News Common PC Linux Mac CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: Thursday, February 16th, 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 16 gathering will be one of our split SIG meetings. The Linux SIG will see the debut of our newest Linux SIG Chairman, Allen Byrne, who will illustrate "Waking up to Linux" by showing the web pages he views to start his day. The Macintosh SIG will have Brian Forbes showing Toast with Jam and some iTunes tricks. The PC SIG is open for anything anyone wants to bring in.
ToC
We'd like to welcome the newest members of our group, joining us in the last month: Kelly Leininger (Windows PC Desktop and Laptop), and John Morrow (unknown platform).
We'd also like to thank renewing members David Noreen and Selena Kay Douglass.
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.
ToC
By Joseph Kahn
Story last modified Sun Feb 12 12:16:17 PST 2006
URL: http://news.com.com/So+long%2C+Dalai+Lama+Google+adapts+to+China/2100-1024_3-6038414.html
So what does the Dalai Lama look like, anyway?
Chinese Tibetans or other Buddhists who might be curious could try finding images of the spiritual leader on Google.cn, a search engine that Google tailored for China and is now, two weeks after its unveiling, on full display to local Web users.
<http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.cn%2F&siteId=3&oId=2102-1024_3-6038414&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex>
<http://news.com.com/Google+to+censor+China+Web+searches/2100-1028_3-6030784.html?tag=nl>
Is he that guy with puffy cheeks wearing a Western suit? No, that's Liu Jianchao, China's foreign ministry spokesman, demanding that the Dalai Lama stop trying to split the motherland. What about that balding man leading a big delegation? No, that's Chen Yi, a late Chinese vice prime minister, offering grain to the Tibetan people.
Only one of the 161 images produced by searching in Chinese for the Dalai Lama on Google.cn shows the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet since 1940. He is pictured as a young man meeting senior Chinese officials. That was before 1959, when China's People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled into exile.
For people outside China, or Chinese who can circumvent the Internet firewall, the 2,030 images on unfiltered Google.com favor the Dalai Lama of today. He is the genial-looking guy in the burgundy and saffron robe, here meeting President Bush, there speaking to 40,000 people in New Jersey.
Several of the biggest media and technology companies have come under attack for helping the Chinese government police the Web. Yahoo provided information about its users' e-mail accounts that helped the authorities convict dissidents in 2003 and 2005, Chinese lawyers say. Microsoft closed a popular blog it hosted that offended Chinese censors. Cisco has sold equipment that helps Beijing restrict access to Web sites it considers subversive.
But few have cooperated as openly as Google. Google's local staff works closely with Chinese officials to ensure that search results from Google.cn do not include information, images or links to Web sites that the government does not want its people to see.
Google.com, the company's main international search engine, is still available in China, though it often operates inefficiently because it produces links that cannot be opened inside China's firewall.
Google.cn, Google says, works faster and serves its users better--and Google places a blunt but discreet disclosure of censorship on the bottom of Web pages that include elided search results. Even so, critics say, the service violates Google's motto, "Don't Be Evil." They say the company has lent its expertise and good name to blocking information on religion, politics and history that the Communist Party feels might undermine its monopoly on power.
"It was one thing when you hit on links that did not work. You could see what was blocked," said Liu Xiaobo, a leading dissident writer. "The new Google hides the hand of the censor."
In other words, it's no longer possible to tell what the censors are hiding, only that something is being censored.
In some cases, the manipulations are fairly subtle. Students wanting to learn more about the "Republic of China" on Google.cn would be steered to information about the period from 1912 to 1949, when the mainland was called Republic of China and the Communists had not yet taken power. The same search on Google.com provides links to sites in arch rival Taiwan, which still formally goes by that name.
In other cases, the omissions are glaring. Searches for photos of Tiananmen Square on regular Google produce many shots of a man blocking a column of tanks outside the square, the iconic image of the 1989 democracy movement and the later crackdown.
Google.cn features soldiers raising the national flag and tourists taking snapshots of each other in the square, the sun shining in a sapphire sky.
ToC
Media Minutes -- January 20, 2006
Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm012006.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm012006.pdf
This year the Congress is expected take up a telecom issue that will determine the future usefulness of broadband connectivity in the United States. Central to this issue is a concept called "network neutrality." This concept, according to Consumer Federation of America research director Mark Cooper, is well-ingrained in U.S. legal and regulatory history, having first been applied to railroads in the late nineteenth century.
Mark Cooper: "So if I wanted to move grain down from my farm to a silo and then to a port, the railroad was not allowed to discriminate against me - to say, 'No, I'm not gonna move your grain; I don't like the color of your eyes or your skin or you're competing with my uncle or my cousin.' So, they had to operate their network in a neutral manner, a nondiscriminatory manner."
In the early 1900s Congress mandated telephone networks operate on the principle of network neutrality. But now, phone and cable companies - most notably AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon - want to kill off this concept in favor of what they envision to be a multi-level Internet. Under this principle, consumers would continue to pay for a fast connection, but web sites and other online content providers would also pay a premium to guarantee fast transport over broadband networks. Cooper says a scenario like that would effectively turn the 'net into something that more closely resembles today's cable TV systems.
Mark Cooper: "If you think about your cable system, the cable operator decides which programs get to be in that system. They decide, not the consumer. And that's what the telephone companies want to do."
The technology already exists to prioritize packets of data flowing over broadband networks: for example, packets associated with voice-over-IP telephone calls get priority over e-mail traffic because of the real-time nature of talking on the telephone. Cooper thinks using this technology, called "policy-based routing," will fundamentally change the way the Internet evolves.
Mark Cooper: "The next Google - the new guys - won't be able to pay this freight. So that they will literally strangle the flow of innovation that has been the lifeblood of the Internet."
Cable and phone company lobbyists are working hard to convince lawmakers to abandon the principle of network neutrality in the broadband context. The FCC has already ceded its authority in this area: Chairman Kevin Martin says he'd rather deal with individual cases of data discrimination when they occur. The problem is that once such discrimination begins on a widespread level it's very difficult to reverse. A first draft of telecom reform legislation circulated on Capitol Hill late last year contained language mandating broadband network neutrality - but on revision that provision was removed. Mark Cooper says the concept has worked so well throughout history with old-school transportation and communication networks that it would be simply foolish to abandon it now.
Mark Cooper: "We're making a set of decisions across all of these areas that will determine the structure of the way we speak and hear for generations. And sometimes we don't realize how important these decisions are. That's our job: to make people understand what's at stake. We can't have big corporations who own the wires deciding who gets to speak."
And it appears the majority of Americans agree - a recent nationwide survey by the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and Free Press found more than two-thirds of those polled worry about cable and phone companies blocking access to online content, or being forced to pay extra for content they now get for free. A similar margin supports the concept of network neutrality, but less than half believe cable and phone companies will voluntarily adhere to this principle. The Senate's Commerce Committee will discuss net neutrality in a public hearing on Tuesday, February 7th.
<http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=86495&WT.svl=news1_2>
<http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=111>
<http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6300504.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP>
<http://www.slate.com/id/2134397/>
Media Minutes -- February 10, 2006
Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm021006.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm021006.pdf
On February 7th the contentious concept of network neutrality made its public debate debut on Capitol Hill. For more than two hours members of the Senate's Commerce Committee listened to testimony from academics and online content and application providers about the need to make sure telephone and cable companies don't try to discriminate between types of data bits transported over their networks based upon an online speaker's ability to pay.
Senators first wrestled with just what the concept of network neutrality actually is. Jeffrey Citron, CEO of the voice-over-IP telephone service provider Vonage, offered a helpful analogy to illustrate how abandoning the concept would fundamentally change the nature of information control on the Internet.
Jeffrey Citron: "Imagine if the electric company could dictate which toaster or television you plugged into the wall: 'Plug in our pre-approved, affiliated toaster, and your power will work great. But if you don't, we can't promise the same level of service.' Of course this sounds ridiculous. Power companies don't care who makes our toasters or our televisions. We plug them in, and they just simply work....The same should be true for the Internet."
Doing away with network neutrality will also diminish the robustness of the Internet itself. Gary Bachula spoke at the hearing as a representative of a consortium of universities and corporations that are developing what's called "Internet2," the next generation of broadband connectivity, which offers speeds at least 100 times faster than current broadband connections. Bachula told Senators that data discrimination does nothing but complicate network design and increase the cost of network construction.
Gary Bachula: "All of our research and practical experience supported the conclusion that it was far more cost-effective to simply provide more bandwidth. With enough bandwidth there is no congestion."
Therefore, so long as adequate broadband capacity exists there is no need to abandon the principle of network neutrality. However, instead of providing that capacity, phone and cable companies would rather skimp on the growth and maintenance of their network infrastructures in order to squeeze every penny possible out of all network users. In other words, the corporate drive to abandon network neutrality stems primarily from claims that broadband bandwidth is in scarce supply.
Vinton Cerf argued that such a rationale is disingenuous. He should know: commonly called a "father of the Internet," now a vice president at Google, Cerf co-developed the core protocols that make Internet-based communication possible. And he says until there is true nationwide availability of broadband - something major phone companies in particular pledged to do several years ago - any claim that a viable bandwidth marketplace exists in the U.S. rings hollow.
Vinton Cerf:"According to the statistics from the FCC in 2004, only 53% of Americans had a choice at broadband access, either from cable companies or from the telcos with their DSL service....28% have only once choice - either cable or DSL. And 19% don't have any choice at all: there is no broadband."
Those who represented the big phone and cable companies at the hearing seemed to be on the defensive from the public backlash that has developed over the last month over this issue. Kyle McCormick, president of the United States Telecom Association - a trade group that lobbies in D.C. for the likes of AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon, among many others - made what appeared to be a solemn and significant pledge.
Kyle McCormick: "Our commitment to you is this: We will not block, impair, or degrade content, applications, or services."
But McCormick argued strongly against formalizing the principle of network neutrality in law, out of a supposed fear that such government regulation would stifle further innovation on the Internet. Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig strongly disagreed. He noted that although the words "network neutrality" might not be written down anywhere in U.S. telecommunications law, it is the key principle has governed the construction and regulation of communications networks in the United States for at least the last four decades.
Lawrence Lessig: "I feel a little bit like the stable boy who spends his whole life shoveling...I guess I can't use that word here, right? And I'm surrounded by a bunch of academics offering a bunch of theories about how we should remake telecommunications law to get to the grand new age. And I say, you should look to the past, and learn the lessons from the past before you radically change the infrastructure within which innovation has occurred."
For now, the future of the Internet remains murky. At least one Senator has pledged to introduce legislation that would mandate network neutrality among Internet service providers, but there's no indication of just how much support exists for such an effort.
Related Links:
Media Minutes -- January 20, 2006
Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm012006.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm012006.pdf
Cable and phone companies are again trying to stifle the development of community Internet projects in Indiana. Last year a bill to completely deregulate phone service and ban public entities from building out their own broadband networks was defeated after cities, towns, and concerned citizens rallied to stop the legislation. But a new proposal would effectively ban the public provision of broadband unless a community agrees to undertake a cumbersome administrative process to prove that no private broadband options exist. In addition, this new bill would provide a host of tax and other financial incentives to entice cable and phone companies to expand broadband. These incentives, unfortunately, would most likely deprive local governments of property tax revenue.
<http://www.muniwireless.com/municipal/watch/986/>
<http://www.freepress.net/news/13437>
<http://www.freepress.net/news/13401>
A shutdown of the wireless email system would have a profound financial impact on businesses.
By Grace Wong, CNNMoney.com staff writer
January 24, 2006: 9:45 AM EST
URL: http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/technology/blackberry/index.htm
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- BlackBerry maker Research in Motion faces a possible shutdown of its sales and service, an outcome that could paralyze U.S. businesses and cost them dearly.
Research in Motion (Research) was dealt a setback Monday after the Supreme Court turned down a request to review a major patent infringement ruling against it.
RIM now faces a possible injunction that could result in service disruptions to its more than 4 million users. Hundreds of millions of messages are sent everyday from the wireless device, which plays a key role in the communication backbone of nearly every business and government sector in the United States.
"Pulling the plug on the BlackBerry could cost corporate America millions of dollars. The BlackBerry is more than e-mail but a handheld office, and if you shut down the BlackBerry, you shut off the data that powers American business," said Al Smith, president of Apresta, a company that provides software for wireless devices.
RIM has been preparing a software workaround in case of a shutdown. While the company hasn't publicized details of this plan, it says it will deploy it if necessary to maintain the operation of BlackBerry services in the United States.
But one analyst said RIM's contingency plan, which involves using different software to bridge the patent, isn't ideal because a judge could prevent the company from implementing the plan, if it is found that the technology still infringes on patents held by NTP -- the patent holding company RIM has been battling.
"It's not an elegant solution and it's not even clear if it's a viable solution," analyst Richard Williams of ICAP said.
Also, there could be resistance from customers who may have to deal with service disruptions while the software is rolled out.
"From our point of view, anything that forces a shutdown will speed up a settlement, which we view as a positive event," Williams said.
NTP is scheduled to file a request for an injunction on Feb. 1, although the judge who will rule on that request has not set a timetable on when to expect that decision.
Businesses that rely on the BlackBerry and which are feeling jittery can make the move to a different system, but that could get expensive.
Earlier this month, a technology research firm estimated it would cost a business with 1,000 users $845,000, or $845 a user, to migrate to a new wireless e-mail system.
The report from J. Gold Associates said businesses switching from one wireless e-mail system to another not only have to replace software but the actual handheld device itself.
"Most companies fail to realize the high cost and amount of disruption switching to a new wireless e-mail solution would entail. Companies must weigh the risks in staying put, versus the substantial costs in making a move to another wireless middleware platform," Jack Gold, principal at the company, wrote.
Costs for switching to a new system may run high, but the possibility for a BlackBerry blackout is giving competitors, such as Motorola (Research) and Nokia, more air time.
RIM said it added approximately 645,000 new subscriber accounts in the third quarter. ICAP's Williams said that's a decent gain, but pending litigation is impacting sales overall.
"(The dispute with NTP) creates uncertainty and most enterprise companies respond to that by creating back-up plans," he said.
ToC
By Dan Goodin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:12 p.m. January 30, 2006
URL:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060130-1512-elpida-pricefixing.html
SAN FRANCISCO -- Japanese computer chip maker Elpida Memory Inc. agreed to pay an $84 million fine and plead guilty to taking part in an international conspiracy that led to higher prices for personal computers, the Justice Department said Monday.
Elpida is the fourth manufacturer of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, to admit its role in fixing the price of chips used in personal computers and other electronic devices.
"We are gratified to bring to justice another member of the DRAM cartel, which is one of the largest cartels ever discovered, said Thomas Barnett, the Justice Department's acting antitrust chief.
The four-year federal investigation, carried out by Justice officials in San Francisco, has so far netted $730 million in fines.
The world's largest chip maker, South Korea-based Samsung, pleaded guilty in November and agreed to pay $300 million, the second-largest fine in a criminal antitrust case. Infineon Technologies AG of Germany and Korean manufacturer Hynix Semiconductor Inc. also have pleaded guilty and paid fines.
From 1999 to 2002, Elpida held conversations with unnamed competitors in the United States and elsewhere, where the parties agreed to fix the prices they charged computer makers, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco Monday.
Elpida, which was the fifth largest supplier of DRAM chips in the third quarter of 2005, also worked with competitors to rig a bid for chips sold to Sun Microsystems Inc., according to the documents.
Elpida, which has been in operation since 2000, was formed as a joint venture between NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd.
Under the plea deal, which must be approved by a federal judge, Justice Department officials agreed not to prosecute NEC and Hitachi. It also calls for Elpida to cooperate with officials in a continuing investigation into other DRAM suppliers.
The Justice Department investigation began in 2002, a year after memory chip prices began to climb even though the rest of the tech industry was suffering its worst downturn in history. Worldwide sales of DRAM chips reached $25.3 billion in 2005, according to research firm iSuppli Corp.
The victims included some of the world's largest computer companies - Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Computer Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Gateway Inc. - and consumers, who were forced to pay higher prices for computers and other electronics, prosecutors said.
Apple and Dell raised PC prices to offset higher DRAM costs while others reduced the amount of memory installed on their systems.
Elpida spokeswoman Tomoko Kobayashi said the company would have no comment.
---
On the Net:
by Geoff Duncan <geoff@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#814/30-Jan-06
The Walt Disney Company announced last week that it will be acquiring animation house Pixar in a $7.4 billion all-stock transaction (a nice return on Steve Jobs's original $10 million investment when he purchased Pixar from filmmaker George Lucas in 1986). The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, and is expected to be completed by mid-2006. Pixar President Ed Catmull will serve as the President of the new Pixar and Disney animation studios, and John Lasseter (considered by many to be the crown jewel of Pixar) will serve as Chief Creative Officer of the studios, as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he'll contribute to Disney theme park attractions.
<http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corporate/2006/2006_0124_pixar.html>
<http://corporate.pixar.com/releaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=185239>
<http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/history/1986.html>
And what of Pixar's iconic CEO Steve Jobs, also CEO of Apple Computer and in control of about half of Pixar's stock? He'll be joining Disney's Board of Directors as one of three non- independent members and, overnight, become Disney's largest shareholder, owning roughly 6.5 percent of Disney's stock.
Pixar has developed several successful animated films distributed by Disney under a long-term deal, including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles, with total earnings from the films estimated near $3.2 billion. However, friction between Jobs and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner led Jobs to walk away from the original Disney distribution deal when it concludes this year with the release of Cars. Jobs apparently gets along well with Disney's current CEO Robert Iger and plans to spend a whole lot more time with him.
The Disney acquisition brings Pixar's talent and unique culture into the Disney fold, and enables the House of Mouse to further leverage Pixar characters, stories, and creations through its many media and merchandising channels. For many Pixar employees, the deal may represent a bit of a dream come true: many of the storytelling and production values of classic Disney animated films initially inspired Pixar. However, the deal may complicate life for Steve Jobs's other day job at Apple Computer, where, as a member of Disney's board, he may face additional hurdles convincing other video content providers (Time Warner, NBC/ Universal, CBS, etc.) to put their content up for sale on Apple's iTunes Music Store.
At first glance, the merger might seem eerily reminiscent of Apple's acquisition of Jobs's NeXT, Inc., several months after which Jobs ousted Apple CEO Gil Amelio and took over Apple's troubled reins in 1997. Indeed, with Pixar's upper management being placed in charge of the combined Pixar and Disney animation studios, it might be easy to see this acquisition as a reverse takeover for Pixar, if not for Jobs personally. But the situation is significantly different. For one thing, Jobs didn't found Disney, so it's hard to see him having the same passion for Disney that he does for Apple. Further, despite a recent shareholder revolt led by Roy Disney against former CEO Michael Eisner, Disney is much more than its animation studios. In total, Disney garnered nearly $32 billion in revenue during 2005 from businesses including its own cable television channels, the ABC broadcast television network, half a dozen music labels, half a dozen more movie studios, plus theatrical productions, its world-famous theme parks, and - of course - vast merchandising. That said, none of this means Jobs won't have an impact: he's always been out to change the world, and with control of Apple and a board position at Disney, he's better placed to do so than ever before.
ToC
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4701474.stm
Jeeves, the valet who for a decade has overseen searches on the Ask website, is about to be sacked.
By the end of February, the iconic valet will disappear from the site he has graced since it debuted in 1996.
The decision to axe Jeeves was taken in September 2005 but he stayed in place while the company investigated how users felt about the change.
The removal of Jeeves has been driven by a broader effort to re-brand the Ask search site.
ToC
by Robert Siegel
URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5186113
All Things Considered, February 2, 2006 · The era of the telegram, an icon of communication dating back 150 years, came to a quiet end last week. Western Union says it delivered its final telegram on Friday.
In truth, the telegram long ago succumbed to long distance telephones, faxes, e-mail and instant messaging. Even deliverers who sang them couldn't save telegrams from the dustbin of history. The fact that one final telegram was sent last Friday is a tribute not to the telegram's endurance, but to the glacial tediousness of extinction itself.
What will we remember of the telegram? Probably the prose style the economic of telegraphy engendered. Punctuation cost extra, so the word STOP substituted for a period. Otherwise, it was brevity in the extreme -- pronouns, verbs omitted.
The telegram made tabloid headline writers out of ordinary folks sending urgent messages. Sometimes those urgent messages contained the worst news, sometimes the best.
Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet, says telegrams were most popular in the 1920s and '30s, when they were cheaper then a long-distance call. But the telephone and e-mail eventually led to the extinction of the telegram.
Related NPR Stories
by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#813/23-Jan-06
There was a day when telephone companies provided a dial tone, cable companies offered television stations and specialty channels, and Internet companies offered service over telephone line-based modems. Recent events make it clear that those days are long, long over.
You know, of course, that many different companies provide high- speed Internet access over cable lines, phone wire, and radio frequencies (Wi-Fi and many other standards). You may know that telcos are offering cable TV-like services in many parts of the world and are jumping through regulatory hoops to do so widely in the United States using very-high-speed DSL or fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). And you might even know that cable companies can sell you phone services in some parts of the U.S.
What's probably unclear is how quickly all this will change.
Several major cable operators (called MSOs for "multiple systems operators") recently penned a deal with Sprint Nextel, the merged number-three cellular operator in the U.S., to resell cell service to their customers. Any time you can put more services on a single bill, you cut as much as $20 in monthly service costs for maintaining a separate billing account. It's easy for companies to find synergies that work because of that.
<http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=8961>
But it's not just a single bill that's in play. The cable firms will license TV programs they own to the Sprint PCS division to stream over third-generation (3G) cell networks to new cell phones on which you can watch programming on demand.
And it goes further: Sprint (among other cell companies) will likely start offering handsets that have Wi-Fi and cell standards built in to provide what's known as unlicensed mobile access (UMA), a form of voice over IP and Internet telephony. With UMA, instead of a cell phone hooking up with a nearby cell tower, it senses a local (typically, an in-home) Wi-Fi network and connects, using a bit of the Internet to then transmit calls to the cellular operator's gateway and off into the phone system.
UMA can offer better-quality indoor calls, still a plaguing problem for cell service, and enable operators to offer huge piles of minutes for calls placed using UMA, which in turn can preserve users who might otherwise switch to Internet telephony at home via Vonage or another provider. In Europe, some existing cell systems sense when a customer is using their home network versus another Internet network, and pulls minutes from a home pool instead of a roaming pool; this might also be the case with UMA, to help a UMA-based plan replace a wired phone line without increasing cost for calls made in the house.
But wait, there's more to wireless than just that! Cable giant Comcast recently invested in BelAir Networks via its capital development arm. BelAir makes outdoor wireless broadband equipment used to build metropolitan- scale networks for public and governmental access. BelAir announced the investment the same day that it revealed its latest products: wireless mesh access points that can be plugged directly into cable wiring and use the power that already traverses cable lines.
<http://www.belairnetworks.com/about_belair/press_releases_view.cfm?p_id=73>
With BelAir gear, a cable company could add a Wi-Fi network to an entire city by connecting wireless access points into existing cable lines up on telephone poles. There are a lot of "ifs" about this: in the U.S., cable operators are governed by thousands of local franchise boards which tax and constrain the operators with specific requirements in return for rights of way on roads and poles. Some franchise agreements may allow adding Wi-Fi access points, some may restrict this, others are likely silent about it.
Many cities are already far along in their plans to have private firms build municipal-wide Wi-Fi networks, however, and cable companies may want to use their existing relationships and this new technology to offer these new networks instead of allowing a third player - after telcos and cable firms - to enter the local broadband market. Current municipal-scale networks will likely promise only about 1 Mbps each way, somewhat less the typical normal downstream speed of DSL and cable, but price the service at about the cost of dial-up today - $15 to $25 per month. (1 Mbps is from 30 percent to 300 percent higher than the typical upstream speed, incidentally.)
Metropolitan-scale networks will likely employ some or a lot of mesh networking, in which Wi-Fi access points aren't individually connected to some form of backhaul to a central network. Instead, typically several access points are tuned to the same channel and serve both as conduits for individual users and for data to pass among each other. One of the access points is plugged into backhaul that carries data to and from the network. The disadvantage of most forms of mesh is that every hop across the mesh network until it hits backhaul repeats the same data. If user A connects to access point 1 which connects to access point 2 which connects to access point 3 which connects to the backhaul, every chunk of data from user A takes up air space for the entire cluster of mesh nodes three times. This is why mesh networks are typically used to extend a network and for redundancy and failover (when a node fails, access isn't cut) but can't span huge areas.
Here's where Sprint Nextel comes into the picture again: the two companies didn't just merge customers and operations, they merged their spectrum portfolio. The two firms controlled licenses for the 2.5 gigahertz (GHz) frequency band that covers 80 percent of the country. This band, with a starting frequency just above the tail end of the unlicensed band containing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, was originally licensed for educational institutions and distance learning. It's a large swath of beautiful and mostly unused space. (Licensed frequencies are reserved to the license holders to use; unlicensed frequencies can be used by anyone but only with equipment that's passed certification by the FCC in most cases. Wi-Fi gear has been certified, but can be used by anyone, anywhere in the U.S.)
Several years ago, Congress allowed the academic and non-profit entities that controlled the regionally allocated frequencies to sublicense to commercial firms in the hopes of jump-starting more advanced telecommunications service. But many telecom firms were uninterested, and the licenses were quickly snapped up by Sprint PCS and WorldCom, with BellSouth and a fourth firm being lesser players. (All four companies together owned 90 percent of the licenses.)
Sprint and WorldCom nearly merged in 2000 partly to pool what were seen as valuable licenses. Nextel bought WorldCom's 2.5 GHz licenses out of bankruptcy in 2003, and the Sprint Nextel merger was partly seen as a way to consolidate two smaller cell players and partly, again, as a tool to consolidate those licenses. The 2.5 GHz band is exciting to these carriers because it allows higher power to be used than is allowed in Wi-Fi, thus increasing range, and interference is impossible because the carriers own all use of selected frequencies in regions the licenses cover.
Before the merger, Sprint and Nextel, along with separately held Clearwire (a firm bought in 2004 by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw) had been experimenting with broadband wireless over 2.5 GHz in small markets around the U.S. Clearwire has started rolling out low-broadband-speed service in places like my hometown of Eugene, OR, and internationally in cities like Dublin, Ireland - areas with little broadband choice and small service areas from incumbents, but a good demographic to pay for their service.
Confusingly, the 2.5 GHz band is in the middle of a multi-year set of spectrum reform negotiations among the FCC, incumbent institutional holders who actually broadcast educational programming on it, sublicense holders like Sprint Nextel, and other interested companies. The 2.5 GHz band is inefficiently organized for the digital era, being a vestige of analog broadcasting and early data services. The new proposal would preserve some existing licenses by moving them around, but open up much more usage by other parties. This band might wind up being critical for the deployment of WiMax, a broadband point-to- multi-point wireless standard that's just starting to move into the market.
WiMax is seen initially in urban areas as a replacement for leased digital lines used by businesses, known as T-1 lines which runs at 1.544 Mbps. With WiMax, a central base station at a high point can serve many receivers in an arc that can be fairly narrow. Some early pre-WiMax deployments - devices are just being certified as compliant with WiMax standards now - offer speeds higher than T-1s for much less money. Putting in two T-1s typically doubles capital and recurring costs with wired lines; putting in a broadband wireless connect of 3 Mbps each way might cost just 10 to 30 percent more each month than a single T-1 with less installation complexity, less capital outlay for hardware, and a quick install. In rural areas, WiMax may be used for basic broadband where a wired infrastructure doesn't exist.
You're probably holding your head, thinking, "I just want to make phone calls and surf the Web!" Don't worry. You'll be able to, just in more ways, with potentially fewer bills, than ever before. Every time a set of companies promises that convergence will reduce costs, you start laughing, right? But this time, the number of different kinds of firms involved in competing with each other for your business might actually improve service and reduce overall costs.
For instance, my wife and I have shaved our combined local and long distance phone and cell phone plans over the last two years from about $300 per month (that includes all my business calling) down to about $160, while adding unlimited calling within the U.S. and to 22 countries at home, and a pool of minutes on our cell plans that we rarely exceed (and use rollover minutes from other months to avoid overages). To accomplish this, we switched long distance from per minute to an unlimited flat rate voice over IP calling plan, moved our cell phones from Verizon and AT&T Wireless to Cingular because of its rollover minutes feature (unused minutes are banked for up to 12 months), and got on the same plan to reduce the cell cost, which also means minutes used to each other aren't counted.
The coming convergence will be weird, confusing, and overwhelming, but it's likely to mean that most people in the U.S. and many people worldwide will see much higher downstream speeds for Internet access without increased costs - we've seen some of that already - and with cell calls and long distance all coalescing into one flat monthly rate substantially below what moderate users pay today. And that's a good thing.
ToC
Media Minutes -- February 3, 2006
Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Audio: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm020306.mp3
Text: http://freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm020306.pdf
There's division in the ranks now among telephone companies over the concept of network neutrality. Phone giants - most notably AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon - believe they should get paid not only for providing a connection to the internet, but also for carrying content across their networks. This would fundamentally change the conditions under which the internet has flourished, and opens up the specter of data discrimination based on an online speaker's ability to pay.
Now it would seem that Verizon is backpedaling on its ambitions to put toll booths on internet traffic, claiming it would rather work to develop a voluntary framework governing data discrimination, instead of asking Congress to endorse or disregard the principle. Documents filed with the FCC explain why Verizon may be concerned about net neutrality: it's reserving more than 80% of the capacity of its new fiber optic network to offer television services, leaving very little overhead for web browsing and e-mail. AT&T, however, has reiterated its commitment to squeeze online content providers for extra cash. And while both companies claim they just want fair compensation for the use of their networks, they're not exactly starved for cash: last year AT&T reported a $4.8 billon profit, while Verizon raked in $7.4 billion.
ToC
URL: http://www.lsoft.com/news/aol-goodmail.asp
L-Soft's Eric Thomas, Inventor of LISTSERV®, the Original Email List Management Software, Says Decision Threatens to Shake the Foundations of Internet Communication
Bethesda, MD (February 2, 2006) -- AOL's recent decision to require payment of "a fraction of a cent per message" to ensure delivery of email messages with images and links to AOL mailboxes threatens to cut off Internet communication at its very roots, potentially spelling the end of an era of near-free mass communication and making good email marketing practices obsolete. This as-yet unspecified fee is to be paid to email certification company Goodmail SystemsTM. Founded in 2003, Goodmail, according to its Website, "provides a new class of e-mail that identifies good mail ... so the messages can be delivered to recipients' inboxes -- not junk or bulk folders." Until June 2006, senders that are unwilling or unable to pay the per-message fee will be able to continue to use AOL's Enhanced Whitelist service. After that, it's time to pay (Goodmail), or face a future of relegation to the junk folders of millions of AOL mailboxes. To accelerate the migration to Goodmail, AOL will begin reducing the number of Enhanced Whitelist participants in April.
AOL's implementation of Goodmail's CertifiedEmailTM service, announced January 30th, was greeted with sharp criticism from email service providers and marketing experts. L-Soft, the company behind LISTSERV®, the product that launched the email list management industry 20 years ago, is one of the few potential beneficiaries of AOL's move, since its customers would have no options but to purchase the necessary software upgrade to support Goodmail certification, an upgrade that L-Soft could choose to license on very profitable terms. Yet there are no sounds of champagne glasses clinking to be heard in L-Soft's boardroom.
"When I read about the AOL-Goodmail deal, I first thought it must be a hoax," says L-Soft CEO and founder Eric Thomas, who invented LISTSERV in 1986. "I know a lot of good people at AOL, people I admire for their patience and professionalism in dealing with the spam plague, on which AOL spends more time, energy and money than anyone else. I just cannot imagine them as the cast of the IT industry's version of "Goodfellas," selling senders protection against a destiny of junk folders for 'a fraction of a cent per message'. Somehow, something has gone terribly wrong."
"The fundamental flaw in AOL's new certification plan is that there is only one technology supplier. Coupled with AOL's dominance in the marketplace, this creates a de facto monopoly. Once the system is in place, nothing would prevent Goodmail from raising prices to increase profits. Higher certification prices would lead to lower email volumes and reduced operational costs for AOL, so they would be unlikely to complain about any such increases."
Goodmail Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder Richard Gingras was noted to say that Goodmail expects that its charter program will provide significant discounts to senders through 2006.1
"This could be seen as just another way of saying that Goodmail is already planning to raise prices in 2007. And price is not the only concern. As the sole provider, Goodmail would also be in a position to censor senders, with or without reason. Thus, nobody would dare to criticize Goodmail or complain about price increases," Thomas says. "At the press of a button, Goodmail could put companies out of business by blocking their access to AOL. People would have no option but to pay up -- and keep their voices down."
With only one supplier, only one pricing model is being offered -- in this case, a per-message fee that should deliver a steady growth rate to Goodmail as the Internet grows. Other Internet necessities, such as domain names and SSL certificates, are typically priced at a flat fee, allowing people and organizations at most income levels to establish a substantial online presence.
"If VeriSign started charging for Web certificates by the click, people would be crying foul, and VeriSign does not even have a monopoly," Thomas says. "A per-message fee will eliminate non-commercial email traffic, such as the hundreds of thousands of discussion lists that serve as online communities for millions of people -- for example, lists connecting people who are struggling with cancer, coping with parenting special-needs children, or simply wishing to exchange tips about their favorite breed of dog. You end up with a situation where, if your non-commercial newsletter is successful, it is driven out of business by the Goodmail fee, and you have to turn it into a commercial venture just to survive. In order to be acceptable to the community, the certification process must be available for a reasonable fixed fee and from a choice of several certification providers."
Discussion communities such as the award-winning international Association for Cancer Online Resources (ACOR) are also speaking out. "In essence, this is going to block every AOL subscriber suffering from any form of cancer from receiving potentially life-saving information they may not be able to get from any other source, simply because a non-profit like ACOR -- which serves more than 55,000 cancer patients and caregivers every day -- cannot afford to pay the fee. There must be a better solution," says Gilles Frydman, ACOR's President.
Thomas concludes, "While I have the deepest sympathy and understanding for the situation AOL is in, the introduction of the Internet's first email tax ever is simply not the right solution to the spam problem."
About L-Soft
L-Soft, which was incorporated in 1994, is the company behind LISTSERV, offering email list and opt-in email marketing software and hosting services for managing email newsletters, discussion groups and marketing campaigns. L-Soft's products deliver about 30 million messages a day to more than 110 million list subscriptions. L-Soft celebrates the 20th anniversary of LISTSERV in 2006
For more information visit www.lsoft.com or contact L-Soft via email at: info@lsoft.com or call +1-800-399-5449 or +1 (301) 731-0440.
L-SOFT PRESS CONTACT
Susan Brown Faghani
1-800-399-5449
pressinfo@lsoft.com
1. ClickZ article by Kevin Newcomb, "AOL to Implement E-mail Certification
Program". January 30, 2006.
http://www.clickz.com/news
/article.php/3581301
URL: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_02.php#004400
Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
San Francisco -- Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.
"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants-your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever-could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
The privacy problem arises because the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers-much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it.
"This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "Many Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a service provider's computer, but under outdated laws, consumers who want to use these new technologies have to surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails, search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world."
For more on Google's data collection:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+When+Google+is+not+your+friend/2100-1025_3-6034666.html?tag=nl
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/21/google_subpoena_roils_the_web
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/20/EDGEPGPHA61.DTL
http://news.com.com/%20Bill+would+force+Web+sites+to+delete+personal+info/2100-1028_3-6036951.html
Contact:
Kevin Bankston
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org
The data warehouser will settle charges that it failed to protect consumers' personal financial information, the FTC says.
January 27, 2006 -- 6:19 AM EST
URL: http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/26/news/companies/choicepoint.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- ChoicePoint Inc. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle charges that it failed to adequately protect consumers' personal financial information, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday.
The company has agreed to pay a $10 million civil penalty, provide $5 million to compensate consumers, and take steps to better safeguard personal information so it is used only for legitimate purposes, the agency said.
The company last year admitted that more than 163,000 personal records had been compromised, the agency said.
The FTC charged ChoicePoint illegally gave credit histories to people who were not authorized to obtain them and failed to have reasonable procedures to verify the identities of those who requested the information and how the data was to be used.
The company also made false and misleading statements about its privacy policies, the FTC charged.
A representative for the company was not immediately available for comment.
ChoicePoint said earlier on Thursday that its profit fell, hurt by legal costs and other one-time charges. Fourth-quarter net income was $27.6 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with $39.2 million, or 43 cents a share, a year earlier.
Shares of ChoicePoint (down $3.35 to $42.95, Research fell 7.5 percent in midday trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
<http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=CPS>
<http://cnnfn.investor.reuters.com/Reports.aspx?ticker=CPS>)
---
For tips on protecting your identity, credit, future and family:
<http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/04/pf/saving/willis_tips/index.htm>
ToC
By Wes Phillips
URL: http://www.stereophile.com/news/012306fairuse/
January 22, 2006 -- On our regular visit to the Electronic Freedom Foundation's (EFF) Deep Links website last Friday, we were alarmed to learn of proposed US Senate broadcast flag legislation that includes provisions to limit fair use to "customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law."
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004340.php
That would seem to allow fair use, so why is it cause for alarm? The EFF's Fred von Lohmann has a crushingly simple response, "Had that been the law in 1970, there would never have been a VCR. Had it been the law in 1990, no TiVo. In 2000, no iPod." Von Lohmann argues that fair use was designed to permit new uses for technology, uses that hadn't been conceived of previously-such as Sony's discovery after the invention of the VCR that most people used it to time-shift television programs rather than play pre-recorded videocassettes, which is the way the company had assumed its product would be used.
The proposed legislation, sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), would retroactively ratify the FCC's broadcast flag regulations, which required content protection mechanisms in all future televisions. The FCC restrictions were rejected by the DC District Circuit Court of Appeals last July.
Senator Smith's bill would also grant the FCC authority to regulate the design of digital radios, which would include both terrestrial HD Radio and XM and Sirius satellite radio, over which it does not now have authority.
Are the EFF and von Lohmann over-reacting? Not according to Public Knowledge, which accuses the bill of "a little sleight-of-hand" in specifying that the FCC develop "objective criteria for approval by the Commission of methods of recording and Secure Moving Technology for material covered by the Broadcast Flag." Hmmm, what could Secure Moving Technology be? The bill defines it as "a technology that permits content covered by the Broadcast Flag to be transferred from a broadcast receiver to another device for rendering in accordance with customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law and that prevents redistribution of copyrighted content over digital networks."
Thank you, Public Knowledge, for pointing out how that essentially "gives [the] FCC control over anything 'that permits contentŠto be transferredŠto another device'"-including sticking a microphone in front of a speaker. (That's known as "the analog hole" and Congress has HR 4569 under consideration to "plug" it.)
PK concludes that this bill has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with control. We concur. The entertainment industry has legitimate concerns about protecting the content that it provides, but the public also has rights, among them the right to expect that its governing body refuse to restrict technologies to those that already exist. To limit potential advances-or take a giant step backwards-simply because an existing industry hasn't the wit to encompass a paradigm shift is shortsighted and potentially crippling.
We encourage you to read Senator Smith's proposed bill and to visit the EFF's Action Center before the Senate Commerce Committee vote on January 24. Let the SCC know your concerns. If you live in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, or West Virginia, you have a senator on the committee, but even if your representative isn't seated on the SCC, let the committee know you care.
ToC
News Story by Marc L. Songini <marc_songini@computerworld.com>
URL:
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/hacking/story/0,10801,107881,00.html
Herbert Thompson took part in a hacking of Diebold voting equipment last year
JANUARY 19, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) -- When Herbert Thompson, director of research at Wilmington, Mass.-based Security Innovation, talks about e-voting security, he speaks from firsthand experience. Security Innovation conducts security testing and Thompson is the co-author of several books, including "How to Break Software Security". He volunteered to use his expertise in tests to determine whether it's possible to hack electronic voting gear last May and again last month in Leon County, Fla. With fellow security expert Harri Hursti, Thompson took part in the hacking of an optical scan system made by Diebold Elections Systems Inc., allegedly proving that election results could be changed.
Thompson spoke recently with Computerworld about e-voting reliability. Diebold declined to make anyone available for an interview on the topic, but a spokesman dismissed the concerns raised by Thompson. Diebold's response follows Thompson's comments below.
Can you tell us about some of your e-voting machine hacking activities?
On Tuesday, Dec. 13, we conducted a hack of the Diebold AccuVote optical scan device. I wrote a five-line script in Visual Basic that would allow you to go into the central tabulator and change any vote total you wanted, leaving no logs. It requires physical access to a machine, which in many counties isn't very difficult to get -- you have elections offices full of volunteers. In Leon County, they have good policies and procedures in place. But in many counties, where such awareness doesn't exist, that brings up some serious concerns about someone being able to tamper with the results.
Harri Hursti changed the contents of a memory card used in the optical scan device and preloaded it. During the [pre-election testing] procedure, it will tell you there are no votes on the card, but there is executable content on it. If you can get access to the memory card, you can change its logic and have it do whatever you want -- even print a smiley face. That hack was like prestuffing a ballot box to handicap one candidate by giving them negative votes and giving another positive ones.
Is e-voting security a political issue?
I'm strictly an independent person donating my time. It's not political. Bad software is the issue. I'm a software security guy. I see a lot of bad software. All software has security vulnerability -- this is just particularly bad. As an election official, you have to be wary when touching a tabulator or a memory card, it has to be treated like a box of live ballots.
Diebold has claimed that the hacks have been unfair. Your response?
I would love to do a demonstration where Diebold participates. There are certainly other voting companies that make tabulation software as well as optical scan gear, and we're seeing the same vulnerabilities as we've seen in Diebold's systems, which raises a broader question. That's about whether the verification and validation processes these machines go through are woefully inadequate or not. The e-voting companies aren't volunteering up their systems for independent audits and analysis.
Is the security in e-voting up to the standards business executives would demand in their business applications?
No way. Definitely not. Five years ago, yes, but in the current climate, no. These guys are betting their critical business processes on software. They need to consider who might do harm to that system. This level of rigor isn't applied to e-voting systems.
What do you think should be done?
There should be much more severe security testing requirements. The key, from my perspective, is you need to raise awareness that these vulnerabilities do exist and can be exploited and you need a way of measuring security.
Diebold Responds
Diebold has publicly denounced the Leon County tests as being invalid. In fact, the vendor contended that Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho's decision to sponsor the hacking attempts were potential violations of licensing agreements and intellectual property rights. In a letter to Sancho on June 8, Diebold said Sancho had committed a "very foolish and irresponsible act." In that same letter, Diebold said the May hack was akin to "leaving your car unlocked, with the windows down and keys left in the ignition and then acting surprised when your car is stolen or the interior vandalized."
Diebold spokesman David Bear responded to some of Thompson's claims about Diebold gear. The design of the equipment used in the Leon County demonstration dates back to the early 1990s, Bear said. Diebold's current touch-screen voting machines have far more sophisticated security that would prevent this type of attack.
Additionally, Bear said, the older optical scan machines are only vulnerable to such a hack when normal security procedures are not followed. "Even the older memory cards are sealed in the machines after pre-election testing is complete," he said. "The cards are not given to third parties for 'hacking purposes' as was done during the demo. If any of the seals are broken or there is any hint of a security breach, the paper ballots can be recounted. Furthermore, many locations require a certain percentage of ballots be recounted even when there is no suspected fraud."
He also said that Diebold regularly enhances its products to bolster security, and the enhancements are discussed, implemented, tested, certified and made available to customers. "This situation is no different," he said. "Procedures are available which fully protect against this style of attack."
ToC
Paul Thurrott
URL: http://www.wininformant.com/
This week's announcement about Windows OneCare Live pricing and availability wouldn't be complete unless we considered the competition, companies like Symantec and McAfee, which have been sucking off the many security vulnerabilities in Windows like electronic remoras for the past few decades. Well, they're not amused about OneCare Live, because it's from Microsoft, it's inexpensive and includes a 3-PC home license, and it includes features their own security suites do not. So they're fighting back with new products, and not the antitrust suits you have to know they looked into. Symantec is working up an offering codenamed "Genesis," a subscription offering that will combine many of the company's best anti- malware technologies into a single application. Meanwhile, McAfee has vowed to stay competitive, though I haven't seen anything coherent about how that will happen. I think the funniest thing about this whole situation is that Microsoft is actually charging people to fix problems with their own products. It's brilliant, really. I only wonder what took them so long.
Microsoft's upcoming Sidebar for Windows Vista and XP is simply the latest rendition of Active Desktop, though the company wisely won't be promoting it as such. But Microsoft isn't the only company getting widget mania in the wake of Apple's decision to copy Konfabulator for its Dashboard feature in Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger." Now, browser maker Opera is adding widgets to its namesake Web browser as well. Opera 9, due next week, includes support for widgets, or small HTML-like applications that can run on the Windows desktop. Like all the other silly widget-based solutions that are suddenly popping up (no pun intended) all over the place, Opera's widgets will likely annoy more than serve. Do we really need more clutter on the Windows desktop?
A few weeks back, reports emerged that Microsoft planned to ship a single Windows Vista media disk, so that users could upgrade to the various product editions using the disk and wouldn't have to purchase different versions or download code. Those reports, it turns out, weren't correct. Instead, Microsoft will make Vista available under the new Windows Anytime Upgrade license, which lets customers upgrade to different Vista product editions at will. However, Microsoft hasn't specified how this system will work; presumably, it will be a Web download (or perhaps even a DVD order). I'll supply more info as it becomes available.
While Apple's recently announced Intel-based Macs were getting big press over the past few weeks, the real world was waiting for Windows notebooks that use Intel's Core Duo and Core Solo processors. You might want to keep waiting: Apparently, there's a bizarre bug in Windows XP that causes Core- based notebooks to lose battery life quickly when a USB 2.0 device--such as a mouse, printer, or MP3 player--is connected to the machine. Microsoft says it's looking into the situation, but the company has actually known about the problem since last July. Yes, seriously.
This week, Mozilla shipped a small update to its Firefox 1.5 Web browser. Firefox 1.5.0.1 improves stability, adds international domain name support for Iceland, fixes memory leaks, and enhances security. Most Firefox 1.5 installations will automatically download the update, but if you want to manually install it, you can head on over to the Mozilla Web site. Either way, you should obviously grab it today.
This week, microprocessor maker AMD lowered the prices of its dual-core desktop and Turion mobile chips to better compete with Intel's pricing schemes. The price cuts come at a good time: AMD recently jumped to more than 20 percent market share, with 21.4 percent of the market for combined microprocessor sales (desktop, server, and mobile)--its best showing in years. AMD's surge can be credited to two factors: One, the company makes much better desktop and server chips than does Intel (though AMD's chips lag a bit in quality in the mobile area). And two, major PC makers such as HP are now shipping a wide range of AMD-based PCs, which compete head-on with similar models featuring Intel chips. It's amazing what can happen when you give superior technology a chance, eh?
Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" has an appropriate question for Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates: Why are we still dealing with spam? Bishop takes Gates to task for a January 2003 promise that spam would be solved within "two years," and notes that, as of now, that promise is unfulfilled. Although I look forward to Gates's semi-humorous comment about this statement at his next keynote, Bishop is correct in raising this concern. Gates got a lot of press for his comments 2 years ago. But what really rankles me is Microsoft's reaction to Bishop's question. "'To "solve" the problem for consumers in the short run doesn't require eliminating spam entirely,' said Ryan Hamlin, the general manager who oversees the company's antispam programs," Bishop writes. "'Rather,' he said, 'the idea is to contain it to the point that its impact on Inboxes is minor.'" Baloney, I say. Baloney. Spam is just as bad now as it ever was, maybe worse. More to the point, Microsoft doesn't even have technology in the works that will solve this problem for consumers: The company's upcoming Windows OneCare Live service, for example, doesn't include email spam filtering.
I can confirm reports that Microsoft has been building a potential iPod competitor in house, and I've discussed this product with various people in Redmond since last summer. However, it's not clear whether Microsoft should release such a device. To date, most of the iPod competitors from Microsoft partners have been lackluster, and certainly none of them match the coolness factor of Apple's offerings. But here's the problem: If Microsoft ships a product that's less interesting than the iPod, the company will have effectively hammered the last nail into the coffin of its Windows Media technologies and erased any chance that such a format will succeed in the future. In other words, a Microsoft iPod competitor would have to be perfect. To date, Microsoft has been shopping its work around to partners in a bid to give them ideas about how they might better compete with Apple, but it hasn't yet decided to get in the game. My advice is to hold off.
One rumor I can't confirm is that Microsoft is also working on a handheld Xbox game system that would compete with the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Nintendo Game Boy and Dual Screen (DS) systems. That said, I've often imagined what such a device might look like. Picture, if you will, a standard Xbox 360 controller (or the original Xbox S controller) with a small LCD screen mounted near the top (or even a pair of those wrap-around glasses that includes a screen replacement). In the back of the controller would be a mini-DVD slot for the games, which would be technically as good as those for the original Xbox. Such a system would sell in the millions, and I'd be first in line to buy one, especially if versions of Halo were available. I see images of wireless death matches here, people. Let's get this thing done.
ToC
Paul Thurrott
InstantDoc #49328
URL: http://tinyurl.com/anlv2
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the pricing structure for Windows OneCare Live, its upcoming subscription-based safety and security software service for Windows XP users. Additionally, the company revealed its expected timetable for delivering the service to consumers.
Microsoft describes OneCare Live as a PC health service that runs continually in the background on a PC, providing round-the-clock protection and maintenance capabilities. The product includes a virus scanner and a two-way firewall, performs various system tune-ups, and has a data backup feature. Later this year, Microsoft will also integrate OneCare Live with Windows Defender, the company's antispyware solution.
Dennis Bonsall, a Microsoft group product manager, told me last week that Microsoft would deliver another round of beta versions for of OneCare Live in late February and April 2006, then deliver the product to consumers in June 2006. OneCare Live will cost $49.95 a year and will protect as many as three PCs as part of its home licensing, although Bonsall noted that the initial version of the software will be liberal about letting users install the product on more than three PCs because Microsoft won't introduce a PC deauthorization feature until a later release.
"We're treating this as a subscription, not a fixed purchase," Bonsall said. "That's driven by customer feedback: People find the yearly upgrade process with security software to be confusing." Additionally, Microsoft will include free phone, email, and online chat-based support with every OneCare Live subscription. Microsoft tested all three support formats during the beta period and found that testers enjoyed all of the formats. Speaking of testers, those who beta-tested OneCare Live will be able to purchase the final product for $19.95 during the first year if they purchase a subscription during April 2006. After that, the price reverts to the standard $49.95. "It's an appreciation thing," Bonsall said. "A number of testers have given us valuable feedback. It's just the right thing to do."
One feature that will be missing from OneCare Live is the integration of email client-based antispam technology. Microsoft told me that most of its customers are happy with the antispam features their email provider or ISP offers, and that including an antispam function in OneCare Live would be redundant. Looking to the future, Bonsall tells me that new versions of OneCare Live will be more configurable and customizable and will offer more seamless integration with Windows Defender (the initial OneCare Live version will ship before Windows Defender is finalized). Customers can download updates of OneCare Live from Microsoft's Web site, so they won't have to wait for future versions to get new functionality.
The final version of OneCare Live will be compatible only with Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), although Windows Vista will also support OneCare Live when Vista ships in late 2006. OneCare Live will be available as a Web download and also sold in retail and online stores. The initial version of the product will be localized to English and available only to the US market, but Microsoft expects to begin international beta testing by the end of 2006.
Many readers have asked me to provide a OneCare Live review or preview, and after discussing this with Microsoft, I've elected to wait until after the February beta release to do so. At that time, all the new features should be included in the release and we'll see a more complete version of the product.
ToC
Paul Thurrott
InstantDoc #49262
URL: http://tinyurl.com/akxj6
On Tuesday, Microsoft issued a public preview version of Internet Explorer (IE) 7 Beta 2, offering Web developers, tech enthusiasts, and early adopters a chance to test the product's compatibility with their Web sites. Microsoft will release a more polished and consumer-centric IE 7 Beta 2 in the weeks ahead, but in my tests of the product over the past several days, I've found it to be stable, secure, and feature-packed. And while I'm not personally ready to switch from Mozilla Firefox, I think many people will be surprised by Microsoft's progress with IE 7.
"IE 7 Beta 2 Preview is feature complete," Gary Schare, Microsoft director of IE product management told me last week in a briefing. "It's a developer and technology enthusiast preview release. Up until now, we've been documenting the rendering and technical changes to IE 7, but people haven't had a way to test it against their sites unless they were in the beta program. IE 7 Beta 2 Preview is a safe release for early adopters, or anyone who has a business need to understand where we're going with IE."
As I noted in my lengthy review of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview (see URL below), Microsoft has made dramatic and impressive improvements in this IE version. In addition to adopting features that other browsers have had for years, such as tabbed browsing and integrated search engine support, Microsoft has actually innovated new ways to use these features, and has added unique new functionality of its own. For example, a new Tab Groups feature lets you visually tile each of the browser's open tabs, so you can more easily choose which document to view.
IE 7 Beta 2 Preview also includes the many security features Microsoft has been implementing in this product, including its antiphishing technology, malicious ActiveX protection, International Domain Name (IDN) spoofing protection, and support for High Assurance Certificates, an upcoming standard for proving the trustworthiness of Web sites. There is also a separate IE 7 runtime called Internet Explorer (No Add-ons) that lets user run IE 7 without any ActiveX controls or Browser Helper Objects loaded; this feature will be valuable if a PC or the browser is compromised and the user wishes to browse the Web looking for help or download a fix.
Notably, Microsoft also revealed this week that it was adding its RSS platform, originally due only in Windows Vista, to the standalone versions of IE 7 that will ship on other Windows versions. This platform is available in the IE 7 Beta 2 Preview release that the company shipped this week, and it will allow third parties to develop applications and services that interact with the RSS feed subscriptions users configure and use in IE 7. Schare told me that he expects the inclusion of the RSS platform on XP to greatly increase developer interest in the technology.
IE 7 Beta 2 Preview works only with Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), but the final release will also be made available for Windows Server 2003 and XP x64 Edition. For more information, and the free download, please visit the Microsoft Web site.
Also, be sure to check out my exhaustive review of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview on the SuperSite for Windows.
ToC
An Egypt Nile desktop theme with new wallpaper, animated cursors, new icons, new sounds, and a screensaver.
ToC
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News
Feb 9, 2006 02:15 PM
URL: http://tinyurl.com/76ooq
In side-by-side tests of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox, IE proved to be far more vulnerable to spyware infections. Most of the exploits that leveraged IE vulnerabilities to plant spyware were based on ActiveX and JavaScript.
Internet Explorer users can be as much as 21 times more likely to end up with a spyware-infected PC than people who go online with Mozilla's Firefox browser, academic researchers from Microsoft's backyard said in a recently published paper.
"We can't say whether Firefox is a safer browser or not," said Henry Levy, one of the two University of Washington professors who, along with a pair of graduate students, created Web crawlers to scour the Internet for spyware in several 2005 forays. "But we can say that users will have a safer experience [surfing] with Firefox."
In May and October, Levy and colleague Steven Gribble sent their crawlers to 45,000 Web sites, cataloged the executable files found, and tested malicious sites' effectiveness by exposing unpatched versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox to "drive-by downloads." That's the term for the hacker practice of using browser vulnerabilities to install software, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes not.
"We can't say IE is any less safe," explained Levy, "because we choose to use an unpatched version [of each browser.] We were trying to understand the number of [spyware] threats, so if we used unpatched browsers then we would see more threats."
Levy and Gribble, along with graduate students Alexander Moshchuk and Tanya Bragin, set up IE in two configurations -- one where it behaved as if the user had given permission for all downloads, the other as if the user refused all download permission -- to track the number of successful spyware installations.
During Levy's and Gribble's most recent crawl of October 2005, 1.6 percent of the domains infected the first IE configuration, the one mimicking a naïve user blithely clicking 'Yes;' about a third as many domains (0.6 percent) did drive-by downloads by planting spyware even when the user rejected the installations.
"These numbers may not sound like much," said Gribble, "but consider the number of domains on the Web."
"You definitely want to have all the patches [installed] for Internet Explorer," added Levy.
In the same kind of configurations, Firefox survived relatively unscathed. Only .09 percent of domains infected the Mozilla Corp. browser when it was set, like IE, to act as if the user clicked through security dialogs; no domain managed to infect the Firefox-equipped PC in a drive-by download attack.
Compare those figures, and it seems that IE users who haven't patched their browser are 21 times more likely to have a spyware attack executed -- if not necessarily succeed -- against their machine.
Most of the exploits that leveraged IE vulnerabilities to plant spyware were based on ActiveX and JavaScript, said Gribble. Those two technologies have taken the blame for many of IE problems. In fact, Firefox boosters often point to their browser's lack of support for ActiveX as a big reason why its security claims are legit.
Levy and Gribble didn't set out to verify that, but they did note that the few successful spyware attacks on Firefox were made by Java applets; all, however, required the user's consent to succeed.
Microsoft's made a point to stress that Internet Explorer 7, which just went into open beta for Windows XP, tightens up ActiveX controls by disabling nearly all those already installed. IE 7 then alerts the user and requires consent before it will run an in-place control.
Good thing, because one of the research's most startling conclusions was the number of spyware-infected sites. One out of every 20 executable files on Web sites is spyware, and 1 in 25 domains contain at least one piece of spyware waiting for victims.
"If these numbers are even close to representative for Web sites frequented by users," the paper concluded, "it is not surprising that spyware continues to be of major concern."
The moral, said Levy, is: "If you browse, you're eventually going to get hit with a spyware attack."
ToC
from Tom Purl (tom@tompurl.com)
Theo de Raadt, the manager for the FreeBSD project, recently responded to a security vulnerability using the following statement:
"Sorry, we are going to change nothing."
Yikes. For more information as to why the project leader of a security-obsessed OS would make such a statement, please see the following link:
This isn't really about Linux, but it is a promising free software project. Songbird is a new, open source media player that also allows you to purchase or download free music from a variety of different sources. It doesn't yet run on Linux, but should be able to do so soon.
For more information, please see the following link:
Silicon Graphics (SGI), which used to be a marquee Unix-based hardware manufacturer, could be faced with bankruptcy by the end of 2006. SGI used to be the preferred choice for a host of high-end Unix users, but now has trouble competing with commoditized hardware and Linux.
SGI's demise probably wouldn't have much of an affect on the Linux or Unix world, but it would certainly be the end of an era. For more information, please see the following link:
ToC
by TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
With his usual panache, Steve Jobs announced the new Intel-based Macs at Macworld Expo last week, bringing Intel CEO Paul Otellini on stage in a chip-fabrication "bunny" suit and airing an ad about "setting the Intel chip free" after being "trapped inside PCs performing dull little tasks." With the announcement, Apple anointed the Intel Core Duo processor as the processor of choice, installing it in the familiar looking iMac and in a new laptop dubbed the MacBook Pro. Whether Apple sticks with the Core Duo for future Macs remained unsaid, but Jobs promised that Apple would transition the entire Mac product line to Intel processors by the end of 2006.
<http://www.apple.com/imac/>
<http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/>
The new iMac features most of the same basic specs and prices as the current models of the iMac G5, but with Intel Core Duo processors running at 1.83 GHz and 2.1 GHz. The dual-core processors (two processors on a single chip) provide significantly improved performance, according to Apple - up to two to three times faster than the current iMac G5s. Needless to say, that performance increase won't be applied across the board, but that level of improvement will be incredibly welcome to those too-accustomed to the spinning pizza of death. One welcome improvement is an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card with 128 MB of memory. In addition to appearing faster than its predecessor, the new card finally adds the capability to use an additional monitor in extended desktop (versus mirrored) capacity in the iMac line.
Introduced with the now-trademark phrase "One more thing..." Steve Jobs also took the wraps off Apple's new Intel-based laptop, awkwardly called the MacBook Pro, which Apple expects will start shipping in February 2006; pre-orders started pouring into the Apple Store right after the keynote, making it largely unavailable for hours. As Jobs noted, the "Power" is no longer appropriate without the PowerPC chip (even though PowerBook preceded that processor), and he has wanted to get "Mac" into the name. This leads to some speculation as to the naming of the Intel-chip versions of Apple's professional tower machines; without "Power" and "G5," we're left with "Mac". Although MacBook Pro reads fine in print, it's quite clumsy to say, and opinion about it at the show was almost universally negative.
The two models of the MacBook Pro also rely on Intel Core Duo processors, one running at 1.67 GHz for $2,000 and the other at 1.83 GHz for $2,500. The new processors reportedly provide four to five times the performance of the current top-of-the line PowerBook G4. Both models sport a 15.4-inch LCD screen that is reportedly as bright as the Apple Cinema Displays, though at a slightly lower resolution (1440 by 900 pixels) than the PowerBook G4 (1440 x 960 pixels). The graphics processor is an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with either 128 MB or 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. The MacBook Pro is 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick, reportedly "a hair thinner" than the current 17-inch PowerBook G4, and weighs 5.6 pounds (2.5 kg).
But unlike the new iMac, which shares nearly the same specs as the current generation, the MacBook Pro adds a number of features to the current PowerBook feature list. Most notable are a built-in iSight for on-the-go video conferencing, an infrared sensor that works with the included Apple Remote and Front Row software for controlling media playback, and a new patent-pending MagSafe power connector that holds the power plug in with magnets, eliminating the fear that someone will trip over your power cable and pull your computer to the floor. The power plug has a green LED on the top that lights up when the plug is connected to the power jack. Because the aluminum case around the jack isn't magnetic (or doesn't exert any real force), the plug feels like it's sucked in tight. It requires some real effort to disconnect the plug.
Other standard features include the backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor, the scrolling trackpad, the Sudden Motion Sensor (which Apple has patented), DVI video out that can run the Apple 30-inch Cinema Display, digital optical and analog audio in and out, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 (but not FireWire 800) port. Surprisingly, the MacBook Pro's SuperDrive writes at 4x speed instead of the 8x speed of the PowerBook G4.
The MacBook Pro will be the first model to feature an ExpressCard slot (instead of a PC Card slot), which is a smaller and more versatile interface to the PCI-Express serial standard. The card slot handles one lane of traffic, which is 250 MB/s or about 2 Gbps. Apple vice president David Moody confirmed in a briefing that Apple thought the best way to provide performance and flexibility was not to include FireWire 800 as a fixed port on the models.
<http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/whatsinside.html>
<http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp>
Instead, with 2 Gbps of bandwidth from the slot, an ExpressCard could, for instance, offer two simultaneous FireWire 800 ports that could run at full speed, supporting an extremely fast set of RAID 0 (striped) disks, for instance, with four disks being striped in an A, B, C, D fashion for a total throughput of 1.6 Gbps, limited only by the disks' read and write speeds.
While the PC Card and CardBus slots found in PowerBooks and other laptops have aged poorly, finding little use except for advanced wireless cards (PC only, typically) and cellular data cards, it's likely that the extremely high throughput of the ExpressCard slot will result in more options for moving data around.
Because the MacBook Pro can support a 30-inch Apple display, the obvious notion of a second monitor supported by an ExpressCard adapter makes no sense. But a third monitor? You got it.
Several sources public and private are noting that the new iMac and MacBook Pro support the 802.11a flavor of Wi-Fi (although neither the AirPort Extreme nor AirPort Express base stations do). 802.11a works very much like the 802.11g that Apple dubbed AirPort Extreme, but uses the 5 GHz frequency band, which is unlicensed in the U.S. and several other countries, allowing it to be broadly used. AppleInsider has a report with a number of details, although some of the analysis about 802.11a was true in 2003, but not since 2004.
<http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1465>
802.11a was declared dead by Steve Jobs back in January 2003 when he introduced AirPort Extreme, and it seemed rather dead at the time. Ironically, the advantage of 802.11a is that it has no backwards compatible mode with the older, slower 802.11b standard. 802.11b and g work in the 2.4 GHz band, and 802.11b runs at a maximum of 11 Mbps of throughput, or a net of about 5 Mbps. 802.11g has a maximum 54 Mbps, or a net of about 20 to 30 Mbps depending on add-ons and other factors.
The reason that the lack of compatibility with 802.11b is an advantage is that a network that sports both b and g adapters has worse performance than a g-only or any 802.11a network. The older "b" devices bring down the whole network, reducing the amount of shared airtime available for faster transmission. Because 802.11a uses the 5 GHz band at the same power levels for indoor use, signals propagate less far, although they can penetrate objects more effectively. For indoor use with one base station, 802.11a has no particular advantage.
For dense company and academic use, however, it makes a lot of sense to use 802.11a because by having smaller clouds of usage around each access point, you can be assured that fewer users connect to it. 802.11a also has 8 indoor channels (and 4 outdoor ones) that don't overlap frequencies compared to just 3 in 802.11b/g in the U.S. (and four in some countries). Better, 802.11a's 5 GHz band will have additional channels available in the near future due to a deal with the U.S. military that will free up more civilian use. As a result, 802.11a has emerged in corporations and universities as a preferred tool for deploying voice over IP (VoIP), whether for campus calling or Internet telephony (VoIP to a gateway out to the public switched telephone network).
This 802.11a support isn't a remarkable breakthrough, and is in fact likely merely a side effect of Apple switching to Wi-Fi chips from Atheros, replacing the Broadcom chips that previously enabled AirPort Extreme capabilities. But whether or not it's even intentional (Apple says nothing about 802.11a support on spec sheets), even minimal support eliminates an obstacle in using Macs in certain companies and schools.
ToC
TidBITS#815/09-Feb-06
Now we know why Apple continues to sell the iMac G5 after debuting the iMac Intel Core Duo model at Macworld Expo last month: to clear out inventory. Apple has stopped selling the 17-inch iMac G5 and dropped the price of its remaining stock of 20-inch iMac G5 models by $200 to $1,500. The Intel-based iMacs sell for $1,300 and $1,700, depending on whether you want the 17-inch or 20-inch model.
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20060202/tc_cmp/178600318>
Early testing by Macworld shows that for most purposes, the Intel iMac is slightly but noticeably faster for native applications; system boot time and application launches happen much more quickly. The G5 won't become obsolete: universal binaries will be developed for years to come, so if you were on the fence on an iMac or just need a mid-range desktop that runs non-universal software (such as Adobe Photoshop, for example), this might be the time to buy. [GF]
<http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/firstlooks/imacbench2/>
ToC
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
Apple pushed out Mac OS X 10.4.4 last week, adding universal binary (for Intel-processor compatibility) components and resolving a number of problems with Safari, iChat, and other system resources. It also adds four new Dashboard widgets: People (for looking up residential phone numbers), Google search, ESPN sports news, and Ski Report. A detailed listing of changes appears at the first link below, but some highlights include: iPhoto can work with RAW files from some newer cameras; an annoying bug that caused the System Keychain to ask for authorization but then not accept what you typed has been fixed; and various stability fixes and security updates are also included. The update installer is available via Software Update or as separate downloads ranging in size from 55 MB for the update from Mac OS X 10.4.3 to 166 MB for the Mac OS X Server 10.4.4 Combo installer. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302810>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1044.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1044combo.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1044.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1044combo.html>
TidBITS#813/23-Jan-06
With the Intel Core Duo-based iMac available and the MacBook Pro to follow shortly, Apple has announced a new logo program that developers can use to identify universal binary programs that contain both PowerPC and Intel code (most PowerPC-only programs will run on the Intel-based Macs thanks to Apple's Rosetta technology, but performance will likely suffer somewhat). The Mac OS X Universal Logo Program comes with a license agreement and usage guidelines that are extremely specific, so I'm not going to risk Apple's legal wrath to display the logo on the TidBITS Web site; instead, check it out on Apple's site to see what you should look for in the months to come as more of the software we all use starts to come in universal binary versions. [ACE]
<http://developer.apple.com/softwarelicensing/agreements/maclogo.html>
ToC
TidBITS#813/23-Jan-06
I don't have any inside information on the possible Disney/Pixar merger currently circulating in the rumor mill, but since the Washington Post asked me to comment, I did. It's a good article, and since Mike Musgrove gave my quote the last word, I had to pass it on:
"For Jobs, however, a prominent role at Disney could satisfy some of his ambitions, analysts said. Adam C. Engst, publisher of influential Mac news site TidBITS, said he could understand how access to Disney, one of the top brands on the globe, would appeal to Jobs.
"'Jobs is out to change the world - it's not about money for him,' Engst said. 'The computer is not necessarily the means to change the world anymore... popular culture is how you change the world.'"
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR2006011903190.html>
ToC
by Geoff Duncan <geoff@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#813/23-Jan-06
Well, it's official: Apple is no longer a computer company.
Apple posted its first quarter 2006 financial results last week, with revenue of $5.75 billion and a profit of $565 million for the quarter. The results are a 65 percent increase in revenue over the same quarter a year ago, although the company's gross margin was down to 27.2 percent from 28.5 percent a year ago. International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter's revenue. The results are the highest quarterly earnings and revenue in the company's history.
<http://www.apple. com/pr/library/2006/jan/18results.html>
To be sure, Apple still makes Macs. The company shipped more than 1.2 million Macintosh computers, basically flat with Mac shipments during the fourth quarter of 2005, but a 20 percent improvement over the same quarter a year ago. Why the static quarter-to- quarter sales figures? Sales in the Americas and among portables were particularly weak, due to an aging notebook product line and the public knowledge that Apple is transitioning from PowerPC to Intel processors, no doubt causing some customers to defer purchases until details of new Intel-based products became available. (In case you missed it, Apple just announced Intel- powered iMacs and MacBook Pro portables at Macworld San Francisco.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/ getbits.acgi?tbart=08392>
However, in revenue terms, the iPod success story is still unfolding. The company sold more than 14 million iPods during its first fiscal quarter amounting to $2.9 billion in revenue. This figure is significant because roughly half of Apple's quarterly revenue came from iPod sales alone. Roll in money from other music products and services (e.g., the iTunes Music Store, etc.) and Apple's iPod and music businesses accounted for roughly 60 percent of Apple's revenue for the quarter. The quarter marks the first time Apple's non-computer business has out-earned the company's desktop, notebook, software, peripherals and services offerings.
Looking forward, Apple says it expects second quarter revenue to be around $4.3 billion, a conservative figure which sent Apple's share price into a bit of an after-market tumble. The reasons for a cautious revenue figure include a possible slowdown in iPod sales after the holiday buying season, and a pause in Macintosh sales prior to the introduction of Intel- based models. Some analysts are also cautioning the company may not want to become too reliant on income from the turbulent digital music player market.
ToC
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
Alongside Mac OS X 10.4.4 last week, Apple also updated iTunes and QuickTime. iTunes 6.0.2 is now a universal binary and adds the capability to broadcast to multiple AirPort Express base stations, stability improvements, and a new MiniStore feature that displays the day's top purchases and specials from the iTunes Music Store in a pane at the bottom of the screen. It also displays suggestions based on what's currently playing. The MiniStore met with immediate criticism from privacy advocates that iTunes was improperly sending personal information to Apple; an unnamed Apple official stated to Macworld magazine that the MiniStore doesn't collect any information from users. A new button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window can hide the MiniStore, which disables the feature and doesn't transmit any information about what's being played.
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/>
<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/01/ministore/>
According to Apple's download page for QuickTime 7.0.4, the update provides bug fixes, support for iLife '06, and H.264 improvements. The update is available via Software Update or as a 49 MB download. However, Apple also posted the QuickTime 7.0.1 Reinstaller for QuickTime 7.0.4 (a 20.4 MB download), which removes the latest version and downgrades to 7.0.1. The reasoning for the latter utility is a bit of a mystery (not helped by Apple's minimal release notes), but some discussions at Apple's support site indicate compatibility problems with DiskWarrior 3.0.3 and a few other issues. So, at this time we can't recommend upgrading to QuickTime 7.0.4 until we know more; hopefully, Apple will shortly offer detailed information or a fix. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime704.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime701reinstallerforquicktime704.html>
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
Adobe Systems, Inc. revealed a public beta of their upcoming professional photography workflow software, Lightroom, just before Macworld Expo. (Adobe recently acquired Macromedia, thus the macromedia.com URL.) The company's digital photo manipulation software, which currently requires a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and at least 512 MB of RAM, will be available later for Windows and for Mac OS X running on Intel hardware. Lightroom appears to be aimed at the same professional photography market as Apple's $500 Aperture software.
<http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/lightroom/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08299>
<http://www.apple.com/aperture/>
Included are tools for accomplishing common tasks such as white balance and color correction; support for such typical photography file formats as TIFF, JPEG, RAW, and Photoshop; and a variety of filters such as grayscale and sepia. Users can save presets for frequently used combinations of steps. The current public beta version expires on 30-Jun-06, but the company says later beta releases, which will be announced in the Adobe Labs RSS feeds, will have later expiration dates. [MHA]
<http://labs.macromedia.com/rss_feeds/>
ToC
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
Skype decided to release the final Mac version of their flagship voice and instant messaging program just as Macworld Expo started, ensuring that new features such as call forwarding and iTunes pause/resume would be lost in the shuffle. The new forwarding feature means that someone can call your Skype account and you can forward that call off to a real phone number, such as a cell phone. The incoming call can be made either from another copy of Skype to your Skype account name, or, if you have paid separately for this feature, to a SkypeIn number, which maps a real telephone number to your Skype account. Forwarding costs a few cents a minute to most landlines worldwide and to many cell phone systems in the U.S. and abroad. It's not unified messaging, but it's another step in having your calls follow you (when you want them to). Skype's Mac version has lagged the Windows version's feature and releases, and version 1.4 lacks the video conferencing that's available on that other platform, although that video support has been generally criticized as being less than state of the art. [GF]
ToC
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
Apple is no longer offering their pro video applications as stand-alone products. Since the majority of customers are buying the $1,300 Final Cut Studio (which includes Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro 4), only the suite is now available for purchase; standalone versions will remain available in stores only until supply runs out.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/topquestions.html>
One of the announcements at last week's Macworld Expo keynote was that a universal binary version of the Final Cut Studio suite will be available in March 2006, much earlier than expected. Owners of Final Cut Studio will be able to "cross-grade" to the universal binary version for $50 at that time. This is important because current Final Cut Studio apps won't run at all on Intel-based Macs; if you buy an Intel-based iMac today, you're out of luck for working with pro video until March (realistically, you probably won't be buying an iMac to do pro video, but you get the idea). But Apple is offering a great upgrade deal: if you own the stand- alone Final Cut Pro 5, you can buy the entire suite for $100. If you own just one of the other pro applications or Final Cut Pro 4, you can upgrade for just $200. And if you own a version that's two revisions or older, the suite costs $700. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/>
ToC
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
It's instructive, I think, to mark the resurgence of Apple Computer by what happens at the annual Macworld Expo in San Francisco, both in terms of Apple's keynote announcements and the mood on the show floor. Three years ago in 2003, my Macworld Expo SF wrap-up article was titled "Apple Reduces Its Microsoft Dependency," and in 2004, the equivalent article was subtitled "Enter the Musical Trojan Horse." Last year's article? "Apple Gets Aggressive," and if there was any false bravado in Apple's attitude then, the company's record over the last few years in delivering desirable iPods and Macs supports my title this year. Over that time we've seen Apple metaphorically get to its feet, build the iPod from an overly expensive music player into the trendiest piece of consumer electronics ever, and establish itself as a force to be reckoned with in the industry. Apple has reason to be confident.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07042>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07499>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07952>
For instance, Apple's iPod business has become so strong that Steve Jobs relayed only the most interesting numbers - 42 million iPods sold so far, 32 million of which were in 2005, and 14 million of those in the holiday quarter of the year - before introducing the only iPod-related product of the show, the $50 iPod Radio Remote. Instead, acknowledging that this was Macworld Expo, Jobs focused on iLife '06 and introduced the new Intel Core Duo-based iMac and MacBook Pro months ahead of previous expectations, all while displaying the trademark showmanship and humor that cause people to line up for hours to get a seat (don't worry if you weren't there in person; you can still watch the keynote webcast). It takes confidence to pull off a stunt like dressing Intel's CEO in a chip-fabrication bunny suit and bringing him on stage through a dramatic plume of smoke, and it certainly took confidence for Jobs to mock the rumor sites with his Super Secret Apple Rumors podcast demo. At the moment, Apple is on a roll, and while that doesn't mean everything is perfect, the companies whose fortunes are tied up with Apple are rolling alongside.
<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf06/>
Although Macworld Expo is nowhere near the size it was in its heyday, when it filled both the South and North Halls of the Moscone Convention Center, it's been on an upswing over the last few years. In 2004, there were 260 vendors scattered woefully throughout both halls. In 2005, IDG World Expo wised up and combined all 280 booths into the South Hall. This year once again filled only the South Hall, but it was chock full with 361 vendors. Official attendance numbers aren't yet available, but early impressions indicated that attendance would once again increase from last year's nearly 36,000 attendees. The floor felt full too - the first day is always crazy, of course, but even later in the week, my necessary dashes from meeting to meeting weren't smooth sailing.
Much of the increase was due to the preponderance of iPod-related vendors. In 2005, I commented on how many iPod-related booths there were as well: 32 all told, 14 of whom were selling iPod cases (out of a total of 280). How reasonable that all seems in light of this year, when there must have been 60 or more exhibitors showing some sort of product related to the iPod (no one had the fortitude to count them all), 49 of which sold iPod cases. Last year, Macworld Editor in Chief Jason Snell had suggested that perhaps we'd see iPod-related booths collected into the North Hall; that didn't happen, but if the expansion happens, such a thing would be possible next year.
Despite the jokes about renaming the show "iPodworld," I don't think an iPodworld could even begin to stand on its own. The simple fact of the matter is that there aren't that many categories of iPod accessory: roughly speaking, there are only cases, headphones and speakers, car chargers, FM transmitters and cassette adapters, remotes, voice recorders, and camera connectors. Within each category, most of the products are quite similar, and no matter how involved you are with your iPod, there's a limit on how many accessories you're likely to buy over the lifetime of an iPod. No, the only reason all the iPod-related exhibitors were in attendance is that Mac users are also likely to be iPod users, and in a world where many of the products really are almost identical, companies will take any chance they can get to stand out from the crowd. Even that was difficult at Macworld Expo, because there were so many iPod-related booths, and some of them had so many products, that they all blurred together quickly if you weren't paying close attention. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed looking at all the iPod accessories, and found the number and variety of the cases tremendously amusing, but I can't recall specifics about more than a few of the vendors.
Along with Apple's strong keynote and the increased number of exhibitors, confidence was being exuded on the show floor in more frivolous ways that we haven't seen in years. Tchotchkes - little logo-imprinted giveaways - were far more common than in the last few years, and a number of companies put more effort into dressing their employees identically, with the prize being taken by design-conscious LaCie, whose people were even wearing the same white and orange Nike Shox FSM sneakers to match the rest of their outfits.
This year also marked the return of the booth babe, a sure sign than companies have money to spend. XtremeMac, which sold iPod cases in a bewildering array of designs, placed a treadmill in their booth; apparently the point was to show that their sport cases would in fact enable an iPod to survive the rigors of being worn by attractive young women in workout attire walking briskly. One woman said she was putting in 8 miles per day, and all things considered, being paid to walk on a treadmill and listen to music for a few hours isn't a terrible job. Speaking as a competitive runner, I would have been much more impressed if they'd hired runners instead and put up a scoreboard with the cumulative distance their iPod cases had covered for the show. Another iPod case vendor whose name I forget (so much for that advertising!) had collected four attractive Asian women, dressed them as airline attendants, and had them walk around the show floor with rolling luggage. And Tonya claimed she saw a booth dude somewhere, though once again, she hadn't the least recollection of the details. Much as we'd prefer to see more clever ways of attracting attendees to a booth (like the fresh cookies at the Circus Ponies booth or the SketchUp demos at the Last Software booth, which provided fruit smoothies and hot pretzels), the fact that exhibitors are once again spending money on booth babes is indicative of the upbeat mood.
With Macworld Boston cancelled, even more attention was focused on the San Francisco show this year, and I expect that will be even more true next year, as companies with products that are best shown in person take the best chance to do so. Overall, I think it's the right move for the moment, since as the Macintosh industry rebounds, it makes sense to focus on a single important show and make it even more of a touchstone for the community. Until next year...
ToC
by TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#812/16-Jan-06
While most of the attention at Macworld was focused on the new Intel-powered iMac and MacBook Pro laptop, Apple's software releases were fairly extensive. In addition to the universal binary support built into Mac OS X 10.4.4, the company introduced iLife '06 and iWork '06. Both suites are available now for $80 each, or as $100 5-license family packs; new Macs come with iLife '06 for free and a 30-day trial version of iWork '06.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/>
<http://www.apple.com/iwork/>
iLife '06 features new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand (iTunes is updated on its own schedule), and now includes a new iWeb application for easily creating and posting Web pages on Apple's .Mac service. iWeb uses Apple-designed templates and an easy-to-use interface for adding photos, movies, blog posts, and podcasts - easily grabbed from the rest of the iLife programs, of course.
iPhoto 6 now supports 250,000 photos, ten times the previous limit of 25,000 photos, and - according to Steve Jobs - "scrolls like butter" (at least on a new iMac, we'll see how it performs on older hardware). The new version brings a new full-screen editing interface and new tools to help people choose among photos, edit them more rapidly, and print them not only in the usual books (which boast improved print quality), but also in new greeting cards, postcards, and calendars. Instead of making users apply filters individually to see if it enhances a photo, iPhoto now optionally displays a photo in a series of thumbnails that show each of the different filters pre-applied, so the user can just click the desired thumbnail to apply that effect to the edited version of the photo. In what is meant to be a killer feature, iPhoto also now includes "photocasting," which uses .Mac to share albums between iPhoto users (shared albums appear in the Source pane).
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/>
<http://www.filmloop.com/>
GarageBand 3's signature new feature is a simple three-track task for creating podcasts in GarageBand: Talk into one track while enjoying new speech-enhancing audio processing (such as reducing background noise and improving the quality of male or female voices), drag your own music - or one of 200 royalty-free clips or 100 jingles - into another track (GarageBand automatically "ducks" or fades the volume so the music doesn't overwhelm the voice), and add graphics to a new "podcast artwork" track so that they sync with appropriate points in the other two tracks. Click a button and the podcast file is ready to go. GarageBand also now supports remote interview recording from iChat, as well as a video track for bringing movies in from iMovie to create video podcasts or soundtracks.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/>
(Jobs demoed GarageBand's new podcasting features by producing his own podcast: "Hi I'm Steve and welcome to my podcast: Super Secret Apple Rumors, featuring the hottest rumors at our favorite company..." He then "revealed" a new 8-pound, 10-inch iPod and mentioned other iPod related products, supporting his commentary with hilarious graphics, one riffing off the current iPod ads of a silhouetted man carrying a huge iPod under his arm and another of an iPod-enabled toaster.)
iMovie HD 6 adds animated themes, similar to those we've become familiar with in iDVD. You can add movie clips and photos to moving templates (for example, a travel movie could include a scene resembling a collection of media overlaid onto a map). Also new are real-time effects and titles, the capability to have multiple projects open at the same time (finally), an Export to iPod feature, and the capability to create video podcasts. iMovie HD 6 adds new audio effects, such as a pitch changer and a noise reducer, and a 10-slider equalizer for more precise sound adjustments. Apple also noted in a separate briefing that iMovie's photo handling, which includes the Ken Burns Effect, is now improved over the previous version, which we're eager to test.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/>
iDVD 6 now offers Magic iDVD, which extends last year's One-Step DVD feature by letting you choose a theme; select movies, photos, and music from the Media pane; and push a button: iDVD creates the project and burns a DVD disc. Apple has also enhanced editing a project in the Map view by enabling you to rearrange menu pages by dragging them in the project structure. It also boasts improved slideshows, increasing the previous limit of 99 photos to as many as 9801 photos per slideshow. Perhaps the best news, however, is long-overdue support for burning DVDs using third-party burners instead of requiring a SuperDrive-equipped Mac.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/>
iWork '06 didn't receive the level of changes that we expected, but a few improvements stand out. Keynote 3 and Pages 2 gain new 3D charts, advanced image editing using what appears to be the same Adjust panel found in iPhoto, new themes and templates, the capability to add image reflections below objects (Apple's design element du jour), and free-form shapes with image masking. Tables can also now perform calculations, and you can incorporate reviewers' comments.
As for the individual applications, Pages 2 adds auto-correction, a page thumbnails view for easier document navigation, and a mail merge feature that works with Apple's Address Book application. Keynote 3 improves the build functions by enabling you to intersperse images and bullet points within a sequence, and adds a Light Table view for reviewing and organizing slides. When you're practicing your presentation, you can use the Rehearsal View (which shows the current and next slides, time elapsed, and other information) without having to connect a second display; also, new QuickTime controls provide interactivity with movies, and a password lock can be enabled for letting a presentation run in kiosk mode.
ToC
by Jonathan Rentzsch <jon.tidbits@redshed.net>
TidBITS#814/30-Jan-06
When I received my new Intel-based iMac, I attempted to install Mac OS X on an external FireWire hard drive. Imagine my surprise when I hit a brick wall attempting this formerly simple task. While the Intel-based Macs are mostly compatible with older Macs, they change the Mac boot process in fundamental (and incompatible) ways.
The Intel-based Macs are the first Macs to use Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). Originally intended to replace the PC's aging and unloved Basic Input Output System (BIOS), EFI has found its way into the new Macs, taking over for Open Firmware in PowerPC-based Macs.
Tagging along with EFI is a new partition scheme: GUID Partition Table (GPT); GUID itself is an acronym, expanding to Globally Unique Identifier. GUIDs are locally generated, world-unique random numbers, which make them handy for uniquely identifying all kinds of things without a centralized organization or database. GUIDs are a great way to identify hard disk partitions, enabling the operating system to track volumes even if the device interface changes (as would happen if you ripped your old hard drive out of your Mac and tossed it into a FireWire enclosure).
GPT replaces Apple Partition Map (APM) as the boot partition scheme for Intel-based Macs. And therein lies the rub. Intel-based Macs can't boot from older APM drives, and PowerPC-based Macs can't boot from newer GPT drives. This appears to be a permanent situation - each scheme makes incompatible assumptions about the layout of physical block 1 on the disk. While GPT was designed to be compatible with Master Block Record (MBR, the PC's old partition scheme), it doesn't play nicely with APM.
Even if you could somehow mesh the two schemes, the sad fact is that Mac OS X 10.4.4's double life has not been reconciled to the point where one copy of 10.4.4 will boot both PowerPC- and Intel- based Macs. You can see the evidence of this when you select About This Mac on both systems and click the version number. On PowerPC- based Macs, it reads "Build 8G32", while on Intel-based Macs it reads "8G1165". Eventually Apple will reconcile Mac OS X to one universal build for both systems, but we're not there today.
The new partition scheme affects booting off external drives and at least three Mac OS X programs (in a total of four different ways). Unfortunately, the net impact is a worse user experience.
On Intel-based Macs, the Mac OS X Installer issues an install-blocking error if you attempt to install on a APM drive: "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume."
While it's nice that Apple upgraded Installer to be aware of the scheme incompatibility, the error message fails to convey why Mac OS X cannot boot from the selected drive. I sympathize with the desire to shield the user from partition scheme complexities, but this error message is simply wrong. Mac OS X can start from an APM drive - only Mac OS X on Intel cannot. A better error message would be: "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X on Intel startup requires GUID Partition Scheme."
In order to convince the Installer to allow installation onto your external drive, you must use Disk Utility to repartition the drive using GPT. Unfortunately, Disk Utility is one of the programs whose interface suffers in the face of the new additional partition scheme.
Starting with the version of Disk Utility that shipped with Mac OS X 10.4.3 (confusingly, version 10.5.3 (198.5)), a critical yet nondescript Options button was added to the Partition tab. This shy button appears only when you've selected an external drive. Clicking it reveals a sheet that enables you to select the partition scheme prior to partitioning the selected drive. While the sheet mentions why you'd want to use the PC Partition Scheme (MBR), it remains mute on the need of selecting APM for booting PowerPC-based Macs and GPT for booting Intel-based Macs. Even Disk Utility's Help documentation fails to explain why you'd want to choose one over another. Here we have a setting that's critical to enable booting Intel-based Macs off external drives. When visible at all, it's buried - sans documentation - in a pop-up menu, in a sheet, invoked by a generic button, inside a tab view. It doesn't get any more obscure than that.
Disk Utility's Erase tab lacks any mention of the partition scheme. Arguably this is beyond the tab's scope - the Erase tab is more concerned with erasing what's already there than partitioning drives. But this view doesn't hold, given that you can easily repartition a drive in the Erase tab: just select an existing drive with multiple partitions and click the Erase button. Disk Utility happily repartitions the entire drive into one large partition - always using the APM scheme, or always unbootable on an Intel-based Mac. Ideally Erase would ask the user for the partition scheme, defaulting to the only bootable scheme for the current machine.
This preference pane fails in different ways depending on whether it's run on a PowerPC-based Mac or an Intel- based Mac. Try plugging a GPT drive into a PowerPC-based Mac. Startup Disk allows you to select the disk and goes so far as to let you see the Restart button. However, when you actually click Restart, the process then fails with a beep. If you read your console.log file (using the Console application in your Utilities folder), you'll see the "bless" command (which Startup Disk runs behind the scenes) has failed, complaining it could not determine the partition of the selected GPT drive.
The user experience is slightly better when you plug an APM drive into an Intel-based Mac: APM drives are filtered out and don't show up at all in the list of boot drives in Startup Disk.
Neither experience is good. Startup Disk should be reworked into a vertical list of all partitions (similar to Mac OS 9.2's Startup Disk Control Panel). Boot-incompatible drives should still be listed, but dimmed out and made unavailable for startup selection. A concise note beside each partition would correctly explain why it cannot be selected for startup.
An important point to keep in mind is that all this complexity can be ignored for non-boot drives. If you just have a drive with data on it, you can use it inside or outside both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs without any issues.
If you have an existing boot drive - either internal or external - that was used with a PowerPC-based Mac, you'll need to repartition it (thereby erasing all of its data) in order to use it to boot an Intel-based Mac. The same goes for the other direction (Intel- based Mac to PowerPC-based Mac).
Currently, there is no method to enable one external drive to boot both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. Given the fundamental block 1 incompatibility between these two partition schemes, this situation may be permanent.
The only possibility I see is hand-crafting a hybrid partition scheme that empirically boots both kinds of Macs. I say "empirically," since it may involve crafting a scheme that's invalid by both definitions of APM and GPT, but works anyway due implementation details of how particular Macs boot. For example, APM demands that physical block 1 begins with "PM," while GPT demands "EFI PART". Depending on the how stringent the checks are at boot time, it may be possible to get a PowerPC-based Mac to start executing disk-based code before ensuring the validity of block 1's PM prefix. That low-level code could quickly "fix-up" the erstwhile GPT scheme into an APM scheme, allowing booting to proceed normally.
That said, while perhaps theoretically possible, I'd file such a technique under black-magic rocket-science and would never use it myself. My data is just too precious to risk in such a way.
The Intel-based Macs are out of the gate, and of course there will be stumbling blocks with new machines with new architectures. While the initial program versions haven't fared well in the face of a new partition scheme, at least Installer does stop you before installing Mac OS X on a drive whose partition scheme makes it unbootable. That's a 20- to 40- minute misstep averted thanks to a commendable up-front check.
[Jonathan "Wolf" Rentzsch is an indie Mac contract programmer around Northwest Illinois.]
ToC
TidBITS#814/30-Jan-06
Apple recently announced the PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz) Memory Slot Repair Extension Program (yes, that's the full title). The program addresses an issue that many PowerBook G4 owners have been experiencing where the lower memory slot would stop working. PowerBook G4 models manufactured between January 2005 and April 2005 are affected (serial numbers W8503xxxxxx through W8518xxxxxx); Apple will replace the memory slot and extend the warranty covering the repairs for two years. More specific information can be found at Apple's Web page about the program. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303173>
ToC
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
January 19, 2006 -- The General Meeting began with the traditional introduction of officers.
President Rollins informed us that our meeting room is being redone so the overhead projector isn't working but the room has been acoustically revamped. The church going to have a third service in our room so that's why the room has been remodeled.
Richard reported that Jeff Stevenson <jrsteve@insightbb.com>, our very first Treasurer, is in Room 3322 at Carle Hospital. He is being treated for leukemia. He's in isolation and, Richard says, bored out of his mind. He'll be there for another four or five weeks, so if you could drop him and email he'd probably like that a lot.
The floor was then opened to Question and Answers:
Norris Hansell wants to sanitize text of it's styling and formatting which he's copying and pasting. It was suggested he use Word's Paste Special - plain text. That'll do it.
Kevin Hisel offered a quick report that our connection at the meeting is 3 MB up and 3MB down.
Kevin Hisel then brought up the subject off Google versus Department of Justice. He said he tends to support the DoJ normally, but not on this trying to build a case to shutdown porno sites. The government has asked search engines for search information. Google has told them to go stuff themselves. However, Yahoo caved as did MSN.
Kevin also brought up the topic of the telcos trying to charge content providers for the use of their connection, charging extra for priority traffic. The Baby Bells are searching for new sources of revenue (like they need them). Kevin likened them to Pauly Walnuts on the Sopranos requiring protection money. Kevin Hopkins said this is exactly why he had been covering these issues in the newsletter for months. This is not a liberal issue; it is a conservative issue. This is a democracy issue of who controls "The Pipe" and what is carried in the pipe. MSN shutdown sites in China because of content. Do you trust corporate morality not to do the same here?
It was reported that Google has just bought a huge part of AOL. David Noreen talked about the privacy advocates Googleistocreepy.com. David said he is worried because this information could be subpoenaed in discovery portion of court actions.
Bill Zwicky asked how to get on our wireless network. He's running Linux. Richard jumped to his aid.
There was a discussion about Vonage. Kevin Hisel said it cost $90 to cancel and it doesn't have 911 working properly. It was noted that any of these internet phone services have problems. Richard Rollins said for 911 service you can register your number's location ahead of time. Aside from the 911 issue, Kevin Hisel says those he knows who have VOIP services swear by it. There was talk about GPS in your cell phone. There was also discussion about new technology in commercials.
There was a discussion about the new Intel Macs. Richard Rollins had questions about battery life. Someone brought up the stock price joke on the day they were announced. We talked about the need for new software. The emulator Rosetta uses both processors, so some things run faster.
Someone brought up the Meta File virus problem with Microsoft. They dragged their feet because it was a backdoor for them.
There was speculation about running both OSes on Intel Macs. It was stated that XP wouldn't, but maybe Vista would.
Richard Rollins reported that Mac OS now supports third party burners and widescreen format. He then went on to basically reviewed Jobs' Keynote speech.
Harold Ravlin offered "Apple good. Microsoft bad."
A member had a problem with a newly purchased iRiver player, Plays For Sure, and Digital Rights Management. During the following discussion it was determined that problem is tied to Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10, not the player hardware.
Someone asked about Windows Vista's minimum requirements?
Returning to the new Intel Mac hardware, it was revealed that there are no plans to support OS9/Classic. Kevin Hopkins said he had reservations about moving to the new platform as he had key applications that still required OS9. However, it was found that TextBridge Pro 11 is available for Windows by Nuance, for about $80. TextBridge Pro 8 is the latest version on the Mac.
Emil Cobb announced that Sound Studio 3 would be shown in the Mac SIG. Richard Rollins said he would be demonstrating Hamachi in the PC SIG.
Edwin Hadley asked who Paul Thurrott was. Kevin Hisel said he is a well known writer on PC subjects.
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
This evening, Richard Rollins showed a very useful tool called Hamachi. It was first called TUNA for Tunneling Architecture. It's later incarnation took on the Japanese word for that original "fishy" name.
Richard heard about it on the "Security Now" podcast. he said the Steve Gibson / Leo Leporte podcast is very good.
<http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm>
Alex Pankrapov wrote it. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Hamachi is a peer to peer client. It works like DNS. It has a mediation server. Richard said Remote Desktop runs under Hamachi. Nothing is sent in the clear. It's encrypted before it leaves your machine. He noted this is vital if you are in a open access point, like a Panera's wireless café type situation.
Hamachi is available at:
<http://www.hamachi.cc>
<http://www.hamachi.cc/download>
Richard showed us how to start the program up and install it, and how to set it up. It has a 63 character password.
Richard runs UltraVNC within Hamachi, as strait VNC has no security.
<http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/>
Richard connected to his machine at his house. He ran a web browser off that machine.
Richard highly recommended www.grc.com run by Steve Gibson. That's where he got his password, from their Perfect Passwords, GRC's Ultra High Security Password Generator.
<https://www.grc.com/passwords>
ResKit allows you to turn it into a Service.
<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/>
Richard suggested Chicken of the VNC for the Mac.
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/>
Richard is a font of information on this subject, so if you have questions, ask him. Thanks, Richard, for another amazing demo.
ToC
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)
The January meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, January 24, 2006, 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: Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, Richard Rollins, Rich Hall, Emil Cobb, and Allen Byrne.
Richard Rollins: Richard said "We had a long Question and Answer Session." THis sparked a discussion of Windows and Mac Intel and each running the others software. This discussion was followed by one on storage. Hard drives. Kevin Hisel had bought a 250 MB hard drive for $70. There was a discussion of Hamachi. Kevin said it needs a file browser. UltraVNC has one, Richard said. Richard did the last meetings' PC SIG demo. Kevin Hisel gave kudos to Richard. Kevin said he actually learned something he could put to practical use. Richard noted that it was "All stuff I keep running in to." Richard said he enjoyed the long Question and Answer Session. He apologized for the large overhead projector not working, but we all assured him that the substitute projector worked fine.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin said he was very close to finishing and filing our corporate reports. He's having to fill out the last six years worth of Annual Reports that somehow failed to get done. We will then be reinstated with the State of Illinois. There was a discussion of this paperwork. Kevin reported that he has renewed our web hosting service. The forums are very busy. Jim Huls, Anthony Phillip, Jim Lewis, Kevin Hisel and Dave Witt are the most active. There are a lot of lurkers, Kevin said. Just like the old BBS. Kevin let everybody know Jim Lewis will be backing town on February 26th for a week.
Rich Hall: Rich said he had nothing special to report.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin reported that we had two renewals and two new memberships at the last meeting. We currently stand at 31 members, with 17 members from last year still outstanding. There was a discussion about who these people are. Kevin reported he had already forwarded a list of these people to Kevin Hisel so that he might send out renewal appeals and also take care of assigning access to the forums. Emil said he would like a list of current members for his badge making. Kevin made the request that the Guest Form and the Membership Form be combined to prevent redundant paperwork for guests and new members and also to collect the information we actually need, such as an email address, which is missing on the Guest Form. This has become a problem when we are short on forms and one or the other has had to serve double duty.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that we has 23 people at the last meeting. Emil echoed the sentiment that the Question and Answer Session was very nice. He reported that Edwin Hadley's presentation in the Mac SIG sparked some interest. Brian Forbes will do Toast with Jam and some iTunes tricks at the next Mac SIG.
Allen Byrne: Allen said he was willing to do coordination for the Linux SIG. He ask that the we please get all Linux people together so Allen can talk to them and find out what they want in the SIG. Kevin offered to send Allen a list of all the Linux members. Allen said he has a guy willing to do a presentation on MythTV, a Linux PVR system. At this point though it is still TBA. Next meeting Allen will show his "Waking up to Linux" the web pages he views to start his day. Allen asked that it be stressed in the newsletter that he wants to know what the Linux people want to see. He wants the ideas to come from the members after which he will try to put them into action.
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: 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/ .