The Champaign-Urbana Computer Users Group

The Status Register - May, 2007


This newsletter will never appear on CUCUG.ORG before the monthly CUCUG meeting it is intended to announce. This is in deference to actual CUCUG members. They get each edition hot off the presses. If you'd like to join our group, you can get the pertinent facts by looking in the "Information About CUCUG" page. If you'd care to look at prior editions of the newsletter, they may be found via the Status Register Newsletter page.
News     Common     PC     Linux     Mac     CUCUG

May 2007


To move quickly to an article of your choice, use the search feature of your reader or the hypertext directory above. Enjoy.

May News:

The May Meeting

The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: Thursday, May 17th, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The Linux SIG convenes 45 minutes earlier, at 6:15 pm. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of this newsletter.

The May 17 gathering will be one of our joint meetings. Kevin Hisel will be showing the mail client Thunderbird.

ToC

Encyclopedia of Life Launches

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8987>
TidBITS#879/14-May-07

A number of high profile scientific institutions joined together last week to announce the Encyclopedia of Life, a global project to document on a Web site every one of the 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other organisms. In essence, the Encyclopedia of Life will run along some of the same lines as the Wikipedia, although contributions may be limited to scientists with expertise in the subject, a restriction that may both slow the growth of the project and avoid some of the errors and argumentativeness that exist in Wikipedia. But from the standpoint of those who need information about living organisms, the Encyclopedia of Life's demonstration pages look extremely promising, bringing together written information, photos, video, audio, maps, and more, and presenting it all in an interface that can be scaled to the reader's level of experience. There isn't any live information yet, but it's worth viewing the demo pages, reading the FAQs, and watching the video on the main page.

<http://www.eol.org/>
<http://www.eol.org/demonstration.html>
<http://www.eol.org/faqs.html>

ToC

Microsoft Demands Royalties for Open-Source Software

Microsoft reportedly wants a share of open-source software that allegedly use its technology.

Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service
Monday, May 14, 2007 06:00 AM PDT
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131782/article.html

Microsoft Corp. reportedly wants open-source software users to pay royalties on 235 alleged patent violations.

In an interview with Fortune magazine, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, and Horacio Gutierrez, the company's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, said open-source software, including Linux, violates 235 Microsoft patents <http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm>. And Microsoft wants distributors and users of open-source software to start paying royalties for these alleged violations.

"This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement. ...There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed," Gutierrez said.

Microsoft executives in Singapore were not immediately available to comment on the article.

Smith broke down the alleged patent violations during the Fortune interview, saying the Linux kernel violates 42 patents and the operating system's user interface violates a further 65. He went on to claim that the Open Office application suite violates 45 patents and open-source e-mail applications infringe on 15 more. Other open-source software applications infringe on 68 patents, Smith said.

Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for patent claims against Linux and open-source software for some time. Most notably, the Redmond, Washington, software company signed a Linux deal with Novell Inc. that indemnifies the company against Microsoft patent claims over Linux. Last week, Dell Inc. joined the deal, becoming the first hardware vendor to do so.

Microsoft has struck other deals with hardware makers. In April, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft signed a cross-licensing agreement that included a clause that indemnified Samsung against Linux patent claims.

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

In Web Uproar, Antipiracy Code Spreads Wildly

By BRAD STONE
Published: May 3, 2007
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 - There is open revolt on the Web.

Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and movie industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the studios, because it requires some technical expertise and specialized software to use it to defeat the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

An online uproar came in response to a series of cease-and-desist letters from lawyers for a group of companies that use the copy protection system, demanding that the code be removed from several Web sites.

Rather than wiping out the code - a string of 32 digits and letters in a specialized counting system - the legal notices sparked its proliferation on Web sites, in chat rooms, inside cleverly doctored digital photographs and on user-submitted news sites like Digg.com.

"It's a perfect example of how a lawyer's involvement can turn a little story into a huge story," said Fred von Lohmann, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. "Now that they started sending threatening letters, the Internet has turned the number into the latest celebrity. It is now guaranteed eternal fame."

The number is being enshrined in some creative ways. Keith Burgon, a 24-year-old musician in Goldens Bridge, N.Y., grabbed his acoustic guitar on Tuesday and improvised a melody while soulfully singing the code. He posted the song to YouTube, where it was played more than 45,000 times.

"I thought it was a source of comedy that they were trying so futilely to quell the spread of this number," Mr. Burgon said. "The ironic thing is, because they tried to quiet it down it's the most famous number on the Internet."

During his work break on Tuesday, James Bertelson, an engineer in Vancouver, Wash., joined the movement and created a Web page featuring nothing but the number, obscured in an encrypted format that only insiders could appreciate. He then submitted his page to Digg, a news site where users vote on what is important. Despite its sparse offerings, his submission received nearly 5,000 votes and was propelled onto Digg's main page.

"For most people this is about freedom of speech, and an industry that thinks that just because it has high-priced lawyers it has the final say," Mr. Bertelson said.

Messages left for those lawyers and the trade organization they represent, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, which controls the encryption system known as A.A.C.S., were not answered. In an e-mail message, a representative for the group said only that it "is looking into the matter and has no further comment at this time."

The organization is backed by technology companies like I.B.M., Intel, Microsoft and Sony and movie studios like Disney and Warner Brothers, which is owned by Time Warner.

The secret code actually stopped being a secret in February, when a hacker ferreted it out of his movie-playing software and posted it on a Web bulletin board. From there it spread through the network of technology news sites and blogs.

Last month, lawyers for the trade group began sending out cease-and-desist letters, claiming that Web pages carrying the code violated its intellectual property rights under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Letters were sent to Google, which runs a blog network at blogspot.com, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The campaign to remove the number from circulation went largely unnoticed until news of the letters hit Digg. The 25-employee company in San Francisco, acting on the advice of its lawyers, removed posting submissions about the secret number from its database earlier this week, then explained the move to its readers on Tuesday afternoon.

The removals were seen by many Digg users as a capitulation to corporate interests and an assault on free speech. Some also said that the trade group that promotes the HD-DVD format, which uses A.A.C.S. protection, had advertised on a weekly Digg-related video podcast.

On Tuesday afternoon and into the evening, stories about or including the code swamped Digg's main page, which the company says gets 16 million readers each month. At 9 p.m. West Coast time, the company surrendered to mob sentiment.

"You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company," wrote Kevin Rose, Digg's founder, in a blog post. "We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be." If Digg loses, he wrote, "at least we died trying."

Jay Adelson, Digg's chief executive, said in an interview that the site was disregarding the advice of its lawyers. "We just decided that it is more important to stand by our users," he said. Regarding the company's exposure to lawsuits he said, "we are just going to prepare and do our best."

The conflict spilled over to Wikipedia, where administrators had to restrict editing on some entries to keep contributors from repeatedly posting the code.

The episode recalls earlier acts of online rebellion against the encryption that protects media files from piracy. Some people believe that such systems unfairly limit their freedom to listen to music and watch movies on whatever devices they choose.

In 1999, hackers created a program called DeCSS that broke the software protecting standard DVDs and posted it on the hacker site 2600.com. The Motion Picture Association of America sued, and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, citing the 1998 digital copyright act, sided with the movie industry.

The DVD code disappeared from the 2600 site, but nevertheless resurfaced in playful haiku, on T-shirts and even in a movie in which the code scrolled across the screen like the introductory crawl in "Star Wars."

In both cases, the users who joined the revolt and published the codes may be exposing themselves to legal risk. Chris Sprigman, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said that under the digital copyright act, propagating even parts of techniques intended to circumvent copyright was illegal.

However, with thousands of Internet users now impudently breaking the law, Mr. Sprigman said that the entertainment and technology industries would have no realistic way to pursue a legal remedy. "It's a gigantic can of worms they've opened, and now it will be awfully hard to do anything with lawsuits," he said.

Correction: May 4, 2007

A front-page article yesterday about an online revolt against efforts by a trade organization to remove a secret antipiracy code from the Web erroneously included one Web site among those that received requests to remove the code. Wikipedia did not receive such a letter.

ToC

Hackers Hijack Windows Update's Downloader

Hackers are using Windows Updates' file transfer component to sneak malicious code downloads past firewalls.

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Thursday, May 10, 2007 02:00 PM PDT
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131737/article.html

Hackers are using Windows Updates' file transfer component to sneak malicious code downloads past firewalls, Symantec researchers said Thursday.

The Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is used by Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems to deliver patches via Windows Update. BITS, which debuted in Windows XP and is baked into Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista, is an asynchronously file transfer service with automatic throttling -- so downloads don't impact other network chores. It automatically resumes if the connection is broken.

"It's a very nice component and if you consider that it supports HTTP and can be programmed via COM API, it's the perfect tool to make Windows download anything you want," said Elia Florio, a researcher with Symantec's security response team, on the group's blog. "Unfortunately, this can also include malicious files."

Florio outlined why some Trojan makers have started to call on BITS to download add-on code to an already compromised computer. "For one simple reason: BITS is part of the operating system, so it's trusted and bypasses the local firewall while downloading files."

Malware, particularly Trojans which typically first open a back door to the system for follow-on code, needs to sidestep firewalls to bring additional malicious software -- a keylogger, for instance -- to the PC. "[But] the most common methods are intrusive [and] require process injection or may raise suspicious alarms," said Florio.

"It is novel," said Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec's security response group. "Attackers are leveraging a component of the operating system itself to update their content. But the idea of bypassing firewalls isn't new."

Symantec first caught chatter about BITS on Russian hacker message boards late last year, Friedrichs added, and has been on the lookout for it since. A Trojan spammed in March was one of the first to put the technique into practice.

"The big benefit BITS gives them is that it lets them evade firewalls," said Friedrichs. "And it's also a more reliable download mechanism. It's free and reliable, and they don't have to write their own download code."

Although BITS powers the downloads delivered by Microsoft's Windows Update service, Friedrichs reassured users that there was no risk to the service itself. "There's no evidence to suspect that Windows Update can be compromised. If it has a weakness, someone would have found it by now.

"But this does show how attackers are leveraging components and becoming more and more modular in how they create software. They're simply following the trend of traditional software development," said Friedrichs.

Florio noted that there's no way to block hackers from using BITS. "It's not easy to check what BITS should download and not download," he said, and then gave Microsoft some advice. "Probably the BITS interface should be designed to be accessible only with a higher level of privilege, or the download jobs created with BITS should be restricted to only trusted URLs."

Microsoft was unable to immediately respond to questions about unauthorized BITS use.

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

The FCC Cutaway

Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: May 11, 2007
Audio: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm051107.mp3
Text: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm051107.pdf

On April 30th, the Federal Communications Commission visited Tampa, Florida to hold a public hearing on potential changes to its rules regarding media ownership. As at many other hearings, local corporate media outlets made a show of covering the event, to demonstrate that they really do care about the public interest.

One of those outlets was Media General, a Virginia-based company that owns both the dominant local daily newspaper and a television station in the Tampa market. Both the newspaper and TV station work closely with Media General's primary online outlet in Tampa, called TBO.com, which streamed its own live video of the hearing.

Except for one small part: when Robert Dardenne, a professor of journalism at the University of South Florida, began to speak about how corporate media outlets failed the public through their inadequate coverage of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, TBO.com's web feed suddenly shifted to one of its TV reporters standing outside the hearing venue, clearly oblivious to being on the air at the time.

Media General feed: "Critics amply demonstrate that coverage of most other major media significantly promoted government viewpoints and restricted access to other perspectives. This powerfully illustrates the potentially disastrous weakness of a dominant media willing to sacrifice journalistic principles for economic gain, image, and government favor. No matter [applause break] no matter what we are: pro-war, anti-war, liberal, conservative, Republican, Dem [break to reporter] ... Hey, what's up?"

The reporter fussed with her hair and practiced a few lines from her script for more than a minute and a half before walking off-camera, at which point TBO.com's web feed went black, though it later resumed video from inside the public hearing, but by that time Dardenne's testimony was over. Fortunately, the FCC also webcast the hearing and did not cut away from Professor Dardenne's testimony, so we do know what he said:

FCC feed: "No matter what we are: pro-war, anti-war, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, who among us can say we want this kind of news media? Ideally, a press functions to help us be better citizens and thinkers. It exposes us to diverse perspectives. Then we form and occasionally act on opinions we temper or fortify in discussion. When FCC rules narrow the range of viewpoints, and we are overfed Anna Nicole Smith and starved for alternative perspectives on the war, how can we become better citizens? [Applause break] We are asked not to think, but to consume."

This is no proof of a conspiracy, probably just incompetence in the Tampa offices of Media General, though it certainly doesn't say much about the positive power of "convergence" which Media General and its ilk claim makes for more robust and multi-faceted coverage of local media issues.


Related Links:

Media Consolidation Hearing Provides a Lesson in How Not to Cover the News

Stop Big Media: Tampa Wants Less Convergence, More Competition

YouTube: Tampa FCC Hearing - TBO.com Cuts Away

ToC

The US Slips Again In Broadband

Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 27, 2007
Audio: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm042707.mp3
Text: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm042707.pdf

The 30-nation chartered Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's latest statistics on broadband infrastructure ranks the United States 15th in the world with regard to the deployment of broadband technology. That has Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii worried about the country's future in terms of our information economy.

Senator Inouye: "While some will debate what in fact these rankings measure, one thing that cannot be debated is the fact we continue to fall further down the list."

The United States ranked 12th in the world with regard to broadband infrastructure just a year ago, and when it comes to growth in broadband penetration alone, the U.S. ranks 20th out of 30. Speaking in front of the Senate Commerce Committee on the subject April 24th, Free Press policy director Ben Scott told lawmakers that a lack of competition between the dominant phone and cable companies, coupled with abysmal regulatory research on the broadband marketplace, means we'll continue to fall behind unless a national broadband development policy is implemented.

The first step, says Scott, is for the Federal Communications Commission to stop cooking its numbers to paint a rosy picture of broadband in America. A recent report from the FCC touts significant growth in wireless broadband as a sign that things are improving, but Scott says that's not an honest reading of reality.

Ben Scott "Broadband-capable cell phones, like Blackberries and Trios, much as I love mine, are expensive, they are slow, and they are seldom used as substitutes for a wireline connection at home. We would be wise to shelve the hype on this point about wireless broadband, and face the reality that it is not yet a substitutable competitor."

Although the majority of Americans now have access to some sort of broadband service, whether it be DSL, cable modem, satellite, or wireless, nearly half the population still doesn't subscribe to any of them. Scott believes that's in part due to incumbent providers trying to squeeze the most profit out of the system possible.

Ben Scott "American consumers routinely pay between seven and ten dollars a megabit. Compare that to the less than one dollar that the top nations in the world pay. In short, American consumers are paying less for more than our global counterparts. Worse still, about 60% of Americans are not yet broadband subscribers, either because it isn't available, it isn't affordable, or it simply isn't attractive enough for them to buy."

Senator Inouye says Congress will work to correct this problem with two specific pieces of legislation.

Senator Inouye: "First is the Broadband Data Development Act, to improve broadband data collection at both the federal and state levels. Second, the Advanced Information and Communications Technology Research Act, which will promote innovation here in the United States."

It's a far cry from a national push to make broadband as ubiquitous as electricity, but you have to start somewhere. Other initiatives that could seriously improve access to broadband in America include utilizing old analog TV spectrum for new wireless broadband services, protecting the rights of local and state governments to establish publicly-funded broadband networks to compete with private providers, and reforming the FCC's Universal Service Fund, which was originally set up to bring telephone service to every corner of the country, to now cover the development of broadband networks in unserved areas.


Related Links:

National Strategy, Focus on Openness, Competition Can Inform U.S. Broadband Push

OECD Broadband Statistics to December 2006

Senate Commerce Committee Hearing - Communications, Broadband and Competitiveness: How Does the U.S. Measure Up?

Why the U.S. Doesn't Measure Up

ToC

Common Ground:

160Mbps downloads move closer for US cable customers

By Eric Bangeman
Published: May 08, 2007 - 11:37PM CT
URL: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070508-160mbps-downloads-move-closer-for-us-cable-customers.html

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is holding its annual convention in Las Vegas (where else?) and this year, super-high-speed cable service is finally moving into the limelight. Announcements from hardware providers like Motorola and Texas Instruments suggest that we're finally moving closer to the promised land of DOCSIS 3.0.

DOCSIS 3.0 offers two immediate benefits over what cable ISP subscribers are currently stuck with (DOCSIS 1.1): faster speeds and support for IPv6. The technology has the potential to bump download speeds to 160Mbps and upload speeds to 120Mbps, although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.

In the first widespread deployment of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, a South Korean cable ISP was able to pump 100Mbps service into the homes of its subscribers. This week's announcements provide hope that the kind of speeds seen in Korea will be making their way across the Pacific before too long.

Motorola, Singapore-based StarHub, and cable hardware provider Vyyo announced that they have successfully tested DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, delivering speeds in excess of 145Mbps. Testing was performed over StarHub's hybrid fiber-coax network in Singapore and used a combination of Motorola hardware and Vyyo's spectrum overlay products.

Texas Instruments has also announced a new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem architecture that it says will enable "fast adoption and deployment of advanced DOCSIS 3.0 specification-based products." Called Puma 5, TI's solution provides advanced home networking support and is optimized for data, voice, and video traffic.

The announcements demonstrate that while the cable companies will have to invest in some new equipment, wholesale infrastructure improvements will be largely unnecessary. This is especially true for cable companies that have already deployed mixed fiber/coaxial networks. The upside? Faster DOCSIS 3.0 deployments in the US.

Cable companies have another incentive to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 in a rapid manner. Verizon and AT&T are investing heavily in fiber networks of their own. While AT&T's fiber-to-the-node solution won't break any speed records (DSL download speeds are capped at 6Mbps), Verizon's FiOS network offers the kind of bandwidth that is out of reach even for DOCSIS 3.0. Of course, much of that 3.5Gbps of bandwidth is reserved for television programming (leaving around 622Mbps for broadband), but FiOS has the potential for even faster speeds as more technological advances are made and FiOS TV is migrated to an IPTV system.

Comcast plans to demo DOCSIS 3.0 at The Cable Show this week and, more importantly, plans to begin DOCSIS 3.0 trials later this year, according to Cable Digital News. Large-scale DOCSIS 3.0 deployments are unlikely to begin until next year, and a November 2006 report estimated that only 40 percent of the cable modems in use will support the technology by 2011-by that time, FiOS will be available to well over 18 million households in the US. Still, it's encouraging to see one of those "three-to-five-years-away" technologies poised to finally hit the market.


Related Stories

Pre-DOCSIS 3.0 rollout in South Korea hits 100Mbps Verizon, Comcast pump up the bandwidth. Where's AT&T? With liberty and 100 megabit/second broadband for all

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

With liberty and 100 megabit/second broadband for all

By Eric Bangeman
Published: May 09, 2007 - 11:55PM CT
URL: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070509-with-liberty-and-megabit-broadband-for-all.html

The sad state of US broadband policy has been on the minds of a lot of people for some time. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has affirmed that broadband policy is a "priority" for the Commission, and President Bush said back in 2004 that he wanted universal access to broadband by 2007. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is on board with the broadband love and has an even more ambitious goal: universal 100Mbps broadband from sea to shining sea by 2015, with an interim goal of 10Mbps by 2010.

In a nonbinding resolution introduced to the Senate yesterday, Sen. Rockefeller noted that at the current pace of deployment, "next-generation" broadband networks (which the resolution defines as being capable of 100Mbps) will not be deployed throughout the US for another 20 years. The resolution calls on Congress to work with the President to develop a strategy with the goal of passing legislation by year end, but since a resolution doesn't carry the force of law, there's no guarantee that it will have any tangible results.

In remarks delivered to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Sen. Rockefeller pointed to the examples of Japan and Korea. "In Japan, tens of millions of people have access to a direct fiber connection, and 100 megabit connections are commonplace," said the senator. "Korea has been the leader in DSL for years, and now it also is extending fiber all the way to the home."

Korea is also hitting the 100Mbps benchmark via cable Internet via deployments of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear, and recent developments indicate that the US might not need to run fiber to every household in order to reach the elusive megabit download speeds. At The Cable Show in Las Vegas this week, Comcast demoed some of its own DOCSIS 3.0 equipment that was able to suck down content at 150Mbps.

But as those living in rural areas know all too well, broadband options-let alone next-generation broadband service-can be few and far between. That, too, may change as wireless broadband technologies mature and are brought to market. Perhaps the most compelling of these is the so-called "White Spaces" broadband device currently being tested by the FCC. White spaces broadband would take advantage of unused television spectrum after the transition to digital television in February 2009 to deliver speeds of up to 80Mbps to subscribers.

Sen. Rockefeller credits "healthy competition developing between telephone companies and cable television companies" for the 30Mbps speeds that are available to a mere handful of US residents. However, the definition of broadband competition used by the FCC-where competition is between different modes of broadband delivery rather than the providers themselves-has left millions of Americans with little or no choice when it comes to fast Internet service. And if the telecoms deploying their next-generation networks get their way, that will not change any time in the near future, as they continue to limit their fiber deployments to more profitable and affluent neighborhoods within a municipality while bypassing others.

Universal megabit broadband is not only a noble goal but is arguably a strategic imperative for the US. Sen. Rockefeller's resolution is a first step in the right direction, but the future legislation envisioned by the senator needs to reflect and correct the many failings of current broadband policy in the US if it is to have any meaningful impact.

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

Comcast CEO shows off super quick modem

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070508/ap_on_hi_te/fast_cable_modem_2
By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer

LAS VEGAS -- Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.

The cost of modems that would support the technology, called "channel bonding," is "not that dissimilar to modems today," he told The Associated Press after a demonstration at The Cable Show. It could be available "within less than a couple years," he said.

The new cable technology is crucial because the industry is competing with a speedy new offering called FiOS, a TV and Internet service that Verizon Communications Inc. is selling over a new fiber-optic network. The top speed currently available through FiOS is 50 megabits per second, but the network is already capable of providing 100 Mbps and the fiber lines offer nearly unlimited potential.

The technology, called DOCSIS 3.0, was developed by the cable industry's research arm, Cable Television Laboratories. It bonds together four cable lines but is capable of allowing much more capacity. The laboratory said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification under the standard by the end of the year.

In the presentation, ARRIS Group Inc. chief executive Robert Stanzione downloaded a 30-second, 300-megabyte television commercial in a few seconds and watched it long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes.

Stanzione also downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary in under four minutes, when it would have taken a standard modem three hours and 12 minutes.

"If you look at what just happened, 55 million words, 100,000 articles, more than 22,000 pictures, maps and more than 400 video clips," Roberts said. "The same download on dial-up would have taken two weeks."

Other cable industry executives, including Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Philippe Dauman, cheered the demonstration during a panel afterward.

Brian Dietz, spokesman for the conference host, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said the demonstration was the key technological advance showcased at the conference.

"It's an exponential step forward and we're very excited," Roberts said. "What consumers actually do with all this speed is up to the imagination of the entrepreneurs of tomorrow."

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Kevin Hisel for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

Early Termination Fees

Written and produced by John Anderson (mediaminutes@freepress.net)
Media Minutes: April 20, 2007
Audio: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/archive/mm040607.mp3
Text: http://www.freepress.net/mediaminutes/transcripts/mm040607.pdf

Broadband Internet users, beware: if you decide to cut your connection or change providers you may find yourself with a case of sticker-shock. Bob Williams, director of the Consumers Union's HearUsNow.org web site, says phone and cable companies have begun assessing "early termination fees" on customers who decide to drop or change their service provider.

Bob Williams: "It appears to be coming over from the cell phone industry. They get you into long-term contracts and they keep you there by including in the contracts these early-termination penalties which can be, we found them in the case of broadband up to $200."

Such practices have been very successful at intimidating cell phone customers into keeping services they may not want or like.

Bob Williams: "We've done surveys at Consumer Reports that as many as half the folks that we surveyed said that they did not change their cell phone provider because of these penalties."

But at least with regard to cell phones, there's a semblance of competition between providers. Not so in the world of broadband, where the majority of Americans only have access to one or two choices - the phone or cable company. This leads Williams to believe that such penalties are more about profiteering than customer retention.

Bob Williams: "I don't think the companies worry all that much that there's going to be a lot of consumer backlash because there aren't all that many providers out there. And it's not like the consumers can vote with their feet anyway."

He suggests people press the issue directly with their broadband provider, and don't back down until you get a straight answer.

Bob Williams: "You have to force them to give you something in writing, and then you have to read the fine print. And don't listen to the salesperson. I'm not going to say they would lie to you, but they might not tell you the complete truth. Their idea is to get you sold and signed up. You really have to look out for yourself."

For an overview of major broadband service providers and their early-termination penalty policies, visit the Consumers Union's Hear Us Now blog, at HearUsNow.org.


Related Link:

The Next Big Thing in Broadband: Early Termination Penalties

ToC

VertrigoServ 2.17

URL: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/VertrigoServ/1141978965/1

VertrigoServ was developed to make available a highly professional and easily installable package of Apache, PHP, MySQL, SQLite, SQLiteManager, PhpMyAdmin and Zend Optimizer for Windows platform. With a convenient all-in-one installer, all components are installed in a single directory and can be used immediately after the installation process has completed. An uninstaller allows you to remove the VertrigoServ from hard disc. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore highly suitable for Internet distribution. VertrigoServ is excellent both for beginners and for advanced users.

And it's free.

Download Now
File Size: 9,297 KB

Released: May 10, 2007
Publisher: Dariusz Handzlik
Homepage: VertrigoServ
Downloads: 1,031
License: Open Source
OS Support: Windows (All)
Uninstaller?: Yes
Skin Support? No; Supports XP Themes
Rating: 4.9/5 (15 votes)


ToC

The PC Section:

WinInfo Short Takes

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

PC Makers Complain about Vista Battery Life Problems

PC makers are starting to complain publicly about the battery life offered by portable computers running Windows Vista: Apparently, the new OS isn't as battery-friendly as Windows XP. The culprit, predictably, is Vista's new hardware-accelerated Aero UI. When Aero is on, PC makers say, battery life goes down the tubes. With Aero off, Vista delivers similar battery life to XP. PC makers such as HP and Lenovo are tinkering with the power management modes on the Vista-based PCs they ship and some are even turning Aero off by default. The situation could improve soon, as Intel is set to release a new generation of mobile-friendly microprocessors next week that might help. Meanwhile, there's growing evidence that something is rotten in Redmond. Which, no, is not anywhere near Denmark.

Home Premium Is the Most Popular Vista Version, as Expected

One of the interesting factoids that came out of Microsoft's earnings report is that the premium versions of Vista--mostly Vista Home Premium, but also Vista Ultimate--account for about 71 percent of all Vista versions bundled with new PCs. That percentage represents an 18 percent jump year-over-year compared with sales of premium XP versions (primarily XP Media Center Edition 2005).

Dell Brings Back Windows XP Option for Consumers on Certain Low-End PC Models

Responding to feedback on its Idea Storm Web site, Dell this week announced that it would again offer Windows XP on certain low-end, consumer-oriented PC models. Dell, like most PC makers, had essentially eliminated XP as an option after Windows Vista shipped in January. I wouldn't read too much into this decision: Dell is floundering in the market right now, undergoing a restructuring, and is currently doing everything it can to listen to customers and turn things around.. Remember, these guys are also going to begin offering Linux on select PCs in the coming months. And we all know that's going to work out swimmingly.

Mozilla Releases New Email Solution

Mozilla Corporation this week released Thunderbird 2, the latest version of its email application. Though less well-known than its Firefox sibling, Thunderbird is a first-class email solution, one whose heritage stretches all the way back to the first version of Netscape Communicator from the late 1990's. Like Firefox, Thunderbird is completely free. The new version includes message tagging, enhancing email searching, and a multitude of customization options. I'll be reviewing Thunderbird 2 on the SuperSite for Windows shortly, but you can snag the new download today from the Mozilla Web site. (http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/)

HP Continues Dominance of Dell in Recent Quarter in US

Gartner has released its PC market share figures for the first calendar quarter of 2007, and the results are unsurprising. PC makers sold 62.7 million PCs worldwide, according to the firm, a jump of 8.9 percent when compared with the same quarter a year earlier. The number one PC maker, again, was HP, which sold over 11 million machines to grab 17.6 percent of the market. Dell came in at number two, with 8.7 million units, or less than 14 percent of the market, a drop of 7.8 percent. (However, Dell was number one in the US, curiously.) Worldwide, Dell continues to falter in the face of withering competition from HP and a variety of internal problems. Rounding out the top five are Acer, with 6.8 percent of the market, Lenovo with 6.3 percent, and Toshiba with 4.1 percent. Gartner says that HP's dominance was aided by the release of Windows Vista, though Microsoft's latest operating system, overall, did little to rejuvenate the wider PC industry, according to analysts.

HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray

While partisans on either side of the HD DVD/Blu-Ray next-generation DVD debate are eager to claim an early victory, the truth is, neither side is doing all that well. However, some early--if small--numbers are starting to emerge suggesting that HD DVD might be pulling away from Blu-Ray. To date, over 100,000 dedicated HD DVD players have been sold in just the US, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group announced, a figure that does not include sales of Microsoft's HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. That's nice, but here's a curiously contradictory bit of data: Movies in Blu-Ray format are outselling movies in HD DVD format by a 7-to-3 margin. According to Sony, almost 550,000 Blu-Ray movies have sold to date, compared to just 250,000 for HD DVD.

ToC

Measuring the Success of Vista's First 100 Days

Paul Thurrott, WinInfo
URL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/96022/96022.html?Ad=1

As Windows Vista reaches its first meaningful milestone--100 days of widespread availability, as measured from its January 29 consumer launch--it's time to begin analyzing whether the product is truly successful. Back in March, Microsoft announced that Vista sales were record setting, with more than 20 million Vista licenses sold in its first 30 days on the market, a rate double that of its predecessor, Windows XP. And in April, Microsoft credited better-than-expected Vista sales for the company's record quarterly revenue of $14.4 billion.

Still, Vista seems to have a shroud of controversy. Some high-profile technical bloggers have written about switching back to XP or even to a Macintosh, citing problems with Vista. There seems to be a lot of Vista hardware and software incompatibility horror stories on the Internet, with some suggesting that Vista be renamed Windows Me 2, after the ill-fated Windows release from 2000. And some bloggers have attempted to break down Microsoft's earnings in a dubious bid to prove that Vista isn't really selling as well as Microsoft claims.

So what's the truth? In the coming weeks, Microsoft will answer these and other questions as it addresses the 100 days milestone. We can also expect more information to come out at next week's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). But for now, with the help of some numbers and statistics from Microsoft and other sources, I can shed some light on at least two measures of Vista's success.

First, let's look at Vista sales. In calendar year 2006, PC makers sold about 230 million PCs worldwide, and analysts expect PC sales to jump 8 to 11 percent this year. Assuming Vista is installed on most of those PCs--and it will be--you're going to see some pretty healthy numbers for Vista. (Microsoft has conservatively estimated a Vista installed base of 100 million by the end of 2007.) But in Microsoft's world, corporate sales are king. According to the company, corporate sales of Vista--despite all the rumors--are actually almost twice that of the previous record holder, Windows 2000.

But don't take Microsoft's word for it. Gartner claims that Vista will be installed on 4.2 percent of all business computers by the end of 2007, and IDC has estimated that number to be 5 percent. In comparison, Win2K was installed on 2.6 percent of all business computers after a year on the market. Note that these figures are based on percentages of the overall market: Vista isn't getting an artificial boost because the PC market is larger today. In addition, "InformationWeek" Research said that 25 percent of the 612 businesses it surveyed are currently deploying Vista, and an additional 17 percent plan to begin deploying Vista by the end of the year. That rate is also much higher than it was for previous Windows versions, according to "InformationWeek" Research.

Next, let's look at all the high-profile bloggers' problems with Vista. Although one might question the technical acuity of a so-called technical guru who can't handle a brand-new OS, you have to wonder if these critics have problems that translate into widespread, real-world problems. As it turns out, they don't. And this matches my own experiences: As a reviewer, I've installed Vista on numerous hardware configurations and have run into few compatibility problems. The problems I did have were quickly fixed right after Vista's consumer launch in January. So where are all these complaints coming from?

Obviously, some real compatibility problems do exist: Vista is a major Windows update with a completely redesigned driver model, a newly secured kernel, and a new graphics stack. Antivirus is an obvious area where Vista lagged behind at launch, although one might argue that antivirus vendors knew Vista was coming for years before it shipped. (Today, all five major antivirus vendors have Vista-compatible products on the market.) Overall, the very public noise about supposed compatibility problems has completely drowned out reality: Most devices (and applications, for that matter) work just fine with Vista.

Let's look at the numbers. In January, more than 1.5 million devices were Vista compatible. Today, there are 1.9 million Vista-compatible devices. Microsoft told me that number represents about 96 percent of the devices out there today. Sounds like a horrible level of compatibility, doesn't it? "We were more ready with ecosystem coverage--that is, application and device support--with Vista than we were with any other OS release," Windows Client Partner Platform Group Director Dave Wascha said. "This was a five-year effort aimed at getting our partners and customers ready."

In addition, Microsoft has added instrumentation to Vista so that customers can provide the company with feedback if something goes wrong. Thanks to this feedback, the company is making fixes at an unprecedented rate. More importantly, Microsoft is identifying the device driver incompatibilities that are causing the most problems and fixing those first. Of the remaining 4 percent of incompatible devices, or about 70,000 devices, 4,000 of them account for about 80 percent of the problems. "This is our bogey list right now," Wascha told me in a recent briefing. "So we're on the phone with vendors, flying out to meet with them, and getting these issues addressed. Once that's done, we'll do it all again."

So what's the criterion for getting a device to work in Vista? Wascha told me that Microsoft will fix or create drivers for any device that generates 500 or more user reports. "We have legions of engineers dedicated to this one purpose," Wascha said. "And we will continue to churn through that list." The only exception, of course, is drivers for devices that are no longer sold because the company that made them went out of business. "Unfortunately, the answer there is that it will never work," Wascha said.

Microsoft is caught in a catch-22 in some ways. Customers want the company to be innovative, but often don't like the side effects of that innovation. For example, Microsoft changed the graphics architecture in Vista to make it more visually exciting, but then some users complained that their video cards were no longer compatible. "Some people have had a less than stellar experiences with graphics cards," Wascha admitted. "This is a tiny minority of users. Unfortunately, it's been a vocal minority." Wascha wouldn't name the main culprit, but in my experience, NVIDIA's graphics cards have lagged behind ATI's, although the gap appears to have shrunk in recent days.

And what about those high-profile problems that the bloggers are grousing about? According to Wascha, those problems have never shown up in Vista's instrumentation. That's right: These bloggers actually opted out of Microsoft's feedback program. And when the fixed drivers do become available, you never see follow-up posts crediting Microsoft for fixing the problems. "We sit here and wrack our brains," Wascha said. "The drivers are out there."

Meanwhile, there are other pesky facts that just don't correlate with widespread opinion articles on the Internet. Microsoft is seeing one-third the number of security problems in Vista that it saw in XP's first 100 days. Application crashes are also being addressed more quickly. For example, Wascha noted that Microsoft shipped a compatibility fix for a bug that was causing applications to crash less than two days after the bug was reported. "We want to make sure that the perception out there about the product is accurate," Wascha said. "We're excited about the work we've done, and we know the system is working."

ToC

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Kevin Hisel for the above contributions to this section of the newsletter.]

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PC World Editor in Chief Harry McCracken Returns

Had resigned in dispute with CEO Colin Crawford over editorial independence. Crawford to return to prior IDG post.

Ramon G. McLeod, Editor, PCWorld.com
Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:00 PM PDT
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131702-page,1/article.html

In a surprise announcement, Robert Carrigan, president of IDG Communications, told PC World's staff today that "Harry McCracken has decided to remain with PC World as vice-president, editor in chief."

"[CEO] Colin Crawford will be rejoining the IDG management team as executive vice president, online. In this role, he will be responsible for driving IDG's online strategy and initiatives in support of our Web-centric business focus," Carrigan said. "We will conduct a search for a new CEO to lead PC World and Macworld."

McCracken tendered his resignation on April 30 after Crawford refused to allow publication of a story entitled "10 Things We Hate About Apple." McCracken said that the story was killed (it is now running on PCWorld.com) because of Crawford's concerns about the impact it would have on Apple advertising. Crawford denied that was the reason for killing the story, but has since apologized to the editorial staff for the decision.

The resignation sparked an outpouring of coverage, which you can read here, and reader protest, including subscription cancellations.

Carrigan said, "Colin has been very successful in helping set online strategy and communicate it both inside and outside IDG. As he told me, 'I am glad to return to a position where I can raise our profile and contribute to the exciting transformation of our company around the world.'"

Crawford said, "It's excellent news that Harry has decided to stay on at PC World as the editorial leader. I am excited to move back to a corporate role at IDG as EVP Online, where I can focus on various online opportunities for IDG, both in the U.S. and on a global basis."

For his part, McCracken said "I'm thrilled to be back with the PC World team. IDG is a company I've loved working for over the past 16 years, and one with a remarkable history of enabling editors to serve our customers--the millions of people who depend on our content online and in print."

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

ToC

Microsoft Automatic Updates Fix not Working

Windows XP systems still lock up during patch updates, even after users deploy Microsoft's fix.

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Saturday, May 12, 2007 08:00 AM PDT
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131770/article.html

Windows XP systems are still locking up during patch update attempts -- even after users deployed the fix suggested by Microsoft Corp.

Symptoms of the long-running problem -- which the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) team dubbed the "svchost/msi issue" -- include 100 percent CPU usage by svchost.exe and its multiple processes during Automatic Updates scanning, update downloads and sometimes even if AU is simply enabled on a machine.

"Of course, the computer is virtually unusable" when that happens, said a user identified as Foxy-Perth on the Windows Update support forum.

Every month at patch time, Microsoft's support boards fill with complaints from users. It was no different this week. "I have 6 (and counting) computers having issues with SVCHOST process running at near 100 percent CPU utilization," said TKovacs on Wednesday, one day after Microsoft unveiled seven security updates. "Disabling Automatic Updates resolves the issue. [What] did Microsoft just release?"

A hotfix, updated just Thursday, is available on the Microsoft support site. The patch will be pushed out via Microsoft's usual update services, including Windows Update and Microsoft Update, late this month or in early June, said a developer on the WSUS blog. However, the fix can be downloaded and installed manually on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems.

Users will also need to download and install the new stand-alone WSUS 3.0 client -- even those who don't rely on the enterprise-centric WSUS for updates -- to completely patch the problem. "It's important to keep in mind that the new WSUS client is only a partial solution and clients must have both KB927891 and the new 3.0 client installed for a full solution," the WSUS team blog read.

The new client and the WSUS update to Version 3.0 will be available to WSUS on May 22. Like the hotfix, the client can also be downloaded manually and installed now. Instructions and a link to the download have been posted to the MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) site.

Thursday and Friday, however, users poured out their frustration on the WSUS blog after installing the hotfix and updating the WSUS client. "I installed both WindowsXP-KB927891-v3-x86 and WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86 on Windows XP SP2 boxes configured to get updates from a WSUS 2.0 server. The problem still exists," said Summit Tuladhar in a comment to the blog.

"Doesn't appear that the fixes address the issue I experience on multiple machines," said ltpolaris.

"This is clearly a very serious worldwide issue," said Alan O'Riordan. "I will advise the disabling of the Automatic Updates until a clear resolution is found."

"I doubt you'd call what you've cobbed [sic] together a 'fix.' Thanks for nothing," said another user simply labeled jaded_admin. "We are seriously considering a pilot with SLED [SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop] or Ubuntu and OpenOffice now. Your poor workmanship is driving your customers right into the arms of the open-source community."

[Editor's Note: My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

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Vista Home Basic on 512MB? Hey, it works!

Posted by Ed Bott @ 2:38 pm
URL: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=247

Everyone knows Windows Vista is a resource hog. Everyone says it doesn't even get out of first gear without a gigabyte of RAM, and it takes 2 GB before it stops stuttering and stammering with each mouse click. Everyone says Vista Home Basic is the black sheep of the family, deserving only of a sideways glance and a dismissive harrumph. That's what I keep reading on the Internet, so it must be true.

Which is why I had steeled myself for pitiful performance when I yanked all but 512MB out of my test system last week and downgraded to Vista Home Basic. With a 2002-vintage CPU and Microsoft's minimum recommended RAM, running the most basic of Vista retail editions on a 30GB partition, surely this would be a painful experience.

Or not.

You shouldn't believe everything you read. I was expecting to need Valium and vodka and an on-call therapist to handle Vista Home Basic on this low-end system. Instead, I found a snappy, responsive OS that did everything I asked of it.

My primary goal was to measure startup times, answering skeptics who thought my test results from a few weeks ago were skewed by the expansive 1.5GB of RAM on this ancient P4 test machine. So I pulled out all but one stick of RAM and prepared for the worst. All you Vista bashers will be disappointed to hear what happened next:

To be fair, I didn't do anything I knew would have brought this system to its knees. I didn't try to rip a DVD, decode the human genome, or run Office 2007. But stillÉ I'd have no qualms about handing this system over to my mom, my brother, or my best friend.

On the Windows Experience Index, this system rates a 2.0, thanks to its sluggish RAM (and even when I put those two extra 512MB sticks of RAM back in, the number doesn't budge). The CPU on this system earned a 3.8. By contrast, Intel's bottom-of-the-line 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo T5200, standard on every $599 notebook PC these days, rates a 4.3.

Surprisingly, even the visuals on this system were a treat. With a three-year-old video card, this system was capable of running Vista's Aero graphics. But because Aero doesn't run on Home Basic, I was stuck with the Vista Standard display. It lacks the transparent window borders and whizzy live previews on taskbar buttons, but otherwise the look is indistinguishable from a system running Windows Vista Ultimate.

The conventional wisdom says Vista Home Basic is a dog, and that it slows to a crawl with 512MB. Don't believe everything you read.

[Editor's Note: I got this note from Jon, "A member at the last meeting asked about running Vista on 512. Here's an article." This is what I think the newsletter should be about. Ask and receive, give and get. My thanks to Jon Bjerke for submitting this piece for the newsletter.]

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Directory Opus 9.0 is now available

URL: http://www.gpsoft.com.au/DScripts/download.asp

You can test drive a fully functional evaluation version of Directory Opus 9.0 for 60 days - for free!

Simply download Directory Opus from the links below, then click here to request your free evaluation licence. Registered users wishing to upgrade should also download Directory Opus from the links below.

Current Version:

File Version Description Size
Directory Opus 9 9.0.0.2 self-installing executable containing
the latest version of Directory Opus
(2000/XP/Vista or later)
13.1MB
Reference Manual 9.0 the full Directory Opus 9 manual
in PDF format
3.28MB
Release Notes 9.0 the Directory Opus 9 Release Notes
(changes from Opus 8) in PDF format
506KB

Link - go to the GP Software web site.

ToC

The Linux Section:

Better Wi-Fi on the Linux Horizon

Carla Schroder
Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:25:52 PM
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6382/1/
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6382/2/
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6382/3/

The Coming Alphabet of 802.11

Wireless networking on Linux is entering a new era. An era of bliss and ease; where users and network administrators have abundant time for relaxing lie-abouts on sunny warm hills because their wireless systems are humming along contentedly, instead of being vexing and unreliable.

OK, so maybe it's not going to be quite that Utopian, but things are definitely looking up, thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of talented developers.

So what's going to be different? A brand-new wireless LAN (WLAN) kernel stack, which is going to reduce the current WLAN herd-of-cats approach to a single unified subsystem that supports all wireless drivers. It all started with Devicescape, which released its previously proprietary Advanced Datapath Driver under the GPL in May 2006, and which is now in the Andrew Morton (mm) kernel tree. Sometime not too long from now it will be merged into the mainline kernel. Devicescape says this delivers "the first-ever native Wi-Fi support in the Linux kernel."

"What?" you cry, "Linux has had wireless support since forever!" Which is true, but as a hodge-podge of overlapping, disorganized drivers and utilities for different types of wireless devices. It hasn't had a unified Wi-Fi-compliant subsystem until now.

A brief digression here, since this is a common point of confusion. Wi-Fi is a trademarked brand name with a specific meaning. It refers to drivers and devices that support the growing family of IEEE 802.11 wireless specifications. The current IEEE 802.11 wireless specifications that users and admins are most concerned with are:

There are gobs more, all the way down the alphabet. So when you see 802.11n, for example, that is the name of the specification, even though it looks like a wildcard. 802.11x is the unofficial wildcard that means "all official 802.11 guff." What happens when they get to the end of the alphabet? They're already there--802.11x is reserved and will not be used, to avoid confusion with the 802.1x standard for port-based access control. I know, I know, don't blame me, I'm just the messenger.

There are a number of wireless extensions outside any 802.11 specification. A common one is the "turbo-boost" or "speed booster" features you see advertised on a lot of wireless devices. Each vendor has its own way of implementing these. Some use channel-bonding, some use packet- or frame-bursting. There is also disarray over 802.11n, which defines MIMO (multiple input, multiple output antennas), which is also hyped as generating more speed. Mostly these are incompatible with each other and cause various problems, which is why you read "buy all of your gear from the same vendor." A pox on that, I say! Freedom for the people! That's why we have industry standards.

The good news is eventually it will all sort itself out, because after all this is all new bleeding-edge fun.

Meanwhile, Back At the WLAN Ranch

John Linville, ace kernel developer and kindly answerer-of-questions, shared a lot of interesting information about the shiny new Linux wireless code.

Currently the goal is to replace the elderly (but all lifesavers in their time) wireless-tools extensions, the ieee80211+softmac layer, and perhaps someday the ieee80211 subsystem. Mr. Linville explains some of the challenges in supporting modern wireless hardware:

"Early wireless networking hardware went to a lot of trouble to look like ethernet adapters. This generally involved an on-board controller running firmware that accepted ethernet frames from the host, converted them to wireless frames for transmission, and then did the reverse on reception. These are referenced as "full MAC" devices, because they implement this MAC-layer functionality on the hardware itself. Of course, having a controller and memory for the firmware adds cost to the hardware. So, most newer (especially consumer-grade) hardware has minimized or eliminated those components. This leaves some or all of the explicitly wireless networking bits in the hands of the host CPU. (Such devices are referenced as "half MAC" or "soft MAC" devices, because they rely on software to implement this MAC-layer functionality.)"

Currently the ieee80211+softmac layer does this job for a number of devices. A notable exception is Atheros-based interfaces, which are supported by the MadWiFi drivers. As Mr. Linville said

"Some drivers (notably MadWifi and many drivers for "other" operating systems) simply implement the wireless bits themselves, while still presenting themselves to the host networking stack more-or-less as ethernet devices. The problem here is that each driver is then responsible for re-implementing this functionality. This is not only wasteful of programming talent, it is also error prone and likely to result in inconsistent behaviour and feature support between different drivers."

Which explains a lot of the problems with trying to build a Linux-based wireless access point. I use Atheros-based interfaces because they deliver all the functionality that I want: AP (Access Point) Mode, Managed, Ad-Hoc, Monitor, and WDS (Wireless Distribution System), which supports wireless mesh networks. But Atheros has the infamous binary kernel blob problem. Other wireless interfaces just don't do what I want. But there is hope for more choices:

"One example of this is that AP mode is only supported by a handful of hardware in today's mainline kernels, while potentially it could be supported by many more devices if the driver authors did not have to do all the work themselves. By providing the mac80211 component, the Linux wireless community can provide a consistent feature set across a broad range of wireless drivers while minimizing the effort to create and maintain those drivers. Surely that sounds impressive!"

You're darn tootin' it does. Which leads us to the main components of the new WLAN subsystem:

* mac80211
      Common driver base for soft-MAC devices

* cfg80211
      Kernel wireless API (Application Programming Interface)

* nl80211
      User-space API

The existing ieee80211 system is going to be needed for awhile yet. It supports the older ipw2100 and ipw2200 drivers (for Intel Pro interfaces), which are full MAC devices. The current plan is to refactor some of the code from ieee80211 and mac80211 and use that to build a nice new lib80211. Then the remaining bits of ieee80211 will be converted into a library specifically to support the ipw2100 and ipw2200 drivers, which will be called libipw or something equally hummable.

Supported Drivers and Devices

You'll find lists at LinuxWireless.org/en/users. Vendors such as Ralink, Realtek, Atmel, Broadcom, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Intersil are represented here. A notable omission is Atheros, because of the binary regulatory blob problem and other issues. But even here, according to Mr. Linville, there is hope of working out the various issues and bringing Atheros devices on board as well.

Resources:

This article originally appeared on Enterprise Networking Planet, a JupiterWeb site.

ToC

AMD will deliver open graphics drivers

by Jan Stafford
Posted: May 9th, 2007
URL: http://enterpriselinuxlog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/05/09/amd-will-deliver-open-graphics-drivers/

AMD will soon deliver open graphics drivers, said Henri Richard just a few minutes ago, and the audience at the opening keynote of the Red Hat Summit broke into applause and cheers. Richard, AMD's executive vice president of sales and marketing, promised: "I'm here to commit to you that it's going to get done." He also promised that AMD is "going to be very proactive in changing the way we interface with the Linux community."

The open sourcing of graphics drivers will indeed be good news, but it's not a big surprise. After AMD acquired graphics driver maker ATI last year, an announcement that AMD would be opening up graphics drivers has been anticipated. The other shoe has dropped, and the folks at the Summit in San Diego are very happy. Now, the new question is "when?" Richard didn't say.

Well, in a webcast last week Richard told the world that AMD would be delivering Vista drivers, too, and supporting it with gusto. According to the blog, istartedsomething.com:

<http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070509/amd-100-vista-days-webcast/>

"First Henri announced that AMD will be rolling out a gold master image of Windows Vista for deployment throughout the company as a sign of their confidence over the stability and performance of Windows Vista with a combination of their hardware and software support."

AMD's got a lot of supporting to do.

ToC

Installing Ubuntu Studio 7.04 - Linux For The Creative

Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Version 1.0
Last edited 05/11/2007

Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavour of Ubuntu, built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional. It is an official derivative of the Ubuntu open source operating system and comes with applications such as Ardour2, Wired, Hydrogen, Blender, Inkscape, Pitivi, and many more, as well as a beautiful dark theme (read the release notes to learn more). This walkthrough shows how to install it.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

[More information at http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntustudio_7.04 ]

ToC

The Macintosh Section:

Apple Reports Strong Q2 2007 Financials

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8966>
TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07

Thanks to the holiday sales that boost Q1 profits, there's no way Apple's second quarter results could have competed with Q1 2007's record-setting numbers (see "Apple Posts $1 Billion Profit for Q1 2007," 2007-01-22), but they're still awfully strong. For the fiscal quarter ending 31-Mar-07, Apple posted revenue of $5.26 billion (up from $4.36 billion in the year-ago quarter) and a net profit of $770 million (up from $410 million). Gross margin also increased significantly, at 35.1 percent, up from 29.8 percent, showing that Apple is making more from each sale.

<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/25results.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8816>

The strong numbers resulted somewhat more from 1,517,000 Macs sold, up 36 percent over the year-ago quarter, than from the 10,549,000 iPods sold, a 24-percent increase. Macintosh sales accounted for $2.27 billion in revenues (up 44 percent from the year-ago quarter), whereas iPods contributed $1.69 billion (down 1 percent). The iTunes Store, iPod services, and Apple's sales of Apple and third-party iPod accessories accounted for $653 million in revenues, outstripping the $309 million Apple brought in from sales of peripherals and the $345 million from software.

It's interesting that Apple's unit sales of iPods grew by 24 percent over last year's second quarter, but revenues dropped by 1 percent. That would seem to imply that Apple is selling more of the cheaper iPods. Also worthy of note is that the shift in popularity from desktops to portables has continued. A year ago, the ratio of desktop units sold to portables was 55 to 45 percent, where it had been for at least a few quarters. But in Q3 2006, the ratio switched to 40 percent for desktops and 60 percent for portables, and that ratio has held steady ever since.

The share of Apple's sales that came from international markets remained flat from Q2 2006, at 43 percent, mostly thanks to a strong showing in Europe that outweighed a drop in Japan. The international sales percentage dropped precipitously after Q2 2006 and has been rising ever since.

ToC

Former Apple Employees Charged in Stock Option Backdating

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8963>
TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused two former Apple executives in two instances of illegal stock option backdating that Apple had previously disclosed after an internal investigation (see "Apple Releases Stock Option Backdating Report," 2007-01-08). Nancy Heinen, former general counsel of the company, was charged with improper actions in two sets of options grants and in altering company records to conceal what the SEC alleges was fraud. The full complaint is available as a PDF.

<http://sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2007/lr20086.htm>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8803>
<http://sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20086.pdf>

Former chief financial officer Fred Anderson was separately charged with failure to ensure that Apple's financial statements were correct through a lack of observation in the first of those two sets of options grants. In that first set of grants, Heinen, Anderson, and four other executives benefited. In the second, only Steve Jobs stood to gain.

Anderson immediately settled the charges without "admitting or denying the allegations," an approach the SEC allows when the agency perceives public interests are served by closing the affair instead of proving guilt or losing a case. Anderson will give up nearly $3 million in stock option gains and nearly $700,000 in interest and penalties.

Stock options convey the privilege, but not requirement, to purchase stock at a given price. Money is made by exercising the options (purchasing them) and then selling when the options' price is below the current market price of the stock. Options often come with a restriction on how soon the underlying stock may be purchased.

In stock-option backdating, the date on which the option is granted does not reflect an actual board meeting or other event at which an option is granted. Rather, the option is set to a preferentially cheaper price by choosing a date on which the stock is cheaper than on the substituted option grant date, putting options immediately "in the money."

Backdating is legal if acknowledged with proper record keeping, including financial charges that result from what is essentially a company gift of additional money captured from the stock market. The SEC stated that nearly $40 million in expense was improperly excluded from Apple's regulatory filings.

Apple earlier found several instances of backdating, but cleared current management, including CEO Steve Jobs. The SEC said Apple cooperated in the investigation, and it has no plans to charge the company. Other charges against individuals could still come, including Jobs and other members of current management.

Following the SEC's press release, Anderson's attorney released a statement in which the attorney said Anderson informed Jobs about potential accounting charges required for one of two grants to Jobs that were later canceled and replaced with grants of stock that required no exercise. Anderson's attorney said, in brief, that statements made to Anderson turned out to be false, although the attorney doesn't state it so bluntly. (So much for "neither admitted nor denied" the charges.)

<http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070424006168>

Apple's board of directors, excluding chairman Jobs, released a statement the day after Anderson's, expressing full confidence in the company's own investigation and in Jobs.

<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/25statement.html>

While Anderson settled the charges, it's unclear precisely why, and the release doesn't explain his decision. It's easy to speculate that in Anderson's current role - alongside U2's Bono! - as a founder and director of investment firm Elevation Partners, protracted litigation would have been expensive and a distraction from his other duties. In the settlement, Anderson admitted no guilt, and can continue to serve as an officer and director of public firms. He sits on the board of eBay.

<http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT_FLASH.asp>
<http://investor.ebay.com/documentdisplay.cfm?DocumentID=728>

The Associated Press says that Heinen will contest the charges.

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_hi_te/apple_stock_options>

ToC

Danes Publicize iBook G4 Defect

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8983>
TidBITS#879/14-May-07

The Consumer Complaints Board of the National Consumer Agency in Denmark is claiming to have found evidence of a manufacturing flaw in Apple's iBook G4 - defective solder joints that fail after a year or more of use. Because the solder joints in question are for a component that controls power flow, iBook G4s afflicted with this problem reportedly shut off or display a blank screen. The most common workaround for the problem is to apply additional pressure to the area to the left of the trackpad with a clamp or internal shims.

<http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/ibook-g4-english/>
<http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/pressefoto/>
<http://www.coreyarnold.org/ibook/>

The iBook G4 was introduced in October 2003 and discontinued in May 2006, when it was replaced with the MacBook. Ironically, the PowerPC G3-based iBook models that the iBook G4 itself replaced also had troubles with their logic boards, prompting Apple to issue a repair program for certain iBook models back in January 2004 (see "Apple Announces Replacements for Some iBook Logic Boards," 2004-02-02 and our followup in "iBook Repair Program Extended," 2004-06-21). But the discussions of the problems suffered by the older models sound awfully similar to the problems encountered by iBook G4 owners. The chatter on the Applefritter site follows much the same path, identifying a weak solder joint and sharing the clamp and shim workarounds. For even more detail, you can read the lab report commissioned by the Danish board.

<http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7527>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7711>
<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1369476>
<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3249364>
<http://www.applefritter.com/node/10193>
<http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/lab-report/>

Apple has settled a number of cases in Denmark after the release of the report. The question, of course, is if Apple will create another repair program to address this problem worldwide, something the more than 2,000 signatories to an online petition have joined Denmark's Consumer Complaints Board in asking for. Apple didn't respond to our request for comment.

<http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html>

ToC

Battery Update 1.2 Issued for MacBook and MacBook Pro

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8970>
TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07

Apple has released Battery Update 1.2 for MacBook and MacBook Pro models, and batteries for them, sold between February 2006 and April 2007. The update fixes some unspecified performance issues. Apple notes the issues that prompt the update do not present a safety risk (unlike the last year's major battery recall; see "Apple Recalling 1.8 Million Laptop Batteries," 2006-08-28). The problems appear to be a mixture of hardware and software, since another support page for the update notes a list of symptoms that could indicate a faulty battery (my favorite is "Battery pack is visibly deformed," a slight understatement compared to some recent photos of swollen MacBook batteries).

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305256>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8653>
<http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/>
<http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=swollen%20macbook%20battery&w=all>

Be sure to run the update with the laptop's power adapter connected; when other batteries are inserted, they will be automatically updated. Apple also notes that Intel Core Duo-based MacBooks and MacBook Pros gain an additional two years of warranty protection for the battery. Battery Update 1.2 is a 244K download from Apple or via Software Update.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305256>

ToC

Security Update 2007-004 Released

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8958>
TidBITS#876/23-Apr-07

Apple has released Security Update 2007-004, which fixes a wide variety of obscure security holes and includes new versions of several open source components of Mac OS X, including fetchmail and ftpd. Of particular interest are fixes to Mac OS X's file sharing client software, the elimination of several bugs identified by the Month of Apple Bugs project, and fixes for holes in the Login Window authentication dialog. Academic users should also note that Security Update 2007-004 addresses three different exploits aimed at the Kerberos secure authentication support in Mac OS X. The update is available in four versions, for Mac OS X 10.4 for PowerPC-based Macs (9.3 MB) and for Intel-based Macs (16.1 MB), and for Mac OS X 10.3.9 Client (37.6 MB) and Server (54.1 MB). Or just let Software Update do the job for you.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305391>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007004ppc.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007004universal.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20070041039client.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20070041039server.html>

ToC

QuickTime, AirPort, Security Updates Released

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8975>
TidBITS#878/07-May-07

Responding to a security flaw discovered two weeks ago (see "Money Meets Mouth on Mac Exploits," 2007-04-23), Apple has released QuickTime 7.1.6 for Mac (43.6 MB) and Windows (19.1 MB), available as stand-alone downloads or via Software Update. The update patches a flaw in QuickTime for Java that could enable a maliciously crafted Web page to gain access to a computer. QuickTime 7.1.6 also adds the capability to display timecode and closed captioning in QuickTime Player, adds support on the Mac for the upcoming Final Cut Studio 2, and fixes unspecified bugs.

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8957>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime716formac.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime716forwindows.html>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/>

AirPort Extreme Update 2007-003 is a release for Intel-based Macs that "includes compatibility updates for certain third-party access points configured to use WPA or WPA2 security." It's a 3 MB download, and is also available via Software Update.

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportextremeupdate2007003.html>

Apple also released Security Update 2007-004 v1.1 for Intel-based Macs (15.7 MB), PowerPC-based Macs (9.1 MB) and Macs running Mac OS X 10.3.9 (36.7 MB). According to Apple, this update includes the contents of Security Update 2007-004, which arrived a couple of weeks ago (see "Security Update 2007-004 Released," 2007-04-23), but also delivers two specific fixes. An AirPort update corrects a glitch under Mac OS X 10.3.9 that appeared with the last security update, and an FTPServer update fixes problems with FTP under Mac OS X Server 10.4.9.

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007004v11universal.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007004v11ppc.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007004v111039client.html>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305445>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8958>

ToC

Money Meets Mouth on Mac Exploits

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8957>
TidBITS#876/23-Apr-07

Two hackers were able to meet a challenge at CanSecWest by gaining access to one of two fully patched MacBook Pros (one 15-inch, one 17-inch). The computers were updated with the latest security release from Apple (Security Update 2007-004, released 2007-04-19). Shane Macaulay and Dino Dai Zovi combined efforts to compromise one of the Macs. Dai Zovi developed the exploit off-site, relaying it to Macaulay at the conference. (Other reports indicate that remote attackers were also eligible, but later reporting seems to contradict that.)

<http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/20/HNmachackedatconference_1.html>
<http://cansecwest.com/>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305391>
<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6178131.html>

The contest was originally set up to offer attendees a chance to win either of the two MacBook Pro laptops, but 3Com's TippingPoint division upped the ante by adding a $10,000 prize after the challenge started. TippingPoint hasn't yet confirmed that it will award its prize. The company told ZDNet it needs to determine that the exploit was previously unknown.

The first challenge originally required the winner to retrieve a file protected with root permission on the root filesystem. The organizer planned to change the computers' configuration each day, adding behaviors like polling a wiki page every five minutes or checking email.

<http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/142/464216/30/0/threaded>

After TippingPoint put its money on the line and the challenge progressed to include riskier behavior, the winning exploit appeared, requiring that a URL received via email was opened using the default Safari Web browser (relying on user interaction was a change from the original rules, after no one had been able to break in previously). However, the exploit wasn't based on Safari's "Open 'safe' files after downloading" preference, as was originally suspected. According to security researcher Thomas Ptacek, the attack was based on a flaw in Java, which would affect other Mac browsers as well; turning off the Enable Java preference in Safari or other browsers will protect against the vulnerability.

<http://www.matasano.com/log/806/hot-off-the-matasano-sms-queue-cansec-macbook-challenge-won>

The malicious page caused Mac OS X to give user-level privileges to the attacker, if I read the explanation at the conference site correctly. Dai Zovi told ZDNet he discovered the exploit and implemented it in about nine hours overnight. The second computer is still unexploited, and requires that root privileges be obtained.

<http://cansecwest.com/post/2007-04-20-14:54:00.First_Mac_Hacked_Cancel_Or_Allow>

The contest was apparently designed to tweak Apple for what one organizer said was its lack of participation in the security industry. Dragos Ruiu told InfoWorld, "I hear a lot of people bragging about how easy it is to break into Macs," and this contest gave them a chance to show their stuff.

3Com's TippingPoint offers bounties via its Zero Day Initiative, which tries to reward researchers by providing exploits that could be immediately put to use in a malicious fashion. TippingPoint then updates its own security software and notifies the affected vendor. The firm later notifies its competitors, too.

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

ToC

SwimMan Waterproofs the iPod shuffle

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8977>
TidBITS#878/07-May-07

Although I run regularly and enjoy splashing around in our pond, I'm a thoroughly mediocre swimmer. The summer after my freshman year of Cornell, when I was 18, I did lap swimming several times a week with a friend who worked with my mother. At 36, Anne was twice as old as I was, and having been the Alaska state backstroke champion, she was also twice as fast. She could swim a mile in 30 minutes at lunch while I flailed hard to cover half that distance.

I've never done lap swimming since, because you can't have conversations with friends while doing it, and also because looking at the bottom of a blue pool for 30 minutes while trying not to inhale chlorinated water simply doesn't give me a rush like running through wooded trails. But I'm contemplating a triathlon next year, when I turn 40, so some lap training in the pond might be in order, and an iPod could help while away the repetitive back-and-forth time. I haven't tried this yet, since the pond is still good only for cryotherapy.

<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/Adam-in-cryo.jpg>

"But but but," you sputter, "you can't swim with an iPod!" Ah, but it turns out you can, thanks to a company called SwimMan, which sells waterproofed second-generation iPod shuffles ($150) and waterproof headsets ($100), separately or in a bundle ($250). If you already own a second-generation iPod shuffle, you can send it to SwimMan and have it waterproofed for $75. SwimMan claims that a waterproofed iPod shuffle looks and works exactly like a normal one, but since the waterproofing is entirely on the inside of the case, the On/Off button and the Shuffle button will be rendered inoperative, and the other buttons will be a bit stiffer. The company says you can replicate the function of the on/off button by pressing the center button for On and disconnecting the headphones for Off; the Shuffle button's functionality can reportedly be controlled from iTunes when the iPod is connected to your computer.

<http://www.swimman.com/main.html>

ToC

Apple Releases Pro Application Support 4.0

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8984>
TidBITS#879/14-May-07

Apple has released Pro Application Support 4.0, a non-specific update that "improves general user interface reliability for Apple's professional applications." Affected programs include Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Aperture, Final Cut Express HD, Soundtrack, Logic Pro, and Logic Express. I'm guessing this release heralds the arrival of Final Cut Studio 2, which is expected to ship this month (see "Apple Announces Final Cut Studio 2, Final Cut Server," 2007-04-16). The update is available via Software Update or as a 7.6 MB stand-alone download.

<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/proapplicationsupport40.html>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8953>

ToC

Microsoft Releases Office 2004 11.3.5 Update

by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8980>
TidBITS#879/14-May-07

Microsoft has issued an update to Office 2004 for Mac, which the company says includes "fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code." The update is 58.5 MB, largely because it also includes all previous Office 2004 updates, and is available as a stand-alone download or via the Microsoft AutoUpdate application.

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/Office2004/Office2004_1135.xml>

ToC

Virtualization Options Expand

by Joe Kissell <joe@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8967>
TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07

For those interested in running Windows on an Intel-based Mac, this week brought two interesting announcements. First, in the ongoing battle of one-upmanship between Parallels and VMware, Parallels announced a new initiative to help developers package and distribute virtual appliances

<http://ptn.parallels.com/en/news/id,11293>
<http://ptn.parallels.com/>
<http://ptn.parallels.com/en/ptn/pva/home/>
<http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/>

Meanwhile, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion now have another competitor: Innotek's VirtualBox, a free, open-source virtualization environment previously available only for Windows and Linux. Now available in its first public beta for Mac OS X, VirtualBox lets users of Intel-based Macs install and run numerous versions of Windows, DOS, and Linux, as well as other Unix-like operating systems. VirtualBox for OS X Hosts Beta 1 is a 16 MB download.

<http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/>
<http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/>
<http://www.virtualbox.org/>
<http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads>

ToC

Fission 1.5 Adds Full Audio Insertion

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8964>
TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07

Rogue Amoeba has released an update to Fission, the company's simple audio manipulation program aimed at providing the most commonly needed subset of audio editing features (for more details, see "Fission Manipulates Audio Tracks of All Stripes," 2006-09-25, along with Andy Williams Affleck's "Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac"). Fission 1.5 extends the "trim, split, and clean up" capabilities of the original version by adding support for audio insertion, making it possible to copy and paste audio within a file; combine audio from multiple files, regardless of audio format; and drag and drop files from the Finder to append to existing audio. Other new features in Fission 1.5 include the capability to increase or decrease the volume of any file, full support for cue sheets, auto-complete in Inspector fields, a Zoom to Selection command, and the addition of the Album Artist tag in the Inspector. Updates are free to registered users; new copies of Fission cost $32. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a 3.1 MB download.

<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8685>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/podcasting-mac.html?14@@!pt=TB877>
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/features.php>

ToC

Devicescape Aims to Ease Wi-Fi Hot Spot Connection Pain

by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8931>
TidBITS#878/07-May-07

I tire of hitting gateway pages at Wi-Fi hot spots that ask me to enter account information I've already set up. Shouldn't there be a simpler way than what feels like a 1995 interface - you know, maybe some software that makes the connection easier? Devicescape has my number: Their eponymous Devicescape software and ecosystem lets your Mac connect with less tedium to Wi-Fi networks at which you have accounts. But there's a lot more to their approach.

<http://www.devicescape.com/>
<http://www.devicescape.com/download/>

Boingo Wireless has long offered a software client for Wi-Fi network connection, although it came to Mac OS X several years after its introduction for Windows. Boingo aggregates many different hot spot networks worldwide and repackages 60,000 combined locations for a uniform per-session price (usually $8) or a flat monthly rate of $22 for unlimited access at North American locations and negotiated metered access in most of the rest of the world. Their client software recognizes Boingo partners and connects you with a single menu selection or automatically. (Boingo doesn't yet support Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors.)

<http://boingo.com/>
<http://boingo.com/download_mac.html>

Devicescape has thrown out a rather larger net that aims to catch every possible piece of electronics that might want to make a Wi-Fi network connection. (Don't count Boingo out, however; more on that in a moment.)


Browser-less Devices, Frustration-free Connections

Devicescape wants to make it simple for mobile devices to hop onto Wi-Fi networks without that tedious entry of user name and password, made even more tedious by the lack of an interface or a Web browser on most handheld devices. Devicescape sees a world full of Wi-Fi-enabled phones, cameras, game consoles, PDAs, and other devices that don't even exist yet, and a world of frustration in connecting.

I share this frustration. I've tried some early Wi-Fi phones and music devices, and the pain in entering WPA network keys or logging onto hot spot networks - especially open networks that require a click-through on a Web page to agree to the terms of service - show me that there's no way average users will make it past the first steps.

Connecting to a public Wi-Fi hot spot almost always involves a gateway page that intercepts your attempt to reach the Internet via a Web browser. Until you go through the gateway page in your Web browser, no other application can access the Internet. That gateway page is a login screen to which your browser is redirected and on which you enter account information, if you have it, or payment details if a fee is required, or sometimes just agreement to terms of service. If you don't have a Web browser embedded in the device you're using, you can't get to the login page; if you have a browser, and you're using a mobile device, it might be cumbersome to navigate and enter appropriate details.

Devicescape's software and system go even further than just getting rid of hassle. The idea of one person, one account seems antiquated to them, when you might wind up with (or may already be carrying) several devices of varying sorts that each might need unique network access. In that device-centric approach, you might have a single overarching account with a network, and then a profile that lists all your associated devices under that account. Why would anyone pay $20 to $40 per month per device for unlimited Wi-Fi on for-fee networks? That adds up fast. In the Devicescape model, you might pay a small amount per month for each device or its usage, making networks affordable to use, while still profitable for the hot spot or network operators. (A not-so-big secret in the services world is that managing accounts, presenting bills to users, and collecting payment costs as much as $10 to $20 per month; additional services added to existing accounts are gravy beyond the overhead of the service itself.)

In Devicescape's outlook, you store all your authentication information, such as a user name and password or other tokens that a network might employ, on an account that you maintain via their Web site. You then use devices that have Devicescape software embedded. You pair these devices with your account in some simple manner, and then, when you roam, these devices communicate with Devicescape's servers through a secured means to retrieve your account information and log your device onto a hot spot network.


Embedding the Software

There are a lot of stumbling blocks for Devicescape, which makes it all the more impressive how they have wired together their beta test so that it works.

The first stumbling block is getting software on so-called embedded operating system (OS) platforms. An embedded OS is what powers a piece of electronics that's not designed to be a general-purpose computer. Typically, it's a stripped-down or optimized version or offshoot of a larger OS, like Windows Mobile/Pocket PC or Linux - or an OS designed from the ground up, like those from VxWorks.

<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/pocketpc/>
<http://www.linuxdevices.com/>
<http://www.windriver.com/vxworks/>

Devices that used embedded platforms are often closed to additional software, even if the platform they use supports third-party development. These closed devices require close cooperation with the maker of a device if you want to get your software into their product. Apple's iPhone leaps to mind. The iPhone isn't unusual in the larger device world, but it is strange in the smartphone segment, in which the major platforms like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS allow arbitrary third-party-developed software to be installed by end users.

<http://www.apple.com/iphone/>
<http://www.symbian.com/symbianos/>
<http://www.palm.com/>

It's the true gadgets that are hard nuts to crack. Devicescape has a proof-of-concept package with the Linksys WIP300 Wireless-G IP Phone, an expensive wireless IP phone designed for metropolitan-scale Wi-Fi network service providers to resell. This is the only closed mobile device for which Devicescape currently provides embedded software. To make real inroads in this market, Devicescape will have to form partnerships with companies like Nintendo, Kodak, and Nokia to get the Devicescape software pre-installed.

<http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1139845857386&packedargs=site%3DUS&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper>

In these early stages, Devicescape's software works on a handful of handheld devices, including Windows Mobile 5 smartphones and some Nokia tablets. They've also released software for computer operating systems, adding Mac OS X and Windows Vista support to existing Windows XP releases.

<http://www.devicescape.com/learnmore/devices.php>

Smartphone users are a great audience, because they will be able to install Devicescape's software directly, but smartphone users may also be bound to existing Wi-Fi networks run by their cellular providers through bundled deals, like T-Mobile HotSpot or AT&T Wi-Fi.

<http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/>
<http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=5949>


Sneaking onto the Network

The next nut to crack is the hot spot networks. Devicescape currently supports or is testing support for accounts that you may already have on a large array of major networks, including the two just mentioned, the grassroots network Fon, the major U.S. operator Wayport, the UK giant The Cloud, and several others.

<http://www.devicescape.com/learnmore/services.php>

Devicescape makes an interesting end run around the fact that they don't have formal partnerships with these networks. When I was first briefed by the company in December 2006, I asked, "If you don't have a relationship with a network, how do you get the software on your device to communicate over the Internet with your servers to retrieve the authentication information that logs that user's device in?"

They hemmed and hawed, but I figured out what their trick was, and they confirmed it; it's not illegitimate, just clever. They use DNS, the method by which any Internet-connected computer turns human-readable domain names into IP addresses. Hot spot networks block nearly all Internet traffic, but they do pass DNS queries to decentralized DNS servers, and thus Devicescape can pass small amounts of encrypted data back as a response from the DNS server. (At least two software packages exist that let you tunnel traffic via DNS queries to bypass this approach to access control!)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system>
<http://thomer.com/howtos/nstx.html>


Many Networks, How Many Accounts?

The final issue is the heterogeneity of hot spot networks, something Devicescape can't control. There are now hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots in the world, a good majority available on a for-fee basis. To use any arbitrary hot spot, you typically have to pay a walk-up rate or be a subscriber, paying recurring monthly fees that often come with a term commitment. Free hot spots have lower or no bars to usage; the highest bar might be viewing an advertisement or clicking on a usage agreement to gain access - something often difficult or impossible on a mobile device.

This melange of networks means that users can't always predict where they will have access, nor what it might cost. Devicescape has the notion that by centralizing your account information on their servers they could aggregate access to networks and sell you discounted access without you re-entering credit card information at the network venue - the transaction would happen between their servers (where you'd stored payment information) and the hot spot network, reducing friction in gaining access in a strange location.

One scenario
You're on vacation and want to upload photos from your Wi-Fi capable camera. You fire up the camera, which has Devicescape software installed, use arrows and a select button to choose "Find a network," and then select "Pay $3 for 24 hours access" to use the network. Easy as pie, perhaps.

Another is the "obscene calling rate" problem: Your plane lands in London, and you find you have a five-hour layover. Making a call with your cell phone would cost $2.35 per minute or something equally insane. But with Skype and a Wi-Fi-enabled handheld, it's just $0.02 per minute. You bring up the Devicescape software on the handheld, accept an 8 euro charge - seemingly cheap compared to the metered phone rates - and Bob's your uncle. Rather, Bob's on the other end of the line, hearing you clearly.


Devicescape and the Competitive Landscape

Devicescape will face competition, of course. Boingo has already entered the fray with their Boingo Mobile option, a new direction for the company that offers voice over IP (VoIP) access with Wi-Fi IP phones over their worldwide aggregated network for $8 per month. Where Boingo's laptop access runs $22 per month for unlimited service in North America, most locations elsewhere in the world charge a metered rate for access by computer. The Boingo Mobile plan, by contrast, includes all voice usage in every supported location for that one $8 per month rate. (Not all Boingo laptop locations are included in their mobile plan yet, but they're working on it.)

<http://mobile.boingo.com/>

Skype has worked with many handset makers to embed their software in Wi-Fi and cordless IP phones, and they also work with Boingo. I've tested an early phone from Belkin that combines Skype calling with Boingo service. You pay $200 for the phone and $8 per month for unlimited Boingo calling. (Skype charges nothing for intra-network calls, $30 per year for unlimited calls to numbers in the United States and Canada, and $38 per year for unlimited incoming calls to a "real" phone number; this includes voicemail.)

<http://www.belkin.com/skype/howitworks/>
<http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/>
<http://www.skype.com/products/skypein/>

The ultimate result of Devicescape's approach and the simultaneous emergence of cooperating partners and competing firms will be that it should become ever easier for these new devices with their fancy high-speed wireless adapters to, you know, actually do something.

I can't tell you the frustration I experienced when I read that Microsoft's Zune had Wi-Fi - but couldn't connect to Wi-Fi networks, download music over Wi-Fi, or even synchronize over Wi-Fi (see "Zune Doom," 2006-11-13). Apple is poised to force on us the same limitations for music (not Web browsing or email) and syncing with the iPhone (see "iQuestion the iPhone," 2007-01-22). Devicescape wants to make sure that those crimes against technology don't become the norm.

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8750>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8822>

ToC

Family Tech Support

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8954>
TidBITS#876/23-Apr-07

Robert Movin's recent article "Switching My Mother to the Mac" (2007-04-02) generated a number of nice comments from people who had engineered similar switches for family members. That got me thinking about how many of us act as unofficial tech support for our Mac-using friends and family (and occasionally for Windows users as well). But I wondered how similar the experience was for different people, so I picked a few TidBITS readers and asked them to share how many members of their extended families they regularly provide tech support for. I also asked how they generally perform that support - in person, over the phone, or via remote control software - and what their last support job was. And just so you know I'm in exactly the same situation as everyone else, I'll lead off.

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8922>


**Adam C. Engst** -- Publisher, TidBITS and Take Control Books

<http://www.tidbits.com/>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/>

My parents have an aging Power Mac G4 Cube and a 14-inch iBook G4 that they use for all the usual personal tasks. My mother also reads her work email from home at times and works on Word and Excel documents at home as well, transferring them back and forth to her PC by sending them to herself in email.

Even though they're primarily PC users, my sister and her husband, who have a two-year-old son, recently bought a Mac mini with an iSight camera for video iChats; it's a great way for the whole family to communicate, particularly with the little one (who wants to say that he also uses the Mac to look at pictures of rhinos). Plus, my aunt and uncle have a 20-inch iMac and a 14-inch iBook, and both of Tonya's sisters use laptop Macs. I also provide personal tidbits.com email accounts for a number of relatives, mostly because I started doing it well before there were good free alternatives like Yahoo Mail and Google Gmail. On the whole, everyone is pretty good with their Macs, and I never feel as though I'm explaining the obvious.

Since my parents are local, they occasionally call with urgent problems, but more commonly, they invite us out for a weekend dinner with the warning that they have some computer questions. The last problem I solved involved Dad's iBook refusing to boot normally. I couldn't fix it, but I verified it was a hardware problem that would be covered by AppleCare. Luckily, I was able to boot the machine in FireWire Target Disk mode and make a full backup before Dad sent it in, since Apple replaced the hard disk along with other parts, even though that was almost certainly not the problem. Other relatives usually call with problems, although a visit to my aunt and uncle is never complete until I've answered any questions that have arisen since the last visit.

Of course, Tonya uses the Mac constantly as well, and as much as she's highly capable, she last worked in tech support before Mac OS X appeared, so I end up dealing with any unusual problems she runs into, along with maintaining our network, keeping the backup system working, and fussing with the Internet connection whenever necessary.


**Peter N Lewis** -- CEO, Stairways Software

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

My parents and my sister both have Macs, and I regularly help my folks with tech support, although my Dad is pretty good at figuring things out himself. My most recent tech support job was purchasing a second-hand 12-inch iBook and setting it up for him (clean install of course, never trust a used computer's installation!), and showing him how to use it in FireWire Target Disk Mode to transfer files to it from his old iMac.

I do most of my support in person as my folks live only a short distance away. Tech support over the email or the phone is always a challenge, and most problems can wait a few days until I next see them.


**Naomi Pearce** -- Owner, Pearce Communications

<http://pearce.com/>

Both my parents use Macs, and my brother and random extended family members are also Mac users. Thankfully, my brother splits parental support duties with me, almost all of which take place over the phone.

The last situation I remember having to help them with was fixing the settings when their DSL goes down; every time it drops, the settings in the DSL modem get all flubbed up.

The most interesting note regarding my support-providing experience actually stems from a turnaround moment. My husband and I noticed that one of the MacMania cruises left from San Diego, which is within driving distance from my parents' house. We thought it would be a once in a lifetime experience to take them on a cruise, in style, and let them peek into our world a little bit. Cruises allow taking a vacation together without being too together or too apart.

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

So, after months and months of lobbying to convince my mother to go (another story altogether), we hiked the gangway to one of the most wonderful vacation experiences ever. Mom and Dad were encouraged to experience the inimitable Andy Ihnatko's Mac OS X overview sessions, and Janet Hill's "Life is Good, iLife Makes it Better" class. MacMania classes are relatively small, so people can ask questions, even outside of class should a question dawn later on. Participants are essentially in a week-long computer camp at sea, with the teachers right there, and I know for sure my father availed himself of the experts outside of class.

And now that you ask about it, I just realized that I haven't received a support question since that MacMania trip. So, anybody who fancies an Alaskan adventure, particularly if their parents need Mac class and they're also interested in Aperture and real photography, might want to consider trying a last-minute sign-up for May, while there are still glaciers to see! Of course, the Panama MacMania looks fun too.

<http://www.geekcruises.com/top_b/mm06_top.html>
<http://www.geekcruises.com/top_b/mm07_top.html>


**Chris Pepper** -- [Chris Pepper babysits Unix systems at Rockefeller University for a living, and is still pleased and amused that a Mac is the best tool for his work.]

<http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>

My least computer-savvy family member has a grape iMac, which replaced a Mac Plus, largely because it would still run Word 5.1a. Her discomfort with the computer is best encapsulated by this quote:

"I know the computer isn't really going to blow up on me, but I like the mouse because I know if it did it would just blow my hand off, while if the whole computer blew up, it would really hurt me, just like my car would kill me if it blew up."

Her last few questions were: "Why can't I print?" Answer: Restart. "Why is my computer frozen?" (Luckily a rare occurrence.) Answer: Restart.

She normally apologizes when she calls me at work, and sometimes calls my work voicemail at night to avoid disturbing me, but she's so stressed that everything feels like a crisis, especially since she tends to avoid updating her documents (teaching materials) until they're needed.

My father, who has long read TidBITS, is, yes, Dr. Pepper. As a psychiatrist, he's also an MD, even though he doesn't really treat physical problems. So when I was growing up, every family gathering included at least one relative asking him about bunions or a bad back or a hurt finger. For a few years in and after college, when I still went to lots of these events, I briefly and shockingly became more popular, as those same relatives instead asked questions about what computer they should get, what the Internet was, or why their PC was misbehaving.


**David Shayer** -- iPod Software Engineer, Apple Computer

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

My wife, my sister, and my mom use Macs. My kids use PCs, because they think more games are available. When they decided to get PCs instead of Macs, I told them they were pretty much on their own for tech support. They're pretty smart and are usually able to resolve their own problems.

My sister is pretty tech savvy and rarely needs tech support.

My wife can usually figure stuff out, and when I have to help her, being next to her so I can see the screen is invaluable. I occasionally have to help her with work email problems, because the IT people at Stanford can be slow.

My mom is a very smart person, but just isn't computer savvy. I usually can't see her screen, since I generally help her over the phone. She doesn't know what specific user interface elements are called, but she knows the terminology, so she starts randomly throwing in "window" and "desktop" thinking she's helping, but she actually confuses me more. I suppose I should try Fog Creek's Copilot or other remote assistance software.

<https://www.copilot.com/>

Last night, my mom called with a Quicken question. As far as I could tell she was doing the same thing I do, but not getting the same result. So obviously she was doing something different, but I never figured out what.

Apple Stores are a godsend, because anyone can go in and get free, competent technical advice. This lets me redirect casual friends to good tech support without feeling like I'm abandoning them. Unfortunately, around here the Apple Stores have become so popular that you have to make a reservation to avoid long waits.

Last week, by coincidence, I met a dozen newly hired Apple Geniuses from around the country, who were in Cupertino for their initial training. I was impressed by how smart, dedicated, and serious they all were.


**Eric Ullman** -- Director of Marketing, Mark/Space

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

Not as many members of my extended family use Macs as I would prefer. It's somewhere around half: My mom, my in-laws, brother-in-law's family, one step-sibling's family. On the PC side are my dad and his wife, brother's family, my two other step-siblings' families.

The step-siblings have knowledgeable users who handle support in those families, and my dad and his wife use their small business support person. I am the IT guy for everyone else, including the PC users (either you get computers in general, or you don't - the same troubleshooting principles apply to Macs and PCs alike). I also provide "weekend support" for the five PCs and one Mac at the small office where my wife works and for many of my Mac-using friends.

Most of my help-desk-type support can be done over the phone, but I also make use of VNC and Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Mac. Networking and certain difficult or multi-computer issues require an on-site presence.

<http://www.macminicolo.net/Mac_VNC_tutor.html>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient>

The most recent support I provided was for my best friend of more than 20 years, who just switched to the Mac. Specifically, I helped him get a Windows-based flight bidding program for Southwest Airlines pilots working in CodeWeavers's CrossOver for the Mac (works great, by the way). That involved work (though mostly corrective - he was off to a good start) with some trial and error involved, so I performed it in person.

<http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/>

A week doesn't go by without handling at least two or three requests, though most take less than five minutes over the phone. I enjoy doing this kind of thing for friends and family, and covering the Windows issues certainly keeps me on my toes and highly appreciative of my Mac. I've also developed a general hatred of anti-virus/spyware "solutions" on the Windows platform.

ToC

Steve Jobs Talks Green

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8974>
TidBITS#878/07-May-07

Steve Jobs has done it again, posting an open letter on the Apple Web site. The previous "Thoughts on Music" letter generated much discussion and coverage of Apple (see "Steve Jobs Blasts DRM," 2007-02-12), and foreshadowed the Apple/EMI deal to drop DRM that followed shortly afterwards (which we covered in "Apple and EMI Offer DRM-Free Music via iTunes," 2007-04-02).

<http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8856>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8937>

In "A Greener Apple," Jobs turns his attention to the criticism that Apple has received from environmental groups - most notably Greenpeace - regarding Apple's manufacturing and recycling practices. In it, he runs down what Apple is doing to reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals from the manufacturing process and then explains Apple's recycling programs. In a departure from the norm, he also discusses Apple's goals for the future with regard to further reductions in toxic manufacturing chemicals and increased recycling efforts.

<http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/>

Greenpeace's Green Electronics Guide and accompanying Green My Apple campaign have garnered a great deal of media attention, and the organization's sometimes-confrontational tactics at Macintosh conferences has been a source of, well, more media coverage. Although Greenpeace may have other data, my impression from talking with Mac users is that Greenpeace's tactics have generally worked more to polarize than to persuade, with diehard environmental activists becoming all the more vocal about Apple's ills and longtime Mac users rising to defend the company (as they've become accustomed to doing in response to criticism from PC users for so many years).

<http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up>
<http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/996/>

Adding confusion to the situation is the fact that neither Greenpeace nor Apple is necessarily motivated by the most noble of principles, despite what both say. And oddly, much of Greenpeace's complaint and Apple's response revolve not so much around what is being done in the here and now, but what will or should be done. Put another way, it's largely a war of words, of plans, and of policies.


Orthogonal Motivations

An entirely rational outside observer might say that Greenpeace is acting in line with traditional environmental principles in its attempts to reduce toxic chemical usage and encourage increased recycling. I don't think anyone questions that Greenpeace does have that as the overall goal. But it also feels as though Greenpeace is targeting Apple not because Apple is necessarily worse than other, much larger companies, but because anything surrounding Apple generates media attention and controversy, and that attention is good for Greenpeace's ultimate goal. Therein, I think, lies the reason why many Mac users have reacted so defensively to Greenpeace's attacks; it seems as though Greenpeace is specifically targeting Apple for other-than-stated reasons.

Apple isn't entirely free of culpability here either. As much as Apple fans sometimes lose track of this fact, Apple is a public company, and a big one at that. Above all else, Apple's loyalties lie with serving its shareholders by improving the bottom line. There's no question that many of the individuals who make up the company believe strongly in the goals of the environmental movement, but Apple as a company will always put the health of the company before the health of the environment.

That doesn't mean that Apple as a company gives no thought to the environmental impact of its actions, nor does it mean that Apple will always take the cheapest approach, regardless of impact. That's because Apple, much more so than companies like HP or Dell, lives and dies by its public image. Buying an iPod, and even a Mac these days, is considered cool, and any tarnish on Apple's highly polished brand could drastically hurt the company's fortunes. Thus, Apple must play a balancing act between trying to produce goods as cheaply as possible to bolster the bottom line and spending more to protect the environment and the company's reputation.


He Said/She Said

When you read Greenpeace's rating of Apple, the latest version of which predates Jobs's letter, the most striking aspect is how many of the scores are based not on any quantitative measurement, much less on one that would be verifiable by an independent auditor, but on what the company has said it will do. Greenpeace was concerned that Apple hadn't previously given a timeline for the elimination of brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride, that Apple's published definition of the Precautionary Principle didn't meet Greenpeace's standards, that Apple hasn't described its approach to "Individual Producer Responsibility" sufficiently explicitly, and so on.

What I find troubling about this approach is that, speaking as a writer, words are cheap. A company can say anything it wants. Realistically, how many people will notice if, several years down the road, those promises don't come to pass? Heck, we (at least the cynical or realistic among us) assume that many promises made by politicians during their campaigns will never be fulfilled. Greenpeace itself might notice, assuming this thrust to reduce pollution from the electronics industry continues for the next few years. To continue down the cynical track, a clever company could essentially play with its public statements to spin the situation in its favor. Or, worse, the company could simply lie, saying it was meeting certain standards without actually doing so. In today's Internet, keeping that lie going might be harder than in the past, but there are certainly plenty of instances of companies sweeping inconvenient facts under the rug.

I am by no means accusing Apple of having done this in the past, nor am I suspecting that Apple will do so in the future. In general, I tend to believe that Apple is a pretty good corporate citizen, despite the company's now-famous level of secrecy. But such corporate slipperiness has happened before at other companies and certainly could happen again, and I worry that even Greenpeace's well-meaning scorecard could be subverted in this way. Perhaps the situation is simply too complicated, but I'd prefer to see an approach that would provide quantitative rankings that could be objectively and independently verified.

In the meantime, though, I'm pleased to see Apple deviating from tradition and being more forthcoming about the company's current reality and future plans regarding manufacturing and recycling practices. Particularly interesting will be Greenpeace's next scorecard. Apple is currently dead last, with only 2.7 points out of 10, although the main page for the Green My Apple campaign now features an interactive Flash animation that, when you mouse over the appropriate spot, claims a "preliminary calculation" of 5 points. (The fact that a public letter on a Web site could change a company's environmental ranking in a significant way supports my claim that it's all about rhetoric.) The main criticism Greenpeace has made in the wake of Jobs's letter is that Apple's recycling program operates only in the United States. However, Jobs claims that it operates in countries that account for more than 82 percent of all Macs and iPods sold.

<http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/tastygreenapple>

Let me leave you with what I felt were the two most interesting details in Jobs's letter. First, for the Apple product watchers, he said that Apple plans to introduce the first Macs with LED-backlit displays in 2007, and the speculation is already rampant as to which product will include such a display first. From the usability standpoint, of course, it's mostly a detail; I don't care much about how my LCD screen is backlit, just that it is, although if switching to LED-based backlighting results in reduced power consumption and increased battery life on laptops, I'm all for it. Second, while the entire letter is a textbook exercise in controlling the PR message, there's an unusual sentence at the end, something you won't often hear from Apple: "We apologize for leaving you in the dark for this long."


Related Link:

Steve Jobs Addresses Greenpeace at Shareholder Meeting

ToC

The CUCUG Section:

April General Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

April 19, 2007 - President Rollins opened meeting at 7:09 PM. Do the presence of four guests, Richard performed the introduction of officers.

He then moved into the Question and Answer Session:

Phil Wall said that at his work they got an entry level machine, a Dell, with Vista Basic and it is really slow. The first question in the cross-examination revealed the machine had 512 MB of RAM. It's a home, not a business machine. Phil continued that Explorer is terribly slow. He was advised to Ping another machine to see if there's a latency problem. Vista has a resource monitor which could tell you something, Jon Bjerke offered. Kevin Hisel advised others to buy off Dell's Business site. Service connected with those purchases is US based. Home machines? You go to India for service.

Keith Peregrine related that he had purchased four Compaq computers. He said he had an ActiveX error, but that only two machines had the error message. Two didn't. The consensus was that it was a Microsoft update problem.

Jim Berger said he had installed some USB ports and that it screwed up his AVG virus protection. Richard deduced that he originally had USB version 1.1 and his new cards are version 2.0 USB so he suggested, "Be sure you have the right drivers."

Mark Zinzow reported that he had an NTP "time" problem. Kevin Hisel said he uses WUSTL for setting his computers' time. He said Windows' default servers are getting overloaded. Mark noted that Windows' Daylight Savings patch induced the problem. It was suggested that he change time from time-a to time-b.

Harold Ravlin reported on his DSL modem from AT&T. The green light changed to flashing red. Rain seemed to have induced it. The suggestion was to call the evil phone company. Discussion of modeming brought up the topic of power grid networking in your house.

With the news that Comcast will take controll of our cable system by year's end, ther was a discussion of what people know of Comcast as a provider. Harold talked about Comcast in Chicago leaning on a friend of his to give up analog for digital. Kevin Hisel talked about Comcast's top download speed of 6MB and Insight being at 10MB. He said a lot of the stuff we have is from the Comcast part of the partnership with Insight, so he doesn't expect any major change. George Krumins talked about the ports on his DVR, which lead to the mention of a freeware program to pull the files of the DVR, although these are monster file sizes.

Kevin Hisel reported that the Thunderbird email client is out of beta. He said watch all of your extensions go Bye Bye. And yet, he said it is deceptively simple to use and works great. Edwin Hadley said doesn't like it on the Mac. It's slow. Kevin said he has noticed more Mac user complaints on the forums. Edwin is running OSX10.2 so Richard said it might the problem. Jim Berger asked about forwarding multiple messages in one message. Kevin said you should forward them as attachments. Hightlight messages, right click, and the first option is Forward as Attachments. Bill Zwicky said you can also drag and drop them into the attachment window.

Richard Rollins warned everyone about the animated cursors defect. He advised PC users to get to Windows Update. He explained the difference in meaning of the categorization of Zero Day (a vulnerability has been found but no one exploiting yet) and In The Wild (there's a known problem).

There was a discussion of AppleTV. Downloadeable HD movies are coming.

This weekend there will be a Recycle Day at Solo.

Jerry Feltner brought in photo paper. He let everyone know that this would be the last of the line, as he no longer works there anymore.

Richard announced three visitors. (One left.)

One of the visitors, Charles Lam brought up Channel64.net "Introducing Gravel."

It was announced that Dell is putting XP back on its computers.

Mark Zinzow said he is going back to Linux rather than Vista. Richard spoke up for the Vista machines he's running. He talked about running Vista within an emulator on the Mac. This lead to a discussion of the lawsuits and fines against Mictosoft in Iowa and in Europe. The fines are $100,000 a day to the EU.

Concluding the Question and Answer Session, Richard asked Emil what the Mac SIG would be doing this evening. He said, "Keith Peregrine will be showing Vista running on the Mac." Also, Emil would be showing iSquirt which will convert video to MP4 files that you can put on your Video iPod.


During the break, Craig Kummerow showed me a nifty little thing he had called the Targus Traveler Coolpad. It swivels and elevates your laptop.

<http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=PA239U>

The Macintosh SIG: Keith Peregrine shows Vista on his Mac

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

This evenings demonstration was provided by our own Keith Peregrine. Keith began by talking about the need for an environment in which to run Microsoft's new OS, Vista. He doesn't use any of the more complex systems that allows you to run Vista and the Mac at the same time, with switching and communications between the two. He uses the bootstrap program "Boot Camp" from Apple, which is an "either - or" system.

He showed how you start by holding down the Option key, which gets you to a OS choosing screen.

He noted that Vista requires a minimum of 20 GB. He gave it a 30 GB partition.

Keith said his installation of Vista went very quickly, taking about twenty minutes. Installing the necessary drivers took about another ten minutes or so. He installed the Home Premium edition of Vista.

Everything he installed, Keith said, installed perfectly. The only difficulty he had was with Firefox. Because you can only run one OS at a time, applications don't use resources in common. So he had to duplicate his bookmarks file for the Vista version of Firefox. He discussed his trial in importing his collection of bookmarks. He found that Microsoft has changed the way things are stored in Vista and he couldn't find the bookmarks.htm file Windows used to use.

As for other applications, Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, and an old Windows version of AppleWorks (last version from about 2001) all worked. Keith said he was surprised Appleworks ran because so many other things wouldn't.

Evaluating the performance, he said he noticed that his MacBook Pro runs a little bit hotter and the battery drains a little faster.

He then discussed the process of installing software and user status.

Keith was Impressed in how quickly Vista runs and at how well it works on the MacBook Pro. The only downside was that it appears to have burned up his 2 GB Flash drive he'd had in the USB port perhaps to unseen over activity.

When asked about the necessity of a two button mouse and the need to right click in the Windows environment, Keith said that on any recent Mac you can use two fingers on the track pad. There is also a feature to scroll like having a scroll wheel. For information on the right click, check out the Boot Camp docs.

Keith didn't go into great detail because he'd only put Vista on his machine Tuesday night, but all in all, he gave a very good feel for how to get yourself up and running on a Mac with Vista if you so chose.

The discussion then moved to the pricing of a MacBook Pro.

After the main demonstration, Ed Hadley talked a little about DazStudio and Bryce 6. He informed everyone that Byrce 6 is free, but they sell you the additional stuff. They give you the programs and then get you with add ons.

ToC

April Board Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu)

The April meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, April 24, 2007, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Richard Rollins, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hopkins, Rich Hall and Kevin Hisel.

Richard Rollins: In discussing the meeting just past, Richard commented on our visitors, the long Q & A Session. He commented on Mark Zinzow's Skype phone. He liked the $15/year versus the ordinary $30/year price. The unlimited long distance is a real selling feature. Although you can only call out and dial from the computer screen, the phone can dial presets.

There was a discussion of mail clients. Richard talked Kevin Hisel into showing Thunderbird at the next meeting.

Kevin talked about using Go Daddy mailboxes and web sites. Richard has clients that use it and CUCUG's web site is there. Kevin marvelled at the low cost of the service, saying, "Starship II costs us less than the Starship 1 BBS did."

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

AllSync and NetDrive are two programs Rich may show at the next meeting.

<http://www.allsync.biz/en_index.htm>
<http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/novell/netdrive.htm>

Also, Truecrypt which he uses to take care of security and encrypting. Truecrypt is free.

<http://www.truecrypt.org/>

During the discussion Rich Hall brought up Password Agent, which is also free.

<http://www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp>

Richard Rollins also recommended AVG Anti-Spyware and Root Kit Test.

<http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1>

Emil Cobb: Emil provided his usual head count of the meeting, which was 24. He noted that Keith Peregrine had shown Vista at the last meeting.

Kevin Hopkins: Kevin had nothing new to discuss.

Rich Hall: Rich Hall gave his Treasurer's Report.

Kevin Hisel: Kevin noted that the Forum on Starship II gets us 5 or 6 members per year. He had nothing else beyond that.

ToC

The Back Page:

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

Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The FBC-CS is located at 1602 N. Prospect Avenue in Savoy, on the NE corner of Burwash and Prospect. To get to the the First Baptist Church from Champaign or Urbana, take Prospect Avenue south. Setting the trip meter in your car to zero at the corner of Kirby/Florida and Prospect in Champaign (Marathon station on the SW corner), you only go 1.6 miles south. Windsor will be at the one mile mark. The Savoy village sign (on the right) will be at the 1.4 mile mark. Burwash is at the 1.6 mile mark. The Windsor of Savoy retirement community is just to the south; Burwash Park is to the east. Turn east (left) on Burwash. The FBC-CS parking lot entrance is on the north (left) side of Burwash. Enter by the double doors at the eastern end of the building's south side. A map can be found on the CUCUG website at <http://www.cucug.org/meeting.html>. The First Baptist Church of Champaign is also on the web at <http://www.fbc-cs.org>.

Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at mid year.

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

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

   President/WinSIG:   Richard Rollins      469-2616
   Vice-Pres/MacSIG:   Emil Cobb            398-0149
   Secretary/Editor:   Kevin Hopkins        356-5026
   Treasurer:          Richard Hall         344-8687
   Corp.Agent/Web:     Kevin Hisel          406-948-1999
   Linux SIG:          Allen Byrne          344-5311

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/> .

CUCUG
912 Stratford Drive
Champaign, IL
61821-4137

ToC