Vista Licensing Changes Rile Analysts, Won't Affect Many Users

If there's no such thing as bad press, Microsoft should be ecstatic about this article. This week, the software giant quietly unveiled changes to its Vista licensing terms, and a corporate blog carefully pointed out only a couple of changes--one positive and one previously known. But after looking over the changes, several reporters and bloggers discovered that Microsoft had in fact made some sweeping changes to the Vista retail license terms. The most controversial is a clause that lets users reassign a Vista license to a different computer only one time. Previously, Microsoft implicitly allowed multiple license reassignments. Enthusiasts are crying foul, but I have to wonder how many people this change will really affect. Sure, the Ed Botts of the world will milk this change for all the anti-Microsoft bile they can, but honestly, are huge numbers of people really reassigning single copies of Windows XP to multiple machines regularly? Most people (90 percent, maybe more?) obtain Windows when they buy a new PC. And those versions of Windows couldn't be reassigned to new PCs even under the previous licensing terms. So, to take advantage of the new Vista licensing clause, you'd need to buy a retail copy of the "full" version of XP, build your own PC, install XP, and later build another completely new PC, uninstall XP from the first computer, and reinstall it on the new computer. And then do it again. And again. And again. Under Vista, you get to do that only once. But how common is that scenario, really? My point is simple: Yes, this change will adversely affect a very small minority of (admittedly vocal) Windows users. But since so few people buy retail copies of Windows, and even fewer reinstall those copies on a second computer, and even fewer still install them on further computers down the line, it won't really affect many people. So the controversy is really one of the press' making. It's a non-event for the general public.

About Buying a PC for Vista Now

You know, there's nothing like the experience of waking up on Christmas morning, looking under the tree, and finding a coupon for a product that won't ship until January. That's the Christmas that Microsoft is envisioning for Vista fans this year, and I think it stinks. If Vista will be ready for volume-license customers in November, it should also be ready for consumers in time for the holidays. But the real reason that Vista isn't shipping until January is that Microsoft's PC-maker partners would cry foul. They don't want people buying Vista this holiday season. They want people to buy new PCs with Vista preinstalled. And because Microsoft distributes far more copies of Windows with new PCs than it could ever sell at retail, there's no reason to get its PC-maker partners up in arms. So, spread that holiday cheer and sleep tight knowing that Microsoft's partners, at least, are taken care of.

Merry Christmas, Microsoft Fans: Microsoft Preps Holiday Vista Coupons

Later this month, Microsoft will publicly unveil a program called Express Upgrade that will allow customers who purchase Windows XP-based PCs between October 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, to get a copy of Vista at a reduced price or for free. The program, naturally, is designed to ensure that PC sales won't suffer during the crucial holiday-selling period, since Vista is arriving in January, or about a month after the holiday selling period ends. Under terms of the program, customers who purchase a PC with Windows XP Home Edition will be able to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Basic for $49 or to Vista Home Premium for $79. Customers who purchase PCs with XP Professional, XP Professional x64 Edition, XP Tablet PC Edition, or XP Media Center Edition will get Vista Home Premium for free. Seems fair, and remember that customers who have Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, or Vista Business will be able to upgrade to Vista Ultimate directly from within the OS.

Windows XP SP1 Fades into the Sunset

On October 10, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1). Frankly, I find it hard to believe that anyone is still using XP SP1. But for those who are, Microsoft released a much-improved SP2 a whopping two years ago (has it really been that long?) and you might consider installing over the weekend. Just a thought.

Microsoft Will Ship 1 Vista DVD

According to plan, Microsoft has apparently confirmed that all Vista product versions will ship with the exact same DVD. The only difference will be the product key: A Windows Vista Ultimate product key will let you install Vista Ultimate, and a Vista Business product key will let you install Vista Business, and so on. Microsoft's shipping Vista this way so that it can support in-place upgrades from Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business to various other versions through a Web-based upgrade. You'll have all the bits necessary for an upgrade right on your previously purchased DVD, so all you'll need to do is fork over a credit card number, insert the disc, and upgrade. It's a simple plan. It would have been even simpler had Microsoft shipped just a single version of its OS, as Apple does.

News: IE7 Final Coming This Month

URL: http://board.iexbeta.com/index.php?showtopic=66534

The final release of IE7 is fast approaching...and I mean really fast...and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates a few weeks after it's available for download. We want to ensure that you are ready and the information below will help get you there.

Compatibility with sites, extensions and applications has been a very high priority for us as we develop new features, enhance the existing features and move the platform forward to be more secure and standards compliant. We are continually listening to feedback from our customers, partners and leaders in the industry to resolve major compatibility issues to ensure our common customers have a great experience with IE7. As we make key improvements in areas such as layout and security, some changes need to be made by site owners to work smoothly with IE7. We have produced detailed documentation, tools and other resources to assist site, extension and application owners in their testing and development efforts to ensure they are compatible with IE7. We have also proactively worked with hundreds of companies to resolve issues that were reported through our beta testing to ensure those issues were resolved before IE7 is released.

Update: The final release of Internet Explorer 7 is targeted for release October 18th and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates starting November 1st, a few weeks after it's available for download.

Read More: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/ archive/2006/10/06/IE7-Is-Coming-This-Month_2E002E002E00_Are-you- Ready_3F00_.aspx

Intel to Launch Quad-Core Chips on November 13

HP workstations will be among first to get Intel's quad-core processors. Ben Ames, IDG News Service
Friday, October 13, 2006 12:00 PM PDT
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127506-pg,1-RSS,RSS/article.html

In a race with rival Advanced Micro Devices, Intel will bring its quad-core chips to market in a new line of Hewlett-Packard workstations due to be introduced on November 13.

HP sent out invitations to the event but did not specify exact models and prices. The computers will probably use Intel's planned Xeon 5300 chip, and will be designed to run high-end applications like seismic analysis and visualization technologies from Ansys, Autodesk, Landmark Graphics, and Parametric Technology.

The launch would mean that Intel brings quad-core processors to market before AMD, a crucial win in a year when Intel has made as many headlines for its layoffs and missed earnings targets as for its technology.

AMD in 2007

AMD plans to release its own quad-core chips in the middle of 2007, and claims its monolithic design is superior to Intel's plan, which essentially glues two dual-cores chips together. But without having any hardware to test, analysts are divided on whether this detail will significantly affect the chips' performance.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini defended the company's design at last month's Intel Developer Forum, saying that customers would care more about the pure speed and performance of their computers than about how the chips inside it are packaged.

Compared to the ratcheting of clock speeds in conventional chips above 3 GHz and 4 GHz, multiple-core chips can accelerate processing tasks in desktops and servers without drawing more electricity and generating extra heat. They can also handle more than one instruction set at a time, allowing computers to multitask more efficiently.

The game enthusiast market will be a testing ground for the first quad-core chips, as Intel has already arranged to ship its Core 2 Extreme version of the chip to 13 gaming PC vendors, including Dell, Gateway, and VoodooPC, Otellini said at the show. The company plans to ship the Core 2 Quad version for mainstream desktops in the first quarter of 2007.

In contrast, the launch with HP next month will focus on high-end users in the fields of digital content creation, computer-aided engineering and design, and oil and gas exploration.

One of the earliest users of quad-core chips will be the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. HP invited reporters to witness the technology at a November 13 press conference called "Quad Fest."

Microsoft Details Vista Antipiracy, Activation Tech

Paul Thurrott
URL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/93756/93756.html

Microsoft this week revealed how it will protect Windows Vista and Longhorn Server from software pirates. The upcoming OSs will utilize a next-generation version of the controversial Windows Genuine Advantage and Microsoft Product Activation technologies, rebranded under the Microsoft Genuine Software Initiative moniker, to limit the capabilities of pirated Vista versions.

The changes are described in a white paper Microsoft made public on Wednesday (< http://download.microsoft .com/download/c/2/9/c2935f83-1a10-4e4a- a137- c1db829637f5/10-03-06SoftwareProtectionWP.doc>). In the document, Microsoft describes its antipiracy technologies as "innovations" that "protect [Microsoft's] intellectual property and alert consumers to the presences of counterfeit software." But the antipiracy features in Vista and Longhorn Server go far beyond similar features in Windows XP. And given the false positives that have appeared during XP's lifetime, it's hard to know whether this latest antipiracy volley will do more than annoy customers and casual software thieves.

Cori Hartje, director of Microsoft's Genuine Software Initiative, admits the company is getting tougher on software pirates. "The upcoming releases of Windows Vista and Windows Server 'Longhorn' will be the first two products to ship with [our] new antipiracy innovations, counterfeit detection, and tamper-resistant features," she says. "Windows Vista and Windows Server 'Longhorn' [have] new ways ... to activate, validate as genuine, and behave when tampered with or hacked."

Those new behaviors are sure to raise concerns among Microsoft's customers. Today, if XP suspects that the system has been pirated, it will display annoying Windows Genuine Advantage advertisements until the problem is corrected. But Vista and Longhorn Server will actually turn off functionality if the system is considered pirated. Features such as the Windows Aero UI, Windows ReadyBoost, Windows Defender, and Microsoft Windows Update will either stop working or won't work fully.

Additionally, systems that aren't activated within 30 days of purchase will move into a reduced-functionality mode in which users can access only Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Windows shell, so that they'll be able to perform only system management functions such as backing up files. Users won't be able to open documents or other files or run applications within a nonactivated system.

Microsoft is also extending its reviled Product Activation technology to businesses through Microsoft Volume Activation 2.0. "This helps provide a more secure deployment solution with multiple, flexible options for customers using volume-license keys to deploy many installations of the Windows Vista operating system in one location," Hartje says. "This process can be done in batches or individually by PC." Volume Activation is designed to prevent volume-license product keys from being leaked outside of corporations, Microsoft says, a common problem with XP.

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Kevin Hisel for the contributions to this section of the newsletter above. The selection below was recommended on a mailisting I frequent.]

Spyware, Bots, Rootkits Flooding Through Unpatched IE Hole

September 19, 2006
By Ryan Naraine
URL: http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=189005,00.asp

The newest zero-day flaw in the Microsoft Windows implementation of the Vector Markup Language is being used to flood infected machines with a massive collection of bots, Trojan downloaders, spyware and rootkits.

Less than 24 hours after researchers at Sunbelt Software discovered an active malware attack against fully patched versions of Windows, virus hunters say the Web-based exploits are serving up botnet-building Trojans and installations of ad-serving spyware.

"This is a massive malware run," says Roger Thompson, chief technical officer at Atlanta-based Exploit Prevention Labs. In an interview with eWEEK, Thompson confirmed the drive-by attacks are hosing infected machines with browser tool bars and spyware programs with stealth rootkit capabilities.

The laundry list of malware programs seeded on Russian porn sites also includes a dangerous keystroke logger capable of stealing data from computers and a banker Trojan that specifically hijacks log-in information from financial Web sites.

According to Sunbelt Software researcher Eric Sites, the list of malware programs includes VirtuMonde, an ad-serving program that triggers pop-ups from Internet Explorer; Claria.GAIN.CommonElements, an adware utility; AvenueMedia.InternetOptimizer; and several browser plug-ins and tool bars and variants of the virulent Spybot worm.

eWEEK has confirmed the flaw-and zero-day attacks-on a fully patched version of Windows XP SP2 running IE 6.0. There are at least three sites hosting the malicious executables, which are being served up on a rotational basis.

In some cases, a visit to the site turns up an error message that reads simply: "Err: this user is already attacked."

The attack is closely linked to the WebAttacker do-it-yourself spyware installation tool kit. On one of the maliciously rigged Web sites, the attack code even goes as far as referencing the way Microsoft identifies its security patches, confirming fears that a well-organized crime ring is behind the attacks.

The URL that's serving up the exploit includes the following: "MS06-XMLNS&SP2," a clear reference to the fact that the flaw is a zero-day that will trigger a quick patch from Microsoft.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company is aware of the public release of detailed exploit code that could be used to exploit this vulnerability. "Based on our investigation, this exploit code could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the user's system. Microsoft is aware of limited attacks that attempt to exploit the vulnerability," the spokesman said in a statement sent to eWEEK.

The company plans to ship an IE patch as part of its October batch of updates due Oct. 10. An emergency, out-of-cycle patch could be released if the attacks escalate.

Microsoft has added signature-based detection to its Windows OneCare anti-virus product. A formal security advisory with pre-patch workarounds will be posted within the next 24 hours.

Check out eWEEK.com's Security Center for the latest security news, reviews and analysis. And for insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer's Weblog.

<http://blog.eweek.com/blogs/larry%5Fseltzer/>

The Linux Section:

Investor outlines SCO-Microsoft link

By Stephen Shankland
Story last modified Mon Oct 09 18:57:26 PDT 2006
URL: http://news.com.com/Investor+outlines+SCO-Microsoft+link/2100-7344_3-6124125.html

A former investor in the SCO Group has identified a Microsoft executive who, he said, worked to "backstop" a funding deal that ultimately helped SCO pursue its legal case against the Linux operating system.

The investor, BayStar Capital managing partner Lawrence Goldfarb, first called attention to Microsoft's involvement in BayStar's $50 million investment in the SCO Group more than two years ago.

<http://news.com.com//Investment+firm+confirms+Microsoft+link+to+SCO/2100-7344_3-5172426.html?tag=nl>
<http://news.com.com//SCO+gets+50+million+investment/2100-7344_3-5092702.html?tag=nl>

The BayStar-arranged funding, which included $20 million from the venture fund and $30 million from the Royal Bank of Canada, was instrumental in SCO's expensive lawsuit against IBM, in which it alleges Big Blue moved proprietary Unix technology into open-source Linux against the terms of its Unix contract with SCO.

Now, in a sworn declaration described in an IBM court filing, Goldfarb said he discussed SCO funding arrangements with Richard Emerson, a Microsoft senior vice president. In 2000, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer named Emerson to lead the software giant's corporate development and strategy, putting him in charge of its mergers, acquisitions and partnerships.

"Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop', or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment...Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO," Goldfarb said in the declaration.

The assertion indicates that at least one person at Microsoft apparently was working, at least indirectly, to support SCO's case against a mutual rival, the Linux operating system. SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride said the $50 million investment arranged by BayStar brought the company's legal "war chest" to $60 million.

A Microsoft representative didn't specifically deny the BayStar-Microsoft talks. However, the company said in a statement, "Microsoft has no financial relationship with BayStar and never agreed to guarantee any of BayStar's $50 million investment in SCO. The BayStar declaration confirms that no guarantee was ever provided."

Goldfarb's comments were disclosed over the weekend at the SCO-watcher legal Web site Groklaw.

<http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.groklaw.net%2Farticle.php%3Fstory%3D2006100801442692&siteId=3&oId=/SCO+gets+50+million+investment/2100-7344_3-5092702.html&ontId=1001&lop=nl.ex>

Goldfarb's declaration indicates Microsoft was indeed willing to help SCO attack Linux, said Allonn Levy, litigation attorney with Hopkins & Carley, a San Jose, Calif.-based law firm.

"Although the declaration does not indicate any actual money was paid by Microsoft, it does suggest that the software behemoth was operating behind the scenes, employing its extensive industry contacts in an apparent effort to help SCO finance its lawsuits," Levy said. "Certainly, Microsoft has an obvious interest in promoting the lawsuits, since the lawsuits are seen as an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the Linux operating system."

After BayStar made the investment, Goldfarb said, "Microsoft stopped returning my phone calls and e-mails, and to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Emerson was fired from Microsoft."

Emerson couldn't immediately be located for comment. Microsoft confirmed he no longer works for the company but wouldn't give details of the circumstances of his departure.

BayStar's relationship with SCO has floundered. The investor wanted SCO to focus totally on litigation, while SCO insisted on continuing its Unix business. By mid-2004, the two companies had parted ways.

In his declaration, Goldfarb said that BayStar had sold its stake back to SCO because SCO's stock price was falling and because the company was rapidly spending its cash pile. He also indicated that Microsoft had cooled on its earlier offer of support.

SCO's case hasn't just hit IBM. The Lindon, Utah-based company also sued Linux user AutoZone, Unix licensee DaimlerChrysler, and is tangling with Novell, which claims that it never sold its Unix copyrights to SCO.

[Graeme Wearden of ZDNet UK contributed to this report from London.]

<http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.zdnet.co.uk%2F&siteId=3&oId=/SCO+gets+50+million+investment/2100-7344_3-5092702.html&ontId=1001&lop=nl.ex>

In other news:

• Google snaps up YouTube for $1.65b

<http://news.com.com/Google+makes+video+play+with+YouTube+buy/2100-1030_3-6124094.html?tag=st.txt.caro>

• Fiorina: HP scandal 'lifted a veil'

<http://news.com.com/Fiorina+says+board+let+emotion+trump+reason/2008-1001_3-6124044.html?tag=nefd.lede?tag=st.txt.caro>

• In the home stretch toward Vista

<http://news.com.com/In+the+home+stretch+toward+Vista/2009-1016_3-6124001.html?tag=st.txt.caro>

• News.com Extra: Tech groups join London market

<http://news.com.com/News.com+Extra/2001-9373_3-0.html?tag=st.txt.caro>

The Macintosh Section:

Apple Updates iPods, Introduces Movies, Previews iTV

by TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com
>article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8676>
TidBITS#847/18-Sep-06

At Apple's "It's Showtime!" special event last week, CEO Steve Jobs led off by introducing a slate of revised iPods that retain the existing model names. He also introduced, as widely expected, movies to the iTunes Store, along with a new version of iTunes to manage it all. And in an unusual move for Apple, he pre-announced a wireless set-top box - code-named iTV - scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 2007. In order, then...

New iPods

The model with the least amount of change is the video-capable iPod, which retains the same design (available in black and white) as the previous version. However, Apple has improved battery life, claiming up to 3.5 hours of video playback, up from 2 hours, or up to 20 hours of music playback. The screen is also now 60 percent brighter. The iPod is available in a 30 GB version for $250 or an 80 GB version for $350; those prices, incidentally, are $50 cheaper than the previous models, which offered 30 GB and 60 GB capacities.

<http://www.apple.com/ipod/>

Apple's most successful music player, the iPod nano, arrived in a passel of colors: green, silver, black, blue, and pink, all of which are now anodized aluminum instead of plastic and evoke the look of the late iPod mini. The screen is 40 percent brighter than previous models, and Apple claims up to 24 hours of battery life for music playback. The iPod nano comes in a 2 GB capacity for $150, 4 GB for $200, and 8 GB for $250. However, Apple continues to be selective about its color offerings: the 2 GB model is available only in silver, and the 8 GB model is available only in black; the 4 GB model comes in silver, green, blue, and pink.

<http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/>

The iPod shuffle, which gives Apple a low-end answer to those competing MP3 players that haven't yet been crushed, is now available in a single 1 GB model for $80. The iPod shuffle is quite a bit smaller now - 1.62 inches (4.11 cm) wide by 1.07 inches (2.72 cm) tall - and its white exterior has been replaced with an aluminum skin with a built-in clip for attaching to clothing. It will ship in October.

<http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/>

(It's also worth noting that the packaging for the iPod nano and iPod shuffle is much smaller than in the past, a waste reduction move we applaud.)

The new iPod and iPod nano both have a new "instant search" feature that uses the click-wheel to cycle through letters of the alphabet to spell the start of a song or artist. Also new are games: iPod users can now download a variety of casual games from the iTunes Store for $5 each. Games currently available include Tetris, Vortex, Pac-Man, Cubis 2, Zuma, Texas Hold'em, Mini Golf, Mahjong, and Bejeweled. Although the search feature is available only on these newest iPods, the previous 5G iPod is also compatible with the games. Games cannot be played in iTunes.

iTunes 7

As expected in situations that involve changes to the iTunes Store, Apple also rolled out a major update to iTunes. On launch, iTunes 7 alerts you to a welcome new feature - automatic addition of album art to songs already in your library. Then iTunes updates your library, presumably just transitioning to a new database format internally, followed by a long pass to identify songs that need the new "gapless playback" assigned to them. It turns out that gapless playback is always on in iTunes 7. Songs that aren't gapless usually have a little dead air at the beginning or the end of the encoding, which remains (and if they lack that dead air, the transition between songs still usually sounds fine). Truly gapless songs have sound from the start to the end of the file, so the identification pass looks at each file to determine exactly when the audible data starts to eliminate a very slight bit of dead air that occurs when the audio decoder is starting up. You can continue working while gapless playback identification is happening, luckily, since it's quite slow.

<http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304362>

iTunes 7 features some new navigational tools that should make it easier to work through the different types of media that have become commonplace in the program. The source pane now has different sections with all-cap headings for Library, Store, and Playlists; Devices shows up when an iPod is connected. Library includes entries for Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, and Radio (in fact, iPod Games can appear there too, and all the items are optional). Store has the iTunes Store link, along with the Purchased playlist. And Playlists holds your playlists. Gone are the buttons at the top of the screen that let you, for instance, select between TV shows and music videos when the Videos source item was selected.

<http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox/sourcelist.html>

More striking, though somewhat less functional, are the three views: list, grouped, and Cover Flow, controlled by buttons to the left of the Search field. List view is what we've all become accustomed to. Grouped view collects songs by album and TV episodes by show, showing the artwork to the left of the group; it's not available for podcasts or radio. Cover Flow provides a new, resizable pane that displays album covers as though they were CD cases standing on a highly reflective black table. The contents of the center-most item in the fanned-out list show in a list view below, and a horizontal scroll bar lets you flip rapidly through your collection; sorting the list (by clicking a column heading) changes the items in the artwork pane, too. It's eye candy, to be sure, but we anticipate it being useful when you want to browse randomly through your music collection. In an interesting and unusual move for Apple, Cover Flow was purchased from independent developer Jonathan del Strother.

<http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox/coverflow.html>
<http://www.steelskies.com/coverflow/>

If you don't have artwork for many of your albums, never fear, because Apple now makes album art available for your music for free, even for previously ripped albums (although the selection is limited to songs in the iTunes Store catalog). If you used a utility to snag low-res album art already, you may want to delete it first by selecting multiple items, choosing File > Get Info, selecting the Artwork checkbox (but don't put anything in it), and then clicking OK. Once that's done, Control-click the selected items again and choose Get Album Artwork. (The Clear Downloaded Artwork command currently works only on artwork downloaded from Apple.)

Functionally speaking, iTunes 7 brings one extremely welcome feature, though with an unfortunate limitation. If you've wanted to synchronize music or videos between computers using your iPod in the past, you've been out of luck (although various third party utilities made this possible). iTunes 7 now synchronizes purchased content between computers, so if you download a song or TV show on one computer, plugging the iPod into another authorized computer makes it possible to copy the content to that computer. While this is a promising feature, it works only with purchased content, not with music you've ripped from your own CDs.

<http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync/transfer.html>

As far as we can tell, iTunes 7 in no way improves the situation of a family that wants to have a single music archive that's shared by multiple computers. Built-in sharing works poorly because only one computer can make playlists, rate songs, and so on, and maintaining a shared music folder on a centralized server works acceptably, but each computer must add new music manually. The one new feature here is that iTunes now supports multiple libraries like iPhoto does; hold down the Option key when launching iTunes to create or switch between libraries. The only real utility we can see to this feature, though, is having a relatively small library on a laptop for traveling, but having another library that points at a shared storage folder when you're at home.

In a nice touch, iTunes now provides a tabbed iPod summary page that summarizes all the information about your iPod, including name, free space, serial number, contents, and so on. (Click the Capacity bar to toggle between viewing space used and number of items.) Plus, iTunes now handles iPod software updates, eliminating the awkward iPod Updater utility and the need to download updates for iPod models you don't own.

<http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync/summary.html>

iTunes Store

As expected, Steve Jobs's "One more thing..." announcement was indeed the addition of movies to the iTunes Store (note that Apple dropped "Music" from the name). Jobs announced that the iTunes Store now carries 75 films from Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, and Miramax, all of which are owned by Disney. He also promised that Apple would be adding movies every week, although the real question is whether Apple will be able to negotiate agreements with other movie studios. For now, the movies are available only in the United States, with international distribution anticipated for 2007.

In terms of pricing, most older movies are $10, with new releases priced at $13 for pre-orders and the first week of distribution, after which they'll jump to $15. Prices are comparable to the new Amazon Unbox Video service announced last week. Amazon Unbox Video has a larger selection from studios other than those Disney owns, but it's a moot point for Mac users, since Amazon's service uses Windows Media Player's digital rights management, which isn't compatible with Macs or iPods.

<http://www.amazon.com/b/?&node=16261631>

The movies are encoded in what Apple calls "near DVD quality" and have Dolby surround audio, although we'll leave it to others to wrangle about just how good that really is and whether Apple made the right tradeoffs of quality versus download size. Download time will be slow, for sure, though the details will depend on variables other than just size. TV shows are now encoded at 640 by 480 pixels, up from 320 by 240.

Videos require QuickTime 7.1.3, also released last week, which includes a number of security fixes for maliciously crafted movies that could cause crashes. It's available for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and later, and is a 48 MB download from Apple's Web site or via Software Update.

<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/mac.html>

These full-length movie purchases have the same limitations as video shorts, music videos, and other visual content: unlike iTunes Store audio purchases, they cannot be burned to disc in a playable format. With music and the online store, burning to an audio CD format was the one way out of the digital rights management world of Apple's FairPlay technology. With video, you can make backups of the files - something that's extremely tedious with DVDs - but you can't play the files anywhere but within iTunes for Mac OS X and Windows and on an iPod. (iTunes 7 now prompts you to back up purchased content after it downloads; the warning can be disabled. Also, a new Back Up to Disc command can be found under the File menu.)

Movies also appear to arrive without extras. For instance, "The Incredibles" has a variety of features and shorts on the DVD that's sold in stores. Those extras aren't noted in any fashion at Apple's store. Amazon.com sells the full-screen 2-disc set for $18 and free domestic shipping; Apple charges $13 (for the first week, then $15), but you appear to get only the movie. Further, the DVD version has English, French, and Spanish subtitles and audio, plus audio commentary (two separate ones). That's a potentially significant difference between the DVD and the download version for some people.

<http://www.amazon.com/Incredibles-Full-Screen-2-Disc-Collector/dp/B0007A2GSW/tidbitselectro00/ref=nosim>

iTV Sneak Peek

Playing with the "one more thing" myth, Jobs paused after introducing the addition of movies to the iTunes Store, said, "One last thing..." and introduced the iTV, a wireless set-top box scheduled to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2007 for $300. The iTV, whose name Jobs said would be changing, is aimed at playing all those videos you watch not just on your computer or iPod, but also on that big flat-screen TV you bought after reading Clark Humphrey's "Take Control of Digital TV." You can certainly hook up a Mac to the TV, but it's inelegant, particularly with all the cabling that's necessary. In essence, the iTV seems to be a super-duper AirPort Express, at least in terms of media sharing and playback.

<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/digital-tv.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0027-TB847>

The iTV looks like a flattened Mac mini, with wired and wireless networking, USB 2.0, HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), component video, analog audio, and optical audio interfaces. Its software interface is highly reminiscent of Front Row, providing access to movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, and photos and driven via an Apple Remote. The HDMI interface is crucial, since it allows high-resolution digital video data to pass through to the TV in an encrypted form. The movie studios have used HDMI to prevent identical copies of their movies from being pushed out digitally from DVD players. But the use of HDMI also means that only certain approved digital video playing devices can use those high resolutions.

Although no discussion of hard drives or optical drives happened during the keynote, the iTV may need some form of cache storage to support playing video from "selected" Internet sites - and we'd love to hear what "selected" means beyond "it can play QuickTime movie trailers from Apple's site." We'd like to see a YouTube channel, for instance. The lack of a DVD drive is particularly disappointing, because it means that a separate Mac, PC, or DVD player will be needed for DVDs that you might want to view in the same environment. In our view, the iTV should act like a sophisticated media adapter, and thus it would be nice to wire more inputs into it, so only its output would be fed to your TV and stereo system.

<http://www.youtube.com/>

Questions we expect to be answered in the coming months are whether the iTV can pool video and audio from all computers on a local network, or whether limits apply based on iTunes Store authorization and the irritating restriction on how many different users can connect to a copy of iTunes to share music in a given 24-hour period. Also available for discussion is how multiple iTVs would be managed in a home - we expect they'd be addressable by name, just like the AirPort Express and its music streaming feature.

It's Not Your Parents' (or Even Your) Television

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8677>
TidBITS#847/18-Sep-06

Moderately buried in Apple's iTV announcement last week was the peculiar fact that the future streaming media adapter offers only component and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) video output. These two methods of encoding video seemed a little exotic to me, who only recently upgraded the family 19-inch tube TV (10 years old, and failing) to a 20-inch Dell LCD with DVI and what I considered standard video input - a single round plug.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI>

But I'm just out of sync with the rest of the consumer video world, as I suspect many of you are, too. HDMI, I knew, is common on almost all high-definition television (HDTV) sets; it's a superset of the DVI (Digital Video Interface) standard used for external displays. HDMI incorporates comprehensive audio support that DVI lacks, and using a separate standard, it can encrypt digital video and audio to transmit from one licensed device to another, such as between a DVD player and an HDTV set. This is a part of movie studios' and other video copyright holders' digital rights management (DRM) requirement for "allowing" digital copies of their work to be distributed. (All home entertainment equipment with HDMI interfaces deliver the highest resolutions of digital content using encryption. Non-restricted analog outputs are purposely downsampled or degraded to eliminate copying. There are efforts afoot to block unrestricted use of these analog outputs from digital devices, too!)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protection>
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004106.php>

Component video is analog, but considered quite high in quality. In consumer component video, three separate video cables carry the signal. One carries luminance information, which is a combination of brightness (the amount of light energy) and detail. Another cable carries the red component without the luminance values, and a third carries blue minus luminance. Green is inferred from the three components. Because of this separation, images are crisper with more accurate color.

Composite video is what we're all used to, in which chrominance (color) and luminance are combined, forming something that's rather muddy in comparison, but which uses a single cable. This encoding method is the U.S. NTSC standard, which has long been referred to as "Never The Same Color" for its erratic fidelity. The other dominant standard elsewhere in the world is PAL, which is similar.

Although I purchased a relatively recent LCD monitor designed to play video, it turns out that I was already behind the times (though in my defense, my Dell is a computer monitor that I'm using as a television, not a dedicated LCD TV). I checked prices at Crutchfield, a well-regarded online audio/video store, and their least-expensive LCD television set - a $350 15-inch Samsung - supports composite and component video, as well as S-Video and VGA (listed as "PC Input"). (S-Video uses a plug similar to that found on the old ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) keyboard and mouse cables, and is better than composite but not nearly as good as component.)

<http://www.crutchfield.com/S-PiHNqzs6GDH/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=146350&I=305LNR1550>

To check on pricing for a TV with HDMI, I used Crutchfield's link to narrow choices to just displays with that interface; it must be a common search request. Their least-expensive HDMI-bearing set is a Westinghouse 27-inch LCD HDTV for $700; it includes HDMI and two separate component video inputs, composite and S-Video, DVI, and VGA.

<http://www.crutchfield.com/S-PiHNqzs6GDH/cgi-bin/ProdGroup.asp?g=146350&nvpair=AG%5FGeneral%5FFeatures%7CYCHDMI%5FInputs>
<http://www.crutchfield.com/S-PiHNqzs6GDH/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=146350&I=647LTV27W6>

While these aren't expensive options, if you already own a perfectly good TV receiver or LCD monitor for video playback, why buy a new set? Wouldn't a converter work? Unfortunately, no. There's ostensibly no legal way to unwrap the encryption from an HDMI stream and extract the digital content to encode in different ways, such as DVI. Thus, you won't find an adapter for that - and any adapter would require a computer to handle decryption and re-encoding. Component-to-composite conversion, whether S-Video or the single-plug RCA style, requires an NTSC or PAL encoder to change out the video encoding. I've found units for professionals starting over $300, which makes little sense for home users.

Apple has definitely aimed the iTV at early adopters, and it will push some people with older sets over the edge to buy newer ones with the appropriate inputs. That will make consumer electronics makers happy, too, and for all we know Apple is planning an iHDTV that will work directly with the iTV and other products. Remember that most devices called set-top boxes are also TV and cable tuners.

There's another factor at work here, too, which is that component and HDMI encoding make it difficult for an average consumer to extract and record digital video outside of Apple's DRM approach in iTV. Spending some money enables you to record from the component outputs at a decent quality - unless there's some kind of Macrovision or other watermarking code that will be sent out to distort or prevent analog component recording.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrovision>

But iTV has encoded in its hardware design the notion that, unlike audio, there are a couple of approved and specific ways of viewing video from the adapter. Not including composite output is likely Apple's way of providing yet another sop to the industry that they must simultaneously court and cajole into releasing more digital content to a wider audience.

Disney Sells 125,000 Movies in First Week on iTunes Store

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8682>
TidBITS#848/25-Sep-06

Playlist is reporting that Walt Disney President and CEO Robert Iger said that 125,000 downloadable movies had been purchased in the week since Apple's debut of movies on the iTunes Store. That sales level generated $1 million in revenue for Disney, which works out to $8 per movie. This implies Apple is taking in between $2 and $5 per movie since most, if not all, of the movies were in their first week and thus cost either $10 or $13; now most of the newer movies cost $15.

<http://playlistmag.com/news/2006/09/19/disney/>

Playlist also reports Iger as predicting that Disney would receive about $50 million in revenue from selling movies on the iTunes Store in the first year. Extrapolating out from $8 per movie, that would imply that Disney would sell 6.25 million movies via the iTunes Store by this time next year. Those numbers are important, since they need to be high enough to scare other movie studios into wanting to work with Apple or risk leaving big money on the table. No results have yet been forthcoming from the competing Amazon Unbox service, which features movies from studios other than Disney properties.

<http://www.amazon.com/unbox/>

AirPort Updates Stop Wi-Fi Exploit

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8683>
TidBITS#848/25-Sep-06

Apple last week released a pair of updates, Security Update 2006-005 and AirPort Update 2006-001, which resolve a trio of related potential exploits in which a local attacker could inject a maliciously crafted frame into a wireless network. In theory, such an attack could cause system crashes, execute arbitrary code, or elevate privileges, though Apple took pains to note that there are no known instances of these exploits. Although you can download the individual updates from the Apple Downloads page (only one is necessary), you must pick the correct one for your machine.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304420>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>

Since AirPort Update 2006-001 covers only two specific builds of Mac OS X 10.4.7 - whereas Security Update 2006-005 handles Mac OS X 10.3.9 and other specific builds of Mac OS X 10.4.7 (with different downloads for 10.3.9 and for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs running 10.4.7) - we encourage you to let Software Update download the correct version for your system. If you're running Mac OS X 10.3.9 and Software Update doesn't show Security Update 2006-005, you must first install AirPort 4.2 and AirPort Extreme Driver Update 2005-001 (I suspect Software Update will provide them as well).

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airport42formacosx1033.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportextremedriverupdate2005001.html>

Although Apple's release notes are terse as usual, these updates undoubtedly come in response to the Wi-Fi exploit demonstrated by David Maynor and Jon Ellch at the Black Hat 2006 conference. Apple did not credit Maynor nor Ellch for these fixes, however, which is an implicit statement that Apple refuses to acknowledge that the two researchers contributed to uncovering the flaws. An Apple spokesperson denied that SecureWorks, the firm for which Maynor works, provided information that led to these patches. Rather, the spokesperson told several media outlets and TidBITS that news of the SecureWorks demonstration prompted Apple to conduct an in-depth code audit that led to identifying these vulnerabilities. (See "Wireless Driver Hack Could Target Macs and Windows," 07-Aug-06 and "Apple Issues Careful Wi-Fi Exploit Denial," 28-Aug-06.) SecureWorks has not responded to any media outlet with additional clarification at press time; the company is also in the middle of a merger, which could be why they're not commenting. What's most important is that Mac users who apply the patches are no longer vulnerable to these particular exploits.

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8628>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8655>

Mac OS X 10.4.8 Fixes Numerous Issues

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8689>
TidBITS#849/02-Oct-06

The autumn harvest from Apple's programmers came in last week, as Apple updated almost their entire software product line. Although each major application saw revisions, most Mac users will be interested in Mac OS X 10.4.8, a bug-fix update that spans several areas of the operating system.

Notable changes include security enhancements, improved connections using the Apple USB Modem, support for the EAP-FAST protocol to improve wireless network authentication security, better compatibility with third-party USB hubs, better performance on some broadband networks, and improved camera RAW support. Also, Apple has addressed a few bugs that affect Microsoft Office, and fixed a problem where Rosetta code translation on Intel-based Macs could be inaccurate.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304200>

The coolest new feature is that if you hold down the Control key while scrolling with a scroll wheel (or a pseudo scroll wheel, such as is provided by Raging Menace's Side Track utility), the screen zooms smoothly. Screen zooming has been available for a long time (see the Universal Access preference pane), but using keyboard shortcuts to zoom in and out is awkward. Scroll wheel-based zooming, which you can control in the Mouse view of the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane (and where you can also choose another modifier key besides Control), will be a boon to anyone with less-than-perfect eyesight or presenters who want to focus on a particular aspect of the screen.

<http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/>

Mac OS X 10.4.8's release notes were chatty, for Apple, but we're still pondering several of the items, such as "Windows File Sharing now generates only one process, avoiding an issue that could cause a Mac OS X computer to become unresponsive if it won a master browser election" - might a recount help?

Then there's "Resolves an issue in which a Finder alert message with the buttons 'Initialize', 'Ignore', and 'Eject' might not appear after connecting a partitioned FireWire hard drive." We generally prefer not seeing that dialog when we connect FireWire hard drives of any sort, other than uninitialized ones.

And although Apple does explain this next comment in a link, our first reading had us desperately trying to recall our classes in theoretical physics: "Improves Apple File Sharing client performance by changing the default AFP WAN quantum size."

The update is available in several forms, depending on your machine. Software Update should deliver the correct version, but updaters are also available as stand-alone downloads. For the Intel updates, Apple notes that the computer will restart twice after the update has been applied. As with all system updates, we recommend making a backup before proceeding. You can find the updaters here:

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update (Intel) (206 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048updateintel.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update (PPC) (31 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048updateppc.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Update (Intel) (294 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048comboupdateintel.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Update (PPC) (149 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048comboupdateppc.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server Update (PPC) (62 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1048updateppc.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server Combo Update (PPC) (196 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1048comboupdateppc.html>

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server Update (Universal) (202 MB)

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1048updateuniversal.html>

iTunes 7.0.1, iLife '06, iWork '06 Updated

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8690>
TidBITS#849/02-Oct-06

Apple has released a maintenance update for iTunes 7 that deals with a variety of issues in the initial release. According to Apple, iTunes 7.0.1 "addresses stability and performance issues with Cover Flow, CD importing, iPod syncing, and more." Windows users were apparently hit harder with iTunes 7.0, so we hope this release solves those issues as well. iTunes 7.0.1 is available via Software Update or as a 25 MB download.

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/itunes701.html>

The programs that make up iLife '06 and iWork '06 add interoperability with Aperture 1.5 (see "Aperture 1.5 Faces Latest Lightroom Beta at Photokina," 02-Oct-06). The following updaters are available via Software Update or as separate stand-alone downloads: iMovie HD 6.0.3 (7.1 MB), iWeb 1.1.2 (23 MB), iDVD 6.0.3 (7.2 MB), GarageBand 3.0.4 (30 MB), iPhoto 6.0.5 (80 MB), Keynote 3.0.2 (2.7 MB), and Pages 2.0.2 (2.8 MB). The iMovie HD update also claims to improve stability and fix a number of unspecified "minor issues," while the iPhoto update also contains new themes for printing calendars, greeting cards, and postcards.

<http://www.apple.com/aperture/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8691>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imoviehd603.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iweb112.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/idvd603.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/garageband304.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoto605.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/keynote302.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/pages202.html>

Hidden iPhoto Import Capability

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8678>
TidBITS#847/18-Sep-06

This iPhoto trick is truly weird, but it works. It turns out, according to a tip published on MacOSXHints.com, that iPhoto 6 can directly see photos on at least some digital cameras and memory cards. All you have to do is connect your camera to your Mac, or put a memory card in a reader. In iPhoto's Import screen, don't click the Import button, but instead press Return twice. After a moment, iPhoto switches into edit mode, displaying the photos on the camera or card instead of those in the iPhoto Library. Press Escape at that point and you switch to organize mode, with blank thumbnails displayed; double-clicking a thumbnail loads it in edit mode again.

<http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060811032250907>

You can't edit the photos, but you can, if you're using the Edit Photos in Main Screen option in iPhoto, drag the blank thumbnails to your Library to import the actual photos. Unfortunately, on at least some cameras and cards, the photo dates are lost (mine came in as 31-Dec-00) so it's not a good replacement for Apple's own Image Capture utility for selective import, something that iPhoto has long lacked, embarrassingly enough.

It makes perfect sense that the thumbnails don't appear, since iPhoto normally creates separate thumbnail files when it imports photos, and that step hasn't happened yet. There's no reason it couldn't use a technique like the one in Image Capture, which can display thumbnails before import, so perhaps we're seeing code aimed at creating a selective import feature that didn't make the cut for iPhoto 6.

For what it's worth, Apple, here's how a selective import feature should work. When the user connects a camera or inserts a memory card, iPhoto should launch and display the Import screen as it does now. However, it should fill it with thumbnails of all the photos and movies on the camera. Clicking the Import button would still import everything (and the user shouldn't be forced to wait for all the thumbnails to draw before being able to click Import). But the user should also be able to select an arbitrary set of photos and drag them to the Library to import, or to an album to import and add to that album. If the user later does a full import, iPhoto should recognize that any previously imported photos are duplicates, as it does now, and prompt about importing them again.

GoLive Booted from Adobe Creative Suite, Acrobat 8 Released

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8679>
TidBITS#847/18-Sep-06

The fate of Web design and management tool Adobe GoLive has been sealed: the program has been booted from Creative Suite, Adobe's bundle of applications designed for print and electronic production professionals. Dreamweaver 8 will replace GoLive CS2 in version 2.3 of Creative Suite, which also has been updated to include Acrobat 8 Professional, announced today and shipping in November. Adobe expects to ship the CS 2.3 bundle in the fourth quarter of 2006.

<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200609/091806CreativeSuite.html>

Adobe acquired Dreamweaver as part of the Adobe-Macromedia merger last year. Dreamweaver has long been viewed as the tool of choice for creating interactive Web sites that incorporate rich media, database content, and scripting with PHP. GoLive was preferred by designers for its integration with Photoshop, direct support for Acrobat internal linking and PDF creation, and ease of use.

In June, I described a leak that had occurred when an Adobe Europe product manager seemed to be saying that both GoLive and illustration program FreeHand would be dropped. After further examination across three languages and a statement from Adobe, it was clear that GoLive and FreeHand wouldn't be part of Adobe's core programs, but would still be developed. (Today's announcements included no news about FreeHand.)

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8551>

Adobe says that GoLive will continue to be developed as a standalone program, although it's unclear to what audience it would appeal. Credible rumors indicate GoLive may be revamped to be a friendlier Web design tool, with a focus on entry-level users.

The other update to the Creative Suite is the refresh of Acrobat, now at version 8, which is also offered in a variety of versions. New features are a grab bag of miscellaneous items, many of which are only of interest to users in particular industries. Of note, however, is the capability to remove any hidden metadata, layers, and other invisible information that could reveal more than you want, and "redaction" tools that permanently delete text and images from a PDF file. Acrobat 8 Professional will also allow shared PDF commenting and mark-up among a workgroup.

<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200609/091806Acrobat.html>
<http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/upgrade_customer.html>

Adobe has slapped the Acrobat name on the latest version of Macromedia Breeze, now known as Acrobat Connect. Connect is a meeting tool, much like WebX or NetMeeting, that enables all kinds of media - PDFs, images, video - to be pushed to all participants. The basic version allows hosted meetings of up to 15 people with limited media use; a Professional version can be installed on a company's own servers with no preset attendee limit. The Professional version contains a full suite of tools for media sharing, voice over IP, and a variety of reporting tools. The hosted version of Connect ships in November, along with the rest of the Acrobat suite; the Professional version is expected in December.

<http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/>

Creative Suite 2.3 has a street price of $1,200 for the premium edition, which includes Acrobat 8 Professional and Dreamweaver. Existing CS2 owners can pay $160 for an upgrade. Owners of any other version or edition of Creative Suite can pay $550 for a full upgrade. Acrobat 8 Professional will cost $450, with upgrades for many previous editions costing $160. Acrobat 8 Standard runs $300, with a variety of upgrades at $100. Acrobat Connect will cost $40 per month per user for the basic hosted version; pricing for the on-site professional flavor wasn't announced. The basic Acrobat Connect will have a free trial running from its release through the end of the year.

Staff Roundtable

We're trying something a little different with this article. Rather than attempt to have one person integrate into the article the kind of internal discussion that inevitably takes place after an announcement of this ilk, we thought we'd let you listen in on our more trenchant thoughts and comments. Glenn and Jeff have significant background with GoLive, having written three editions of "Real World Adobe GoLive," whereas Adam has spent vast amounts of time in Acrobat Professional fiddling with PDF files for Take Control.

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/info-mac/info/real-world-golive-6.hqx>

[Glenn Fleishman]: Despite an extremely talented group of people who have been developing GoLive since its CyberStudio days before the Adobe acquisition, the program faltered by release 6.0 several years ago and never recovered its position relative to Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver outpaced GoLive on integrated handling of scripts and database results, while GoLive could only marginally handle these tasks. GoLive 6 included a lot of database integration and scripting preview tools that were all abandoned in GoLive CS, along with any hope of competing directly with Dreamweaver. It's been clear since about 2002 that Adobe management was putting substantially fewer resources behind GoLive than Macromedia was putting behind Dreamweaver. GoLive was never a flagship Adobe product, while Macromedia positioned Dreamweaver alongside Director and Flash as a critical tool.

As for Acrobat, it's becoming ever harder for a mature product to learn new tricks. Much of Adobe's focus in recent years has been the split focus of improving workflow for print production, in which a PDF file is not just an intermediate stage, but is the intermediate and end stage from which the final piece is produced; and workgroup collaboration, where comments and markup are allowed within PDF files so that groups never need to print anything out. Version 8 continues along those lines but seems to offer little that's remarkable, other than perhaps the improved security features.

One might call the "redaction" feature the "oops, we thought it was a Sharpie" feature. Many documents have been converted from, say, Microsoft Word into PDF and then had black marks placed over sensitive areas. But any Acrobat Professional user could remove the black marks to view the underlying text. No more. Deleted items will now be entirely removed from the PDF.

[Jeff Carlson]: I think GoLive is dead, despite Adobe's words. While Adobe continues to claim ongoing development, pulling GoLive out of the Creative Suite is almost certainly a death knell for the program; most people are using it because it's part of Creative Suite (with some others sticking with it from pure inertia). That said, I'm sure some designers will stick with GoLive (assuming it's updated and not turned into something else) because they've developed a familiarity with it, have built templates with it, and otherwise grok its interface - a significant feat. But if I were currently making my living in GoLive, today's announcement would have sealed the long-pondered decision to switch to Dreamweaver.

[Adam C. Engst]: I'm uninterested in GoLive and Dreamweaver, since I decided long ago that learning one of them wasn't really any easier than learning HTML and CSS and working in BBEdit or the text editor of my choice. What interests me more is the announcement of Acrobat 8, since we rely heavily on Acrobat for our Take Control ebooks. From the sound of the press release, Adobe has focused on simplifying Acrobat's interface and enhancing its collaboration tools, which sounds nice, but I'm reserving judgment until I see if they've exorcised the numerous devils in their details.

Using Acrobat Professional to work with PDFs is largely an exercise in constant irritation. For instance, to add a line of linked red text to the bottom of every page, as I do when creating samples of our ebooks, I can create a footer fairly easily, but I must manually change the color of each line to red (because Acrobat doesn't provide color controls for footer text), and I must manually paste and move a copied link into place on each page (since Acrobat doesn't allow footers to contain links, and since pasted links always appear in the middle of the page, rather than in the same relative location as the copied source link). Is it any wonder people create such lousy PDFs when the preeminent tool for working with PDFs makes such simple tasks so difficult? My fingers are crossed for Adobe to get it right with Acrobat 8, but I'm not hopeful, given the number of years they've gotten it wrong so far.

[Glenn Fleishman]: Adam's lack of interest in graphical front ends to Web page building and management highlights one of the key reasons why Dreamweaver has done so well. Most Web sites of any scale now aren't a random collection of individually edited pages. Just like TidBITS and our Web Crossing solution, and, in fact, most blogs, sites are constructed around database-driven templates, which are often extremely difficult to preview outside of specialized tools or a Web page used to edit the template and then view the results. Dreamweaver has reasonable support for previewing scripts, but it is also extensible. What a truly useful Web editing tool would offer now is not just the capability to write and preview in templates - GoLive CS2 has some limited support for Movable Type's format - but the simplicity to write one's own modules to work with programs like Web Crossing that aren't popular enough to warrant direct support. With that kind of support, you could have the power of a visual editor that manages Cascading Style Sheets and helps ensure consistency across all the pages in a site, while still having the power of template-based page creation.

Related link:

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8684>

The CUCUG Section:

September General Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006

President Richard Rollins was not present this evening, so Vice President Emil Cobb conducted the meeting. There were thirteen members in attendance. No officer introductions were necessary.

First off, Emil talked about the new iPods and the new iTunes 7.

Phil Wall asked about Windows Media Player, its Digital Rights Management and how to get around it. Kevin Hisel talked against the FUD of overbearing DRM.

There was a discussion about the program FairUseWM. It works on Windows' DRM but you do have to have the original license key. You can only crack the music you own.

Emil returned to his discussion of iTunes and the album art. You can now download the album art free and automatically with iTunes 7.

VP Cobb opened the floor for any PC News. Kevin Hisel demurred, saying he hadn't boned up before coming to the meeting.

Jon Bjerke told us about Comodo, a free anti-virus, free firewall program. Kevin Hisel pulled up the web site - <http://www.comodogroup.com>.

There was a discussion of Microsoft's Anti-virus Solution. It has Defender in it and is PC Magazine's "Editors' Choice."

Norris Hansell had a puzzling problem with Adobe PDFMaker. He's tried to delete it from his machine but the Adobe site keeps putting it back. He says it makes Office load up slowly. Wayne Hamilton suggested making all the files "read only" so when it tries to reload, it'll error out.

Jerry Feltner said he was having a problem with his computer booting up slowly and then running slower and slower until finally stopping. He was told to reboot and do a virus scan. Kevin Hisel suggested running a spyware checker. Adware is the number one cause of PCs slowing down. Jerry noted that he had found he had over 800 hidden files. The consensus was run Adaware, Windows Defender, and Spybot Search and Destroy. Another suggestion was visiting <http://safety.live.com> (requires IE). It's the site of Windows Live OneCare. "Find and fix safety and performance issues on your PC for free online with Windows Live OneCare safety scanner."

Tuning to post break activities, Vice President Emil Cobb asked what was scheduled for the PC SIG this evening. Kevin Hisel said the PC SIG would be viewing a PowerPoint presentation on Windows Vista. He noted that Jon Bjerke has it running on his laptop, so people will be able to get a look at it personally. Kevin said a P3 800 with 512 MB minimum is the recommended system that is required. The PC SIG will also be looking at the new version of Picassa.

Emill said the Mac SIG would be looking at HandBrake, a program for ripping commercial DVDs, and iSquint for compressing DVDs to put on your video iPod.

The Macintosh SIG: Emil Cobb Shows Handbrake and iSquint

The first thing Emil showed was Handbrake. He got it from Version Tracker.com. The program is freeware. Handbrake rips a DVD to a QuickTime MP4 file. Emil showed how this worked with "Catwoman." It produced a 982 MB. file. Handbrake does just the movie, not any extras. Handbrake 1.71 is the latest version of the program. It requires system 10.39.

Emil then revealed that OSX has Tetris built into it. If you go to Terminal and run eMacs, press Escape X, and type in Tetris, the game will show up. This little Easter Egg was brought to you comp[liments of <http://www.eeggs.com/items/43501.html> .

Emil then discussed iSquint 4.3. He hasn't used it yet, because he presently does have a video iPod, but iSquint works hand and hand with Handbrake to converts a Quicktime movie file into video iPod format. iSquint is freeware and he got it from Version Tracker.

In the waning moments of the SIG meeting, Edwin Hadley showed us some pictures he downloaded from <http://www.ExtremeInstability.com> . There were some stunning storm chaser photos on that site.

September Board Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

The September meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Richard Rollins, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, and Rich Hall.

Kevin Hisel: Kevin related to Richard the troubles he had with the equipment during the PC SIG. He said the mouse and keyboard would lock up. He downloaded a bunch of updates, rebooted, and it locked up permanently. Rich said he would look at the machine.

Richard Rollins: Richard said he will not be at the next meeting again. He'll be at the Blue Man Group concert.

During a discussion, Richard noted that GRC.com's SpinRite is a wonderful, wonderful program. As long as it isn't physical damage, Spin Rite will recover a sick hard drive.

Kevin Hopkins: Kevin brought in a DVD he had recorded with his stand alone LiteOn DVD recorder. The disk would play through WinDVD, but he was unable to back it up with DVDShrink because of it's menu structure. Kevin wanted to archive the TV shows recorded on a DVD-RW onto a DVD-R, in order to put the RW back into service. Kevin Hisel was able to copy the disc with Nero Recode.

Kevin Hisel: Kevin continued his report on the PC SIG. He said Jon Bjerke showed Windows Vista on his laptop, but he could never open the disk to show the PowerPoint of Vista.

There had been a discussion about the Next Generation Security machine. Kevin chalked it up to a bunch of Conspiracy theory talk.

Kevin finished by saying the meeting was a minor disaster but OK.

Richard Rollins: Richard said he would show off Quicksilver for the Mac SIG and Netdrive for the PC SIG (free program from Novell) in November.

The Back Page:

The CUCUG is a not-for-profit corporation, originally organized in 1983 to support and advance the knowledge of area Commodore computer users. We've grown since then, now supporting PC, Macintosh and Linux platforms.

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:          Allen Byrne          344-5311              adbyrne@ieee.org

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/> .