack has long simulated scroll-wheel capabilities on PowerBook and iBook trackpads, but it does so by devoting a side of the trackpad to scrolling. Apple's new scrolling trackpad technology, which is built into all the new PowerBooks, takes a different approach that may work better. Drag two fingers on the trackpad simultaneously to scroll horizontally, vertically, or to pan around the active window. You can customize the settings or turn off scrolling entirely, presumably in the Trackpad tab of the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane.
<http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/>
The scrolling trackpad technology is built into the trackpad hardware and thus won't be available to owners of older PowerBooks or iBooks, though I would expect to see it migrate to the iBooks with the next minor update to that line.
Sudden Motion Sensor
Dropping your PowerBook is a bad idea. A really bad idea. But as much as breaking the screen and denting the case in ways that might prevent the lid from closing or the optical drive from working are terrible, horrible, awful, rotten, no-good things to have happen, even worse is damaging the hard drive and losing all your data. (Unless, of course, you have cleverly followed Joe Kissell's advice in "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups" to ensure that you can restore everything with a minimum of fuss and downtime.)
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/backup-macosx.html>
Apple still hasn't built any sort of automatic backup capabilities into the Mac, but the entire line of new PowerBooks feature the new Sudden Motion Sensor, which detects changes in axis position and accelerated motion (as will likely happen when you accidentally pull the PowerBook off your desk while messing about with the cable nest on the floor). When the Sudden Motion Sensor activates, it instantly parks the heads of your hard drive to lessen the chance that they'll scratch the disk surface, reducing the likelihood of data loss. Once the Sudden Motion Sensor notices that your PowerBook is level again, it unlocks the drive heads automatically.
As much as the Sudden Motion Sensor is a useful technology, it's by no means a panacea. Even ignoring all the other damage that comes with dropping a PowerBook, the Sudden Motion Sensor is relevant only if you drop the PowerBook while it's running; when the PowerBook is sleeping or shut down, the drive heads are already parked. So don't assume that the Sudden Motion Sensor will provide any protection beyond what you already have in many situations. As always, focus on prevention: be careful when handling your laptop, use a well-padded laptop bag (TidBITS sponsor Matias has a video of dropping a laptop in their Laptop Armor bag onto concrete from a high of 10 feet (3.05 meters)), and set up your working environment to reduce the risk of people tripping over cables and other accidents.
<http://laptoparmor.com/index.php?refID=5>
Nice Updates
These minor revisions to the PowerBook line are welcome, particularly given that they don't come with increased prices - no one will ever complain about a CPU speed bump, and the faster hard disks should improve performance with disk-intensive work. The Dual Link capability will be particularly appreciated by those who use a 15-inch or 17-inch PowerBook as their primary Mac, but who also need the massive screen real estate of a 30-inch Cinema HD Display. And the addition of Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, the scrolling trackpad, and Sudden Motion Sensor sweeten the deal beyond what normally happens with a speed bump update. The new machines will be available later this week.
ToC
by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
Early complaints about the cost of built-to-order options for memory upgrades and wireless options on the Mac mini have apparently led Apple to slash those prices dramatically. (MacNN originally noticed these changes.)
<http://www.macnn.com/news/27834>
The 1 GB memory upgrade was originally a fairly ridiculous $475 when name-brand 1 GB cards of the same type can be found in the mid-$200s. The price now is $325, which is low enough that it's more reasonable to have an Apple-certified technician perform the installation - especially when you consider that Apple will warranty that RAM and replace it if you have problems. (Self- installed RAM is your own problem, a problem that bit me with my PowerBook G4 and Panther.)
The wireless combination of Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme is now $100 instead of $130 when installed together. Upgrading the hard drive to 80 GB now costs $50 instead of $90. (MacNN also noted that the add-on SuperDrive speed jumped from 4x at the time of the announcement to 8x. However, according to MacCentral, Apple said that the speed change was a typographical error and changed the specification back to 4x speed - the drive reads at 8x, but writes at 4x.)
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/26/macminisuperdrive/>
I assumed that because built-to-order units wouldn't have shipped, early buyers will get this new pricing. However, author and Macworld Senior Writer Dan Frakes wrote in after I'd posted this and noted that he'd received his build-to-order (BTO) unit on 20-Jan-05! He's contacting Apple about a refund in the difference, and I suggest all early BTO purchasers do the same, as Apple is generally good about this kind of short-term price change.
This dramatically drops the cost of a "high-end" Mac mini in the BTO variety. Take a 1.42 GHz processor, an 80 GB hard drive, a SuperDrive, Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme, a USB keyboard and mouse (the price of which dropped last week), and a full gig of memory, and you're no longer paying over $1,400, but $1,180 instead.
ToC
Smallest, Most Affordable iPod Yet Is a Very Big Deal
By Christopher Breen, Macworld Magazine
posted January 18, 2005April 2005
URL: http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/reviews/ipodshufflereview/index.php
In Brief:
iPod shuffle 512MB Price as rated: $99
Best Current Price: $99.00 (via ProductFinder)
iPod shuffle 1GB Price as rated: $149
Best Current Price: $149.00 (via ProductFinder)
Not content to dominate the middle- and high-end of the portable music player market, Apple has determined to own it all by releasing the smallest and most affordable iPod yet, the iPod shuffle. Available in capacities of 512MB and 1GB (priced at $99 and $149, respectively) the shuffle is remarkable not only for its size and price, but also for its lack of a display. Is a display-less iPod for you? That depends on what you expect from your music player and how much effort you're willing to expend creating playlists that make sense for your on-the-go lifestyle.
Limited for Your Protection
Given a regular iPod's ability to display contacts, calendars, and notes; play games; and-with all dock connector iPods except for the iPod mini-record voice-quality notes through an add-on microphone and store pictures via a media card reader, it's little wonder that previous iPods have been described as more than simple music players. In this case there's precious little danger of the iPod shuffle being confused with anything but a bare-bones music player as that's exactly what it is-the first iPod that's dedicated solely to playing music with nary a bell nor whistle in sight.
How stripped down is it? I've mentioned the lack of a display so navigation is barely a concern. The iPod shuffle bears a simple three-position toggle switch on the back that turns the iPod off, directs it to play its playlist from beginning to end in order, or flips the device into Shuffle mode where songs are played randomly. A green stripe below the switch helps you see what position the switch is in but it's a little too easy to skip past the first position into Shuffle mode when you pull down on the switch.
Apple's tiniest iPod communicates through two LEDs planted under the plastic housing on the front of the device. For example, a yellow LED shows when the player is charging-a green LED shines when the shuffle is completely charged. A blinking green LED indicates that the device has been paused. If it blinks yellow three times in succession, you've engaged Hold (by holding down the Play/Pause button for three seconds). Thankfully, Apple includes a small iPod shuffle "cheat card" that tells you what the various blinks and LEDs mean.
Some blinks take precedence over others in less-than-helpful ways. Specifically, the iPod shuffle displays a steady green LED when the device is fully charged. However-as is noted in the manual-if you've configured iTunes so that the iPod is used as a disk, a yellow LED blinks continuously so you can't be sure exactly when the shuffle is completely charged.
And there are times when some LED action would be better than none. Specifically, the only way to tell if the iPod shuffle is playing is to plug it in. Yes, it will blink for one minute when paused, but once that minute has elapsed, the device doesn't glow at all-just as if it were playing or switched off. Unless you're careful to switch it off when you're not using it, you could easily discover that its battery is drained after it was accidentally activated when stored in a pocket, purse, or backpack.
The back bears its own LED. Just below the toggle switch is a Battery Status button that, when pressed, flashes an LED that gives you a very general idea of how much of a battery charge remains-green indicates a good charge, yellow, a low charge; red, a very low charge; and no glow means no juice remains. Given the shuffle's limited means of communication, I understand why you're offered only a four-stage status indicator, but I regret that there's not some interim indication when you've reached the half-way point of your charge. A glowing green LED can indicate that you have anything from 5 to over 12 hours of power remaining.
An iPod just isn't an iPod without some kind of click-wheel controller, and the iPod shuffle is no exception. Because the iPod shuffle can't be navigated, there's no reason to include a spinning wheel controller or a Menu button. Instead, the device includes a round controller that offers a Play/Pause button in the middle and a four-way click ring on the outside that offers Volume Up, Volume Down, Fast Forward/Next, and Rewind/Back. (Choosing between moving from one song to another and simply fast-forwarding or rewinding through a portion of a song works the same way as it does on other iPods: Click one to move to another songs, click and hold to fast-forward or reverse.)
Making the Connection
When you pull the far-too-easily lost cap from the tip of the iPod shuffle you'll see a USB connector. This is the means for linking the iPod to a computer or an optional power supply.
Having such a connector built into the iPod is both convenient and not so convenient. It's helpful because it means you don't have to lug along (and possibly lose) a cable to move music and power between your computer and player. It's not so convenient because, by default, you must charge the iPod shuffle with your computer, and a computer isn't always handy. Also, because the iPod shuffle is a bit wider than the USB keydrive it resembles, it won't fit on some computers (Apple's eMac, for example). Both these issues can be addressed by Apple accessories that cost nearly a third of the 512MB iPod shuffle-the $29 iPod USB Power Adapter, the $29 iPod shuffle External Battery Pack (which provides 20 additional hours of playtime with two AAA batteries) and the $29 iPod shuffle Dock.
iTunes Additions
If you're a digital music enthusiast it's likely that your iTunes music library exceeds the number of songs that can be stored on an iPod shuffle. With that in mind, Apple has made adjustments to both the iPod shuffle and iTunes to make it easier to pack the player with the most music-and greatest variety of music-possible.
Its first space-saving trick is to limit the kinds of files that can be played by the iPod shuffle. Unlike with other iPods, the iPod shuffle can't play AIFF or Apple Lossless files-files that consume a lot of storage space (wav files, which consume the same 10MB per minute of stereo audio as AIFF files, can be played by the iPod shuffle, however). The next trick is found in iTunes' iPod preferences. Here you'll discover the Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs to 128 kbps AAC for this iPod option. When this option is enabled, iTunes converts AIFF and Apple Lossless files to 128 kbps AAC files. Such a conversion reduces an AIFF file to about seven percent of its original size (and compromises audio quality in a way that those with discerning ears may find objectionable).
iTunes 4.7.1 (included with the iPod shuffle) adds the Autofill feature that picks songs from your iTunes music library or from a playlist you designate in iTunes' Source list. You can direct Autofill to choose songs at random as well as favor songs that have a high rating. You can also choose to replace the songs on the iPod shuffle when Autofilling or add selections to the current songs on the device. While not as powerful as a well-built Smart Playlist that can exclude or include songs by genre and play time, Autofill is a reasonable and easy-to-use compromise.
It couldn't be much easier to use Autofill. Just plug in the iPod shuffle, select it in iTunes' Source list, choose a source for your music in the Autofill pane that appears at the bottom of the iTunes window, and click the Autofill button. iTunes will grab a subset of your music, create a playlist, and copy the contents of the playlist to the iPod shuffle. If you've enabled the Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs to 128 kbps AAC for this iPod option, it will take longer to sync the device, as large files must be converted on the fly. (I found it takes about a minute to download a song that's being converted.)
Something not mentioned in Apple's documentation, but worth noting is that when you instruct iTunes to keep the iPod shuffle in the Source list even when its disconnected (an option in the iPod shuffle's Preferences tab) you can click Autofill over and over to create different playlists. When you stumble across one you like, select all its contents and choose New Playlist From Selection from iTunes' File menu to create a new playlist that contains the songs generated by Autofill. When you next connect your iPod shuffle, just select this playlist from the Autofill From pop-up menu and click Autofill to load the music from the playlist to your shuffle.
The iPod shuffle will play type 2, 3, and 4 Audible.com audiobooks (audiobooks sold by the iTunes Music Store are compatible) but won't automatically add them to the iPod shuffle. Instead, you must add them manually, which can be a bit of a chore with an iPod shuffle that's already full of tracks. The device doesn't support EQ settings imposed in iTunes nor will it respond to any volume adjustment, start time, or stop time settings you've created in iTunes' song settings windows.
One last useful feature found in the iPod shuffle's Preferences tab is the ability to reserve specific amounts of storage space on the device for music and data. When you attach the shuffle to your Mac or PC, select it in iTunes Source list, and enable the Enable Disk Use option, you can activate a slider that determines how much of the shuffle's storage space will be devoted to music and how much will be used for storage. If the iPod shuffle is full of music, clicking OK after setting this slide will cause iTunes to toss out some of the music on the shuffle to make room for data storage. Regardless of whether you've set aside room for data, you can copy data to an iPod shuffle that's mounted on your computer as a disk drive.
In Use
The iPod shuffle sounds as good as any iPod I've owned. As Apple suggests, it's about the size of a pack of gum and, when worn around your neck on the included lanyard, feels just about as heavy. Given that the shuffle can be easily detached from the lanyard with a quick jerk, it won't take long for those who live in less savory parts of their communities to learn to wear it inside their clothing-it will be a tempting target for those thieves with quick hands and feet. (On the other hand, I suppose it's better to lose the iPod than be throttled by the lanyard when the iPod won't detach.)
Because there's no hard drive that can fidget when jostled, skipping isn't a concern, making the iPod shuffle an ideal player for the active iPod owner. The included earbuds are Apple's standard issue and, as such, may not be for those who demand both a comfortable fit and great sound from their headphones.
The controls are responsive and reasonably intuitive given the lack of a display (though, as I mentioned earlier, it can be difficult to place the toggle switch on the back exactly where you want it on the first try). I wouldn't mind seeing one more LED that makes the iPod's actions a little clearer. But, given that the iPod shuffle was designed to be a "push play and put it away" device, most users won't find its limited communication skills troubling.
As has been typical of the last few iPod models, Apple has again underestimated playtime. The company claims at least 12 hours of playtime from a fully charged iPod shuffle. In tests where I pressed play and walked away (in other words, I didn't touch the controls once playback began), my 512MB shuffle played for over 17 hours on a single charge. Impressive.
Macworld's Buying Advice
To appreciate the iPod shuffle you must abandon some notions of what a music player must be. For example, if you demand that you be able to pick exactly the song you want to hear when you want to hear it, the iPod shuffle isn't for you. Instead, the iPod shuffle is akin to a radio station that you've chosen because you appreciate the style of music it plays. You are the shuffle's programmer and if you don't care for what you hear, it's because you haven't programmed it properly. Unlike with other iPods, this means that you must put some thought into your playlists. Some people will find this burdensome and for those who do, Apple offers a load of other iPods that provide far greater freedom of musical choice. But I imagine that there are a lot of potential and current iPod owners who will appreciate the convenience of being able to easily throw a subset of their music collection on a $99 or $149 device that doesn't skip, sounds good, and plays their favorite tunes with the press of a single button.
Summary:
iPod shuffle 512MB
Pros: Inexpensive; good sound; good battery life; easy iTunes controls.
Cons: No display; LEDs can be cryptic; connecting to some computers
requires add-on accessories.
Price as rated: $99 Best Current Price: $99.00 (via ProductFinder)
Company: Apple, www.apple.com
iPod shuffle 1GB
Pros: Inexpensive; good sound; good battery life; easy iTunes controls.
Cons: No display; LEDs can be cryptic; connecting to some computers
requires add-on accessories.
Price as rated: $149 Best Current Price: $149.00 (via ProductFinder)
Company: Apple, www.apple.com
For years, people have criticized Macs for being more expensive than Windows PCs. Although at one time that was the case, those of us in the know realized a couple years ago that when you look at comparably equipped Macs and brand-name Windows PCs-that is, once you add the hardware features and software to a Windows PC that come stock on a Mac-the differences in price are much smaller, if they exist at all. This aspect of "price comparisons" has been lost on many tech pundits and analysts (as is the fact that Macs generally come with an excellent software bundle unmatched on budget PCs).
Now, to be fair, one of the rebuttals to the above argument has always been, "Well, what if I don't want all the extra features that come stock with the Mac? What if I just want a cheap, limited computer?" And it was a valid point. But with last week's announcement of the new $499 (see Best Current Price) Mac mini, Apple undercut that argument something fierce. Now Mac users, too, can get a stripped down computer for a lot less money.
But it was only a matter of time before someone would argue, "It's still not price-competitive with the cheapest Dell." And within days we've got our first such columns and articles, all of which leave me scratching my head, wondering if these guys are as bad at comparing products when they shop for themselves as they apparently are when comparing products for their columns.
The first one I came across can be found at the popular online investment site The Motley Fool (fool.com); it includes this shot across the mini's bow:
Mac fans who've been sipping Steve's Kool-Aid have often claimed that price-in addition to various Microsoft conspiracies-is the only thing keeping the masses from switching to their favorite brand, but take heed. Even if that were true, a quick online check shows you can get a comparable, full Dell system for $450...I'm also pretty sure Ma and Pa Kettle can do the third-grade math that escapes the headline writers for now, which shows the cheapest Mac system you can build around this thing is still 78% more expensive than a comparable PC.
(I'm assuming the "78% more expensive" comment refers to a system with a $999 Apple display and a $58 keyboard/mouse bundle, ignoring the fact that the Mac mini can also be used with the least expensive such peripherals on the market-a savvy shopper could get a 17" CRT, mouse, and keyboard for ~$70.)
Another, similar, comparison comes from InfoWorld's "Tech Watch" blog:
Let's look at the stats and see what you get and don't get.
Mac Mini, $499, 1.2GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, DVD-ROM/CD-RW...What you don't get are a monitor, mouse keyboard.
For $399 [from Dell] you get a 2.4GHz processor tower with 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, CD or DVD ROM drive, and a 17-inch monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.
ExtremeTech puts it the most succinctly:
Let's not get too carried away about the "cheap" Macintosh. It's cheap relative to past Apple systems, but you can still get a complete Wintel system for considerably less.
Can you? I decided to find out, using everyone's favorite budget PC maker, Dell, as a point of comparison.
First, check out the Mac mini's specs below-not bad. Then take a look at the specs of the cheapest Dell desktop we can configure on the Dell website, the Dimension 2400-currently "starting at $399 (after 10% discount)":
| Mac mini | Dell Dimension 2400 |
|---|---|
| $499 | $399 |
| 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 processor | 2.40GHz Intel Celeron processor |
| 256MB RAM (supports up to 1GB) | 256MB shared RAM (supports up to 512MB) |
| ATI Radeon 9200 (32MB dedicated VRAM) | Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics (uses system RAM for video) |
| 40GB hard drive | 40GB hard drive |
| Slot-loading Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CDRW) | DVD-ROM (read-only) drive |
| One FireWire 400 port | no FireWire |
| Two USB 2.0 ports | USB 2.0 (assumed--Dell doesn't list this in the specs) |
| 10/100BASE-T Ethernet | 10/100BASE-T Ethernet |
| 56K V.92 modem | 56K PCI Data Fax Modem |
| AirPort Extreme- and Bluetooth-ready | No wireless |
| Audio out | Integrated audio |
| Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3 | Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition |
| Software: Stock OS X apps, iLife '05, AppleWorks, Quicken 2005, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold. (Not to mention TextEdit, which has limited Word compatibility.) | Software: Internet Explorer, WordPerfect, Paint Shop Pro Studio trial, Photo Album Starter Edition, Dell Jukebox, Acrobat Reader 6.0 |
| One-year warranty | 90-day warranty |
| No display | 17-inch Dell E773c CRT display |
| No keyboard/mouse | Dell keyboard/mouse |
The Dell includes a monitor-worth $45, according to Dell-and a ~$20 keyboard/mouse bundle. So let's take those away to make the Dell "equivalent" to the Mac mini and give it an even better apparent price advantage: $334.
Now, look hard at those specs-do these really look like "comparable" computers to you? Let's take a closer look at what $334 really gets you from Dell as compared to the $499 Mac mini:
Heck, the Dell doesn't even include antivirus software (a $62 option), which for Windows computers these days is like selling a car without brakes-in both cases you simply turn it on and pray.
Once you take a hard look at the mythical "$400 Dell," it becomes clear that to make it somewhat comparable to the Mac mini, you have to add a dedicated video card, DVD/CDRW capability, FireWire, Windows XP Pro, anti-virus protection, a longer warranty, and some decent software. Ouch! The cheapest Dell is not so cheap any more.
Does the Dell have any hardware advantages? It does include 3 PCI slots for expansion. But let's be realistic here: How many people in the market for a sub-$500 computer are ever going to upgrade their computer via PCI cards? (Besides the ones who realize that they need a FireWire port to connect their video camera, that is. Did I mention that a FireWire port is included on the Mac mini? Why, yes, I did.) Some might point to the Dell's "faster" processor, but it's a Celeron. Sure, the Mac mini's 1.25GHz G4 has been around for a while, but the Dell's got a Celeron. I call it a wash-both these machines are underpowered for advanced users, but both will suffice for their target market. (For those unfamiliar with the Celeron, it's Intel's budget processor. It has a smaller Level 2 cache and slower bus speed, resulting in performance that's significantly inferior to the more expensive Pentium 4.) The only real hardware advantage for the Dell is that it has a faster hard drive; whether the target market for this computer will realize any benefits from this advantage is debatable.
Now there are surely numbers in this comparison with which an ardent Dell fan-or a Mac fan, for that matter-might quibble, but the point is clear: When you attempt to configure even the cheapest Dell comparably, it's no longer cheaper than the Mac mini; in fact, it may even be more expensive.
And then there are the intangibles the Mac mini has in its favor: No viruses; no spyware; easier setup of peripherals; a much smaller, more attractive, and quieter enclosure. And if you want wireless connectivity-AirPort or Bluetooth-you can order your Mac mini with these capabilities built-in; with the Dell, you're stuck using USB dongles and adapters. Aren't these "features" worth something?
To be clear, I don't advocate a Mac for everyone. As much as I'd like to, there are people whose needs would be better served by getting a Windows PC (although their numbers are shrinking every day). And even though the Mac mini is a stripped down Mac, there are going to be some people who don't need the extra functionality even the Mac mini has over the cheapest Dell; these people may be satisfied with the even-further-stripped-down Dell for a bit less money. But for everyone else, the Mac platform deserves a serious look, not half-baked "comparisons" that aren't, well, comparable.
More to the point: Articles that criticize the Mac mini by comparing Apples and oranges serve no one. The next time you see a tech writer making such comparisons, send him or her the URL to this article; maybe we can convince them to compare Apples to apples, instead.
[Endnote: When I was writing this article, I also looked at the bargain machines from other Windows PC vendors. As I browsed these companies' websites, something popped out at me: The different ways in which Apple and the Windows PC vendors (including Dell) "strip down" their low-end models. The Mac mini is stripped down externally-no mouse, keyboard, or display-while still being a full-featured machine internally. Windows PC makers generally take the opposite approach: You get a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but limited hardware features and little to no software. And speaking of software, why do so many Windows writers neglect to include the value of bundled software, monetary or otherwise, when they "compare" computers? I suppose it's because the "free" software that comes with most Windows PCs stinks-in the budget PC world, if it comes with the computer it must not be very good. Tip to Windows writers: You've been led astray. The software that comes with a computer can be free and great.]
See more about Mac mini at Macworld's Mac mini page.
http://www.macworld.com/hot_topics/macmini/index.php
(Updated 1/18 at 4:00 PM PT, adding specific verification from Apple that opening the Mac mini doesn't void your warranty unless you break it while opening it.)
Other links:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/11/macmini/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/22/shufflemini/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/macminihandson/
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/reviews/macminireview/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/macminifaq/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/macminiinside/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/products/apple/complete/cpu_detail1_00035.php
ToC
By Dan Frakes
URL: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1038.html
The 10.3.8 Update delivers improved compatibility and reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and is recommended for all users.
Key updates include:
Download Details
| Version: | |
| Post Date: | 02/09/05 |
| License: | Update |
| File Size: | 27.7MB |
For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n300569
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798
ToC
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
On 25-Jan-05, Apple released Security Update 2005-001 to patch several reported vulnerabilities in both desktop and server versions of Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.3. The update affects Mail and Safari, the SquirrelMail webmail software incorporated in Mac OS X Server, the Unix command-line tool at, ColorSync color profile software, and the libxml2 and PHP libraries. With the update, Apple also started a new naming scheme for security updates that uses the year and a sequential update number rather than a full date that could sometimes cause confusion when it didn't match with the release date.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300770>
The newly patched Mail client no longer uses each Mac's identifiable unique network hardware address in constructing the Message-ID header in outgoing messages, and Safari now prevents a malicious pop-up window from appearing to be from a trusted site. (If Safari's Block Pop-Up Windows feature is enabled, the issue doesn't occur.) Details of the other patches are available on Apple's Web site. The free updates, 18 MB for 10.2 users and 7 MB for 10.3 users, may be downloaded via Software Update or from the Apple Downloads Web site. [MHA]
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
ToC
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
Apple on 27-Jan-05 released iMovie HD 5.0.1, which fixes unspecified audio and video synchronization issues. According to Apple, you should apply the patch if your iMovie HD projects include "DV Widescreen assets [16:9 footage], titles, transitions, or video effects" ...which describes pretty much any iMovie project. The update is available as a 2.4 MB download via Software Update. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300731>
TidBITS#764/31-Jan-05
Alf Watt has released iStumbler 90, a Mac OS X tool that scans for Wi-Fi (AirPort and AirPort Extreme) and now Bluetooth and Rendezvous networks. Scanning for Bluetooth networks is a new hobby among those who want to find other similarly minded people and, sometimes, mess with their minds by sending them strange messages or even taking over certain devices when a user is unwise enough to accept a Bluetooth-sent attachment. The Rendezvous or multicast DNS (mDNS) scanning is also useful given how widely Apple has deployed the technology. iStumbler lets you browse for mDNS services and connect to them through a single interface instead of needing to use different programs, such as a Web browser and the Finder, to attach to different kinds of services.
This version also improves the scanning and display of Wi-Fi networks, which system administrators will find useful when trying to pinpoint signal problems or glitches, including a Widget-like transparent window showing signal strength on a time-based chart for any one network you choose. iStumbler is free and open source, but the developer is soliciting small donations to continue his work. [GF]
ToC
TidBITS#765/07-Feb-05
Apple last week released iPhoto 5.0.1 via Software Update to address a variety of bugs in the company's photo management software. In particular, iPhoto 5.0.1 improves the process of upgrading iPhoto 4 libraries, makes dragging of albums into folders work better, solves some crashing problems with books, and addresses issues with importing of MPEG-4 movies. The update is 2.7 MB and Apple is recommending it for all iPhoto 5 users. [ACE]
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/>
ToC
http://www.cybernetman.com/default.cfm/DocId/602.htm
ToC
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
January 20. 2005 - President Rollins began the meeting with a request that those who have yet to renew their memberships please do so.
Kevin Hisel then spoke about moving the CUCUG Starship Forums to the ISP namesecure.com. Kevin stated that he is taking on the duties of the administrator. Phil Wall made a comment on how the forum is currently working. Kevin said he would look into the particular problem Phil noted. Kevin than stated that since we now control our own domain, we can have cucug.org mail accounts for those members who would like them. In closing, Kevin informed everyone the new Forums address is http://www.cucug.org/starship or you can get to them by going to the club's main page and click on the link on the left hand side of the page.
Jerry Feltner brought in some more of his excellent printing paper for those who would like some. Thanks Jerry.
Tom Purl asked about a mail program he wishes one of his clients wouldn't use. It's called Incredimail and is loaded with animated "dancing crap," but no one had anything on the program to warrant its discontinued use.
There was a discussion about Microsoft's new anti-virus and anti-spyware release. Showing their usual route to "innovation," they bought Giant Software and the "new" product is Giant's previous work. Kevin Hisel said it works well, but there is a substantial performance hit if you leave it running all the time. He said you should probably just run it when you want to do a check.
There was a further discussion of the crushing load of adware and spyware that is adversely effecting nearly everyone and seems to be getting worse in the last few months.
George Krumins asked about web board in connection to his work. Mark Zinzow was very helpful, saying that listserv has the archive feature George was looking for and you can also read the postings with a web browser. He said all the major "good" software does both email and web access, but he is particularly familiar with LSoft's listserv. It was also noted that there is POP on Gmail.
Richard Rollins talked about his experience with the G5 iMac. He was speaking so positively about it that Kevin Hisel brought up the Apple web site and began filling out an order form for Richard to buy one. He didn't have to be forcibly stopped, because once Richard saw what he was doing, he couldn't continue because he was laughing too hard.
Emil Cobb stated that he has ordered a 1 GB iPod Shuffle and will show it off once it arrives.
Kevin Hisel went to Google and brought up the site for Picasa, Version 2 of which he was quite impressed with. It looks like a PC version of iPhoto and it's free. Recommendation enough. See it at http://www.picasa.com. Tom Purl was intrigued enough to pepper Kevin with all sorts of questions about the program and its functionality.
David Noreen asked about a problem he was having printing to his HP Laserjet 2P Plus.After some discussion, he was advised he'd have to program his BIOS to an older protocol for his PC to talk to the printer.
Richard Rollins had the latest Fry ad for anyone who would like to look at it. Wayne Hamilton said it comes out each week in the Chicago Tribune.
ToC
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The January meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, January 25, 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: Emil Cobb, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, Rich Hall, and Tom Purl.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that at the meeting the Mac SIG looked at Garageband. He noted that both the PC and the Mac SIGs are hurting for demonstration programs. He concluded by reporting seventeen members were in attendance at the meeting.
Tom Purl: Tom said he had several ideas for programs for the Linux SIG: Python (an object oriented scripting language), Ruby On Rails (a framework for building web applications), Delicious (social bookmarking, storing bookmarks online), Flickr.com (a site for storing photos and sharing them), Automated Unit Testing (automated testing of programming code), Eclipse IDE (a free, cross platform, integrated development environment), and Wiki (editable web pages, like Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>). Next month the Linux SIG will be looking at Python.
Rich Hall: Rich noted that he wasn't able to attend the last meeting because it was his wife's birthday, so he thanked Kevin Hopkins for transferring the membership information and funds collected in his absence. Rich noted that he has already filled out the club's tax forms for this last year - we had a net loss of $40 - so we will owe no taxes.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin had nothing new to report.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin reported the successful migration of cucug.org to namesecure.com. The CUCUG Starship forums have likewise been moved to namesecure.com from their birthplace and the loving care of Mike Latinovich. Thanks Mike. Kevin said he wanted to maintain everything as before with one policy change: a stricter enforcement of the "members only" forums - you have to be a member to use them. Other than that there will be very little moderation and no other major changes.
ToC
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/ .