News Common PC Linux Mac Amiga CUCUG
The next CUCUG meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: Thursday, December 20th, at 7:00 pm, at the First Baptist Church of Champaign in Savoy. The Linux SIG convenes, of course, 45 minutes earlier, at 6:15 pm. Directions to the FBC-CS are at the end of this newsletter.
The December 20 gathering will be our Annual meetings. Club officers will be elected. We will also have an open forum and a swap meet for those who'd like to sell or exchange hardware and software in line with the usual ground rules. This is a social event and should be a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.
ToC
It's that time of year again to renew your membership in CUCUG. We rely on our members and their talents for our strength and vitality. We'd love to see you as an involved member next year. You can renew at the December meeting with Treasurer Richard Hall or by mail to our address given at the end of each newsletter. Again, we sincerely hope to have you with us in the new year.
ToC
We had strong membership renewal in November: ten at the meeting and one more by mail. We'd like to thank those renewing members Harold Ravlin, Russ Gillen, Del England, Kevin Hopkins, Ed Serbie, Keith Peregrine, Dave Witt, Craig Kummerow, Jon Bjerke, Phil Wall, and by mail, Elaine Avner. Thank you all.
We'd also like to express our appreciation to our Lifetime members Kevin Hisel and Richard Rollins, sticking with us another year.
As always, we welcome any kind of input or feedback from members. Run across an interesting item or tidbit on the net? Just send the link to the editor. Have an article or review you'd like to submit? Send it in. Have a comment? Email any officer you like. Involvement is the driving force of any user group. Thanks for being there.
ToC
These are the gentlemen who have been officially nominated for re-election.
President:
Richard Rollins
Vice-President:
Emil Cobb
Secretary:
Kevin Hopkins
Treasurer:
Richard Hall
Corporate Agent: Kevin Hisel
- Story Highlights
- Commodore 64 loved by many kids coming of age in the 1980s
- Popularity continues today on Web sites, in music and people's memories
- Nostalgia seekers can download their favorite C64 games on sites like C64.com
- C64 Orchestra plays the music from the games, CD release in U.S. in January
By Peggy Mihelich, CNN
URL: <http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html>
(CNN) -- Like a first love or a first car, a first computer can hold a special place in people's hearts. For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64. Twenty-five years later, that first brush with computer addiction is as strong as ever.
"There was something magical about the C64," says Andreas Wallstrom of Stockholm, Sweden.
He remembers the day he first laid eyes on his machine back in 1984.
"My father brought it home together with a tape deck, a disk drive, a printer, and a couple of games...I used to sneak home during lunch to play [on it] with my friends."
Wallstrom is the webmaster and designer for C64.com, a Web site dedicated to preserving the games, demos, pictures, magazines and memories of the Commodore 64.
C64.com visitors are mostly nostalgia seekers -- men in their 30s looking to download their favorite childhood games. Emulators let them play the games without having a machine. Popular downloads include "Boulder Dash," "Ghostbusters," and "The Great Giana Sisters."
"It may have not been the most sophisticated computer, but it did have a lot of personality and it was lovable and remains loveable," said Harry McCracken, vice president and editor in chief of PC World.
Often overshadowed by the Apple II and Atari 800, the Commodore 64 <http://topics.cnn.com/topics/commodore_64> rose to great heights in the 1980s. From 1982-1993, 17 million C64s were sold. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Commodore 64 as the best-selling single computer model.
The computer featured 64 kilobytes of memory (a lot for 1982), a huge index of games, a sophisticated sound chip, and a relatively parent-friendly price -- $595.
On Monday, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, will celebrate the C64's 25th anniversary. Computer pioneers will reflect on the C64's achievements and contribution to the industry. Jack Tramiel, the founder and CEO of Commodore, will attend, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and William C. Lowe, father of the IBM PC.
"It was the right machine for the time," said McCracken. "The Commodore 64 did a lot to popularize computers." Sold in shopping malls and discount stores and not just small computer stores -- the norm for the time -- the C64 became many people's gateway into the world of computers, said Brian Bagnall, author of "On the edge: The spectacular rise and fall of Commodore."
"It was so new," Bagnall said. Users could play many games and also learn the programming language of computers -- BASIC.
Jim Park, 39, a software developer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, got his start on a C64 in 1984 when he was 16. Park learned to program motion-graphics synchronized to dance music and ran a BBS, an electronic bulletin board system, the precursor to the Internet. "I really lucked out that something so obscure and nerdy has turned into the modern business and pop-culture phenomenon that it has," he said.
Wallstrom said it was the simplicity of the C64 that made it so great. "You switched it on and it was there, ready for input in a second. Programming on the C64 was straightforward because you got to command the processor directly. You had full control of the whole computer...that is something you don't have with any modern PC."
Still, the C64 had an uneven reputation. It was widely considered clunky, its BASIC outdated and graphics weak in comparison to the Apple II and Atari 800, according to McCracken. And then there was the quirky floppy drive. "It was pitifully slow," Bagnall said. "It was big and noisy. It sounded like a Gatling gun when it was trying to load stuff."
The floppy drive took so long to load, the music would play before the game did, recalls Rob Kramer, artistic & business director of Productiehuis ON, a production company based in the Netherlands. "These tunes would get stuck in your head," he said.
In 2006 Kramer came up with the idea of having an orchestra play the music from the games. "We found this crazy orchestra that plays on the street. It's full of young people in music school. They are in their 20s and they'd never played a Commodore 64. For them it was like 'Wow, this is great stuff.' "
The 12-piece C64 Orchestra has played at churches, musical venues and festivals. The compositions run 4-6 minutes. The crowds are mostly fans of the C64. "They really dig it," Kramer said.
Kramer described the music as haunted. "There's a lot of tension, and it repeats itself. It takes you places where normal classical music doesn't."
The classical ensemble released a CD in Europe featuring the original computer and orchestral versions of "Delta," "Commando," Monty on the Run," "International Karate" and more. The CD will be available in the United States on January 15.
By 2007 computing standards, the Commodore 64 is a dinosaur. A relic of the past, long made obsolete by the march of time. But the C64 isn't dead. It's very much alive -- on gaming Web sites, through music and in the memories of millions who owned and loved them.
"Computer nostalgia is something that runs pretty deep these days. The memories that people have of this machine are incredible," McCracken said.
Twenty-five years ago computers were an individual experience; today they are just a commodity, he said.
"I don't think there are many computers today that we use that people will be talking about fondly 25 years from now."
*All About*Commodore 64 <http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Commodore_64>
Atari 2600 <http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Atari_2600>
[Editor's Note: Got this from another friend:
The Computer History Museum now has a channel on YouTube. You can access it here:
<http://www.youtube.com/computerhistory>
The C=64 25th birthday video is here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBvbsPNBIyk>
The birthday video includes an interview with Jack Tramiel. I thought people here would enjoy it.
Seemed like a pretty good bet. Happy 25th, Commodore 64!]
ToC
(In honor of the Sonny Bono Law - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act>)
Posted by Declan McCullagh
December 5, 2007 10:43 PM PST
URL: <http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9829826-38.html?tag=st_lh>
In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law.
Politicians want to increase penalties for copyright infringement.
It's no joke. Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown.
"By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual property, we ensure that innovation and creativity will continue to prosper in our society," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich) said in a statement.
The legislation, called the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO IP Act, is throughly bipartisan. The top Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, on the Judiciary committee is a sponsor. So is Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chair of the subcommittee that writes copyright law, and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
The Motion Picture Association of America, which has long championed stiffer copyright laws such as this fall's legislation aimed at file trading at universities, applauded the PRO IP Act as well.
"I believe that the American business community can speak in one voice today in support of these legislative efforts to protect intellectual property," MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman said in a statement. "I am pleased to see a concerted effort by Congress to address this growing problem, and the MPAA looks forward to working with congressional leaders in the weeks to come."
Here are some of the major sections of the PRO IP Act:
Probably the most extensive part of the PRO IP Act is its creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER. The head of WHIPER would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
WHIPER seems to be modeled after the U.S. Trade Representative, with the head of the new agency bearing the rank of "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary." WHIPER's head is charged with being the president's principal advisor and spokesman for intellectual property matters, as well as identifying countries that don't adequately protect IP rights. It gets to create its own official seal as well, and the WHIPER head appears to be paid as well as the attorney general and secretary of defense ($186,600 in 2007).
One of WHIPER's major tasks would be to create a "Joint Strategic Plan" that, in part, involves "identifying individuals" involved in the "trafficking" of "pirated goods." An annual report is due to Congress by December 31 of each year. In addition, 10 "intellectual property attaches" are intended to be dispatched to embassies around the world.
Finally, the U.S. Justice Department's intellectual property enforcement apparatus would be completely revamped. An "Intellectual Property Enforcement Division" would be created and subsume the IP-related functions that the department's computer crime section in the criminal division currently performs. The new division would receive $25 million per year to start with.
ToC
(a team effort from a few friends of mine)
> Western Digital's 1TB MyBook external hard drives won't share mediaI'm skeptical.. how do it know? It's a dumb USB hard drive, how does it know to decode the file system I'm using, and how in the world could it tell the difference between a local and a network access for said file? Sounds like they would have to be patching your OS to achieve this.
Oh yeah, sure enough... "required client software". Duh! Never a good idea. And it says "cannot be shared using WD Anywhere Access"... sounds like ample reason to share them any of the other 6,689 ways one can share a hard drive. This is silly, and also quite possibly suicidal, given the super-commodity factor in the external HD marketplace. Who's going to buy a WD drive, with restrictions, versus one of the many, many others without?
Incredible. What's next? Oh, yeah. Seagate has made an USB disk that only works under Windows:
<http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/06/seagate-snubs-linux>
Also a bad, bad idea. Easily solved by buying Samsung, etc. Or buying the Seagate SATA drive, then putting it one of the thousands of 3rd party enclosures. Or letting LaCie, etc. do that for you.
ToC
/Open Source News - 06 November 2007 - Italy - Legal Aspects/
URL: <http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7265/469>
An Italian court in Florence in September ordered HP, the world's largest computer manufacturer, to refund a customer who did not want the preloaded Microsoft Windows operating system and other applications.
Aduc, an Italian consumer rights organisation, filed its complaint against HP in November 2005. According to a statement by Aduc, HP had refused an Italian PC buyer to refund the costs for the Microsoft Windows operating system and some Microsoft applications, saying the software was sold together with the hardware.
The organisation says it absurd that it is impossible to purchase a PC without a pre-installed copy of Microsoft Windows. "We decided to climb this mountain and on 18 October we finally got what we believe is right."
According to Aduc, Microsoft's end user licence agreement instructs those rejecting the terms can turn to the PC manufacturer for reimbursement. However, HP in court argued that it has no influence on Microsoft's software licenses.
The court thought this unlikely: "(these terms) are part of the trade negotiations between the two companies." The judge also instructed HP to ensure the refund process is not too bureaucratic. It told HP to refund 90 euro for the XP operating system and 50 euro for Microsoft Works.
A French court also in September came to a similar ruling, ordering Acer, he world's third largest computer maker to refund 311,85 euro to a PC buyer.
The second largest computer manufacturer, Dell, has recently refunded at least two PC buyers, one in Great Britain and one in Germany, according to reports on the Internet.
ToC
By Don Dodson
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 11:49 AM CDT
URL: <http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/12/12/no_rate_changes_slated_for_comcast>
For the first time in three years, Jan. 1 will pass without an increase in cable rates for current customers of Insight Communications.
As of that date, Comcast will take over Insight's franchise in the area, including Danville. But cable rates and channel lineups will remain the same, according to Melody Brucker, Insight's district vice president.
The only difference Insight customers should notice after Jan. 1 is the Comcast name appearing on their bills, she said.
"There will not be any local change in management," she said.
All 130 of Insight's employees in the area are expected to be retained, she added.
Last Jan. 1, the rate for Insight Communications' "classic" 70-channel package rose from $47 a month to $49.75 a month. It was the third increase in less than three years, with rates having gone up on Feb. 1, 2005, and Jan. 1, 2006.
Brucker said the rate for "classic" customers will continue to be $49.75 a month, while subscribers to Insight's basic 22-channel package will still pay $11.50 a month.
In East Central Illinois, Insight Communications serves several communities in Champaign, Douglas and Vermilion counties. Those communities include Bondville, Champaign, Chrisman, Danville, Fairmount, Fithian, Homer, Indianola, Muncie, Oakwood, Ogden, Olivet, Philo, Ridge Farm, Savoy, Sidney, St. Joseph and Urbana, as well as the Indiana communities of Cayuga, Eugene, Kingman, Lodi and Silverwood.
Insight also serves Broadlands and Newman in Illinois, but those communities are served by a separate "head-end" and have different rates from other Insight communities.
[A CUCUG member reports: "My secret source inside Insight somewhat contradicts Ms. Brucker and says that we will be getting seven or eight additional HDTV channels sometime after the switchover. This is consistent with what Comcast is offering in other markets. Still no word on what they'll be doing with our sweet, sweet 12Mbps Internet connections since that's not a typical Comcast service."
When asked, our member added, "Yes, your insightbb.com e-mail address will have to change to <something@comcast.com>. If no one else already has your user name you should be able to at least keep the user part. You'll also have to eventually change all your pop3 server settings if you use a client to grab your pop mail off their machine."]
ToC
By Joel Hruska | Published: November 30, 2007 - 06:19AM CT
URL: <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071130-docsis-3-0-possible-100mbps-speeds-coming-to-some-comcast-users-in-2008.html>
Comcast announced today that it will focus on aggressively deploying a DOCSIS 3.0 infrastructure in 2008; the company intends to offer DOCSIS 3.0 capability in 20 percent of its market area by the end of the year. Currently the cable industry depends on the DOCSIS 1.1 specification, but that standard is limited to 36Mbps down and 10Mbps up.
Cable companies may have made a name for themselves as speed kings early in the broadband wars, but the current bandwith limitations of DOCSIS 1.1 leave it looking paltry indeed when compared to Verizon's FiOS 50Mbps down/30Mbps up packages. DOCSIS 3.0 won't completely close the gap between cable and fiber, but its transfer rates of up to 160Mpbs down and 120Mbps up will still offer a considerable improvement over currently deployed equipment. DOCSIS has already proven it's capable of delivering higher throughput speeds-last year Korean cable operator ARRIS demonstrated a pre-DOCSIS 3.0 network capable of delivering content above 100Mbps per second.
DOCSIS 3.0 also offers additional features that make it an attractive update, including enhanced network management and better security features. While not as fast as FiOS, DOCSIS should be easier (and cheaper) to deploy.
Unsurprisingly, Comcast plans to focus its rollout in market areas where the cable provider is already facing strong competition from Verizon. If you're a cable subscriber in Massachusetts or Virginia, 2008 may be a banner year for upgrading to a new tier of service. Those in areas where Comcast rules the roost in terms of speed will likely have to wait their turn, though the company will almost certainly focus buildout efforts in major cities.
Although full compliance with the DOCSIS specification requires the bonding of at least four upstream and four downstream channels, Comcast's first implementation of the standard will be downstream-only. According to Cable Digital News, that's not due to Comcast cutting corners-DOCSIS upstream channel bonding probably won't be available until late 2008-early 2009.
<http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=140143&site=cdn&f_src=lightreading_default>
Up until now, Verizon's FiOS has largely been in a class of its own. AT&T's U-Verse may compete for the same market, but FiOS can provide a bandwidth pipe that simply blows AT&T 6Mbps service out of the water. Once DOCSIS 3.0 comes online, cable companies could potentially hit Verizon hard by offering enough bandwidth to satisfy the type of customer that would've once had no choice but FiOS, while offering their service at a lower price. And because of its decision to run fiber to the node and rely on copper for the last link to the home, AT&T will be sitting at the bottom of the bandwidth well looking up at both Verizon and Comcast-and other cable companies once they roll out DOCSIS 3.0. It'll still be years before a majority of consumers are DOCSIS 3.0-capable, but the first competitive rumblings are scheduled to start by the end of next year.
Related Stories:
ToC
- Comcast's growth slows as pressure from FiOS, U-Verse ratchets up
- Verizon, Comcast pump up the bandwidth. Where's AT&T?
From eWeek, November 13, 2007
By Roy Mark
<http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2214829,00.asp>
<http://www.freepress.net/news/28057>
The network neutrality issue is heating up again. Lauren Weinstein, the founder of the new Network Neutrality Squad, wants to personally thank Comcast for providing the fuel.
Philadelphia-based Comcast has nearly 13 million Internet customers and is the country's second-largest broadband provider. It is under fire for actively interfering with its users' ability to access legal content by cutting off peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and Gnutella, as well as business applications such as Lotus Notes.
Comcast initially denied any network neutrality violations, but admitted the week of Oct. 22 that it does delay some Internet traffic in the interests of "reasonable network management."
The accusations have given new life to the net neutrality debate and Weinstein a new cause. Launched Nov. 5, the NNS aims to provide a public platform to document the detection, analysis and incident reporting of any anti-competitive, discriminatory or other restrictive actions on the part of ISPs or affiliated entities.
The NNS is urging anyone and everyone to report alleged network neutrality violations at the group's Web site.
"The thing is that ISPs have sort of taken the stance that there is no need for network neutrality laws since there aren't any real instances of it actually happening," Weinstein said from Woodland Hills, Calif. "But then along comes Comcast and in one fell swoop gave us a clear reality of what had been a theoretical issue."
Comcast did not respond to requests for comment.
Early signatories to the NNS cause include Google's Vint Cerf, Craig's List founder Craig Newmark and Phil Carn, Qualcomm's vice president of technology.
"A lot of people across the spectrum have sat up and began to take notice [of possible network neutrality violations]," Weinstein said.
Although there are no federal laws prohibiting discrimination in handling network traffic, the Federal Communications Commission issued in 2005 four "principals" that are supposed to "guarantee consumers competition among providers and access to all content, applications and services."
While most of the net neutrality debate has centered on broadband carriers like AT&T proposing to charge large content providers extra fees based on bandwidth consumption-which is not covered by the FCC's principles-the charges against Comcast strike at the heart of the FCC's four rules.
"They're not supposed to be anti-competitive; they're not supposed to discriminate; and, worse, they are being secret about it," Weinstein said. "Comcast violated all the rules. There was clearly a lack of transparency when customers asked what was happening."
Weinstein describes himself as a policy analyst and contract worker through his company, Vortex Technology. He created the Privacy Forum in 1992, and has been involved with Internet and other technology issues for more than 30 years, starting in the early 1970s at the first site on the ARPANET, which was located at UCLA.
"We've started the Network Neutrality Squad to have a better idea about what the ISPs are doing," he said. "Not everyone [in the group] is a pro-regulation fan, but we as a group feel that the goals of the organization are a good thing."
Weinstein said his network neutrality violations watch group, with contributions from anyone who thinks their ISP is violating the FCC principles, will "come up with some interesting data." He added that NNS hopes to "characterize the data in a meaningful way. It may show that regulation is necessary or maybe it isn't."
In any event, he'll have Comcast to thank for the new effort.
Related link:
Here Comes The Network Neutrality Squad!
<http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Here-Comes-The-Network-Neutrality-Squad-89211>
ToC
On The Media, December 07, 2007
Text: <http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/12/07/04>
Audio: <http://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm120707d.mp3>
Brooke interviews Bob about his one man crusade to take down cable-giant, Comcast. Bob talks about his recent campaign in the blogosphere, Comcast's insatiable appetite for bad customer service and why a change might begin with one provocatively-named blog.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We cover the media here, right? Sometimes we cover cable. Sometimes we cover Comcast.
BOB GARFIELD: Uh-huh.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And sometimes we nail our guests for conflicts of interest. So, Bob -
BOB GARFIELD: Mm-hmm.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: - what's the deal with this new website you've founded called Comcastmustdie.com?
BOB GARFIELD: I happen to be a Comcast customer. I happen to be writing a book about how across a vast number of institutions, in the economy and society, the Internet is changing everything, essentially by ending a world in which we can be, as consumers and citizens, dictated to, and opening up a world in which the consumer is very much in control of his own destiny.
I had it very much in mind the day that I had some problems [LAUGHS] getting my Comcast Triple Play service - that's phone, Internet and TV - all bundled into the same package. And I, you know, I won't bore you with the details but it was, it was a nightmare, including vast hold times, including a lot of broken promises - and everything else.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So are you using your highly coveted, profoundly influential position of co-host of this program to solve your personal cable problem?
BOB GARFIELD: Well, it's a question, of course, I ask myself not only as the co-host of On the Media but also as a critic of advertising for Advertising Age, which also covers Comcast.
I have a blog on Ad Age. It is the means by which I'm writing this book. In effect, I'm using the very principles of what I call "listenomics" to -
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [OVERTALK] Patent pending?
BOB GARFIELD: - to [LAUGHS], yes, patent pending. I'm using the very principles of listenomics to get the kind of feedback from readers that I think politicians and corporations must learn to get from their own customers and voters.
And I posted a blog item which I thought had the catchy title of Comcast Must Die [LAUGHS], and it was about my experience, but mainly it was asking other consumers about the idea of forming an E-surrection against companies that treat us like - dirt. That's how I rationalized my decision, not trying to extort Comcast into solving my personal problem but trying to extort Comcast [LAUGHS] into solving every customer's problems.
Of course, every phone company and every cable company has a large number of people who are really angry with them.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now, this show recently did an interview that was critical of Comcast's practice of cutting off lengthy uploads. Don't you think it'll hurt our credibility as, you know, a fair broker in this, if you've got a website called Comcast Must Die?
BOB GARFIELD: Well, I'm afraid it does, actually, undercut our credibility, which is why I, of course, am going to recuse myself from anything that our show does with respect to Comcast. Happily enough, when - you did that interview, I was like in Estonia -
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD: - or, you know, somewhere in the Baltics.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the thing is, is that even though you aren't doing the interviews, you are, in fact, you know, very much identified with this program. And doesn't it give the On the Media imprimatur to your endeavor?
BOB GARFIELD: Well, I hope it doesn't. I'm certainly not representing On the Media, WNYC, NPR, Advertising Age or anyone else but my own quest to drag this particular company kicking and screaming into the digital age.
And, you know, Brooke, the evidence is, you know, in some very substantial ways they are coming around. For example, as far as I know, everyone who has posted his or her customer number along with their complaint on this website has gotten [LAUGHS] immediate follow-up from Comcast to resolve the problem. And many of them have written back to the blog to say, you know, it's kind of amazing, but not only did they do it but it's actually changed their way of looking at Comcast. Gee!
My website has been open for two months, and I don't know how many tens of thousands of page views I've had, but I've had more than 1200 comments, people taking the trouble to go to their keyboard and unburden themselves.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I should say, for the record, that you did not request this interview. I wanted to do it as a matter of full disclosure.
BOB GARFIELD: I did not want to be talking about Comcast on our show. But it's just that conflict of interest issues, you know, are swirling already. I just didn't want to make them worse. But it's really nice, I got to tell you, being interviewed - by Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bob Garfield [LAUGHS] is a columnist for Ad Age and co-host of On the Media.
Related links:
ToC<http://www.onthemedia.org/>
<http://www.comcast.com/>
<http://comcastmustdie.com/>
<http://adage.com/>
<http://adage.com/garfieldtheblog/>
<http://consumerist.com/>
by Stephen Foley
Published on Thursday, December 6, 2007 by The Independent/UK
<http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3226455.ece>
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/06/5640/>
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, issued a public apology to the social networking site's users yesterday and promised that they could switch off a controversial advertising feature that tracked their movements on the internet.1206 02
The Beacon feature launched last month automatically shared information about what books, music, tickets and gifts users were buying on outside websites, but Facebook has been scrambling to quell a growing revolt among its 55 million members.
A U-turn last week, which gave users more control over what information was being shared, failed to mollify critics and yesterday Mr Zuckerberg said he would allow users to disable Beacon entirely.
"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them," he wrote on the company's blog. "We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologise for itÉ I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better."
Almost 70,000 people signed up to a Facebook group demanding that the company stop what they described as an invasion of privacy, while the left-leaning political campaign group MoveOn. org organised an online petition. The controversy had threatened to damage the credibility of Facebook, which gained much of its popularity because of the strict privacy rules that set it apart from rival social networking sites.
However, the climbdown could also be damaging. Beacon was meant to be an important money-spinner for the company, allowing it to take a fee from the e-commerce websites such as Amazon which would be name-checked when their products were purchased by Facebook users.
The company is on course to make a profit of just $30m this year but giddy expectations of future profits have pushed its valuation to $15bn.
Beacon was launched as part of a package of revenue-generating plans a month ago.
ToC
On The Media, October 19, 2007
Text: <http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/10/19/01>
Audio: <http://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm101907a.mp3>
This week's debate on wiretapping legislation centered on whether to grant immunity to the phone companies who face lawsuits from angry privacy groups. Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University Law School, says the phone companies shouldn't be let off the hook.
<http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200710172114DOWJONESDJONLINE000983_FORTUNE5.htm>
<http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/senate-panel-ap.html>
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, as Congress wrangles over bills to extend the administration's secret wiretapping program, some lawmakers grow increasingly frustrated by government stonewalling. The White House wants Congress to grant immunity to the phone companies that violated privacy laws by handing phone records over to the government, but the secrecy over the spying program has placed a roadblock in front of immunity legislation because, as Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, minority head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said this week on CNN -
ARLEN SPECTER: I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke and commit to retroactive immunity when I don't know what went on.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The one telephone company that isn't being sued by citizens or citizen groups for complying with wiretapping programs is Qwest Communications. But their former CEO Joseph Nacchio does have other legal problems. He's appealing his conviction for overstating the value of Qwest's earnings. Documents from Nacchio's appeal suggest that Qwest refused to comply with an NSA wiretapping program almost seven months before September 11th, 2001.
George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley says we should take these allegations with a grain of salt because they are part of his criminal defense.
JONATHAN TURLEY: But his allegations are supported by other sources. We know, for example, that this administration had an interest in data mining before 9/11. So in that sense, he has some corroboration.
It's also true that Qwest seems to be the only company that vigorously opposed the government's demand.
His entire defense [LAUGHS] was that the reason numbers were low is because when the company refused to do something that they considered to be unlawful, that the NSA and the U.S. government yanked a major contract that they were relying on. The court would not allow the jury to hear that defense.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Obviously, the phone companies continue to pretty much stonewall about the details of what they did and didn't do, and AT&T and Verizon have told Congress that the White House is preventing them from talking, citing the State Secrets Privilege. It's kind of -- you bring it down and say, if we tell you what it is we're supposed to be trying here, the nation's security could be at risk.
JONATHAN TURLEY: You know, I litigated one of the leading cases on state secrets. And that is a doctrine that is much abused by the government, but it is almost entirely used within the court system.
Here the White House is telling companies that they cannot speak to an oversight committee and share information to Congress. That raises very significant constitutional questions of separation of powers and even contempt.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is it possible that these phone companies should be immune from prosecution? If the programs were illegal, shouldn't the plaintiffs sue the government agencies, as the phone companies suggest?
JONATHAN TURLEY: [LAUGHS]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You know, does that seem -- you're laughing.
JONATHAN TURLEY: [LAUGHS] Just because it won't happen. Look, I sue the government all the time. It's my bread and butter. But that ain't gonna happen. The government is going to claim the military and state secrets privilege. The Congress has done nothing to rein in the abuses of that doctrine. So, the chances of actually going against the government on something like this is nil.
This argument by the telecom companies that, you know, we're the wrong people to sue, frankly, is fallacious. They have a contract with citizens, and they're in the business not just of communication but of confidential communications. Otherwise, nobody would be doing business with them. It's part of their marketing. It's part of their promise. And what they're saying is that they want Congress to step in and protect them against their own customers who are saying that these companies violated their agreement.
These telecom companies are now the only serious barrier in terms of violation of privacy left. Now, in the best of all worlds, we would have a court system that was engaging in reviews and issuing warrants. But both Congress and the White House have now made that impossible.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This whole discussion is predicated on the notion that the government has no case when it says it needs these rights to protect our national security. Data mining is supposed to be an updated way to keep us protected. Do you feel, honestly, that their defense of this endeavor holds no water whatsoever?
JONATHAN TURLEY: Honestly, I do believe that. And the reason is that before 9/11, they had a very powerful tool. There's a secret court that many of us have long been critical of, and the requirements of that secret court were very, very low. It just required some independent review of these surveillance efforts.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the secret courts were devised in a pre-Internet time. The government suggests that demanding these kinds of clearances is unwieldy and dangerous to our security.
JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, those are statements that are rarely tested in the media. They're accepted as true. In fact, the President has suggested that under the old system before he could issue a wiretap against some individual, they'd have to run and get approval from a judge, and by that point the call's already been made. That has never been the case.
Before 9/11, they could go ahead and wiretap. They just had to eventually go to a judge, explain to them they had to do this under emergency situations and let the judge review it. But they're opposing even that power. It's not that the administration does not have a legitimate interest here. We all want to make sure that they can do what they need to do to protect the country. But the framers of the Constitution created a process by which citizens can't be subject to surveillance. This bill circumvents that process.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jonathan, thank you very much.
JONATHAN TURLEY: It's my great pleasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington Law School.
Related links:
ToCThe Lawless Surveillance State (Sunday December 16, 2007 04:44 EST)
- <http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/16/telecoms/>Rudy Is All Business (Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007)
-<http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1694093,00.html>Cheney's Law
- <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/etc/script.html>
[Editor's Note: From a friend of mine.]
Well, I thought I might spring for a copy of PSPPX2, seeing as it's well recommended and affordable too (cheap dollar). So I downloaded the trial version and started installing it. Hmm, msiexec wants to access the net while installing. Fine, so I let it do that. I have to register on the fly. OK, I do that too.
Now the fun begins. It tries to install some camera detection service behind my back. I deny it, as I have no need for that.
Finally, I'm at the point where I can start it. Looks good, seems to have all the functionality I need. After playing with it a bit WinPatrol warns me about another service is being activated behind my back. Something called "Protexis Licensing Service". WTF? I deny it. I don't trust such systems running behind my back all day long. I'm becoming a bit leery. So I decide to check out the EULA, and find this:
You hereby acknowledge and consent to Corel:
Apparently I can opt out of the marketing sh*t, but I think (a) and (b) is unacceptable. Corel can forget getting any of my money. First of all, I don't like being monitored all the time I'm using a program, and secondly, I think once I paid for a program I shouldn't have to revalidate it. What if Corel goes out of business? Suddenly my software will stop working because I can't revalidate it on a regular basis.
No thank you.
(Corel gets a copy of this mail)
ToC
by Kevin Hisel
URL: <http://www.cucug.org/starship/viewtopic.php?t=1773>
Maybe some of you CUCUG geeks have already seen this but I recently stumbled upon a new video player application (well, it's much more than a player for goodness sakes) called Miro. It was formerly known as as Democracy Player and DTV.
Miro allows you to subscribe to over 2,500 video "channels" which range all the way from very strange niche interests to mainstream commercial networks like PBS, CBS, NBC, etc. and watch them on your PC. Miro does not "stream" content, it pulls the videos for you when your PC is unattended and lets you watch them later without the "buffering" and other annoying slowdowns sometimes associated with watching video online.
Some of the content is spectacular. NASA's channel is in High Def and looks incredible on my 21'' LCD monitor. Most of the networks like CNN, CBS and NBC offer their news shows with very little commercial interruption.
Miro stores all its content on your hard drive so having a little extra space (and a broadband connection) is a must. Depending on how many of the 2,500 channels you subscribe to you could use up 5-30GB pretty easily I would think. One little benefit of storing the videos locally is that if you see something you want to archive, just copy it off to a safe place.
You can set Miro to auto delete videos after a certain time frame (it defaults to six days) so you don't fill up your drive.
One really nice feature is that the videos are all stored in formats that can be played independently of Miro. For example I have it installed on the kitchen PC since that's where I'll be watching most of the videos. But the directory structure Miro uses to store its content is SANE and folder names actually make sense so you can just cruise them from another PC on your network to view the videos. (I would recommend getting a good codec pack for your media player of choice because there is a wide range of video formats represented.)
I was going to buy a TV card for the PC in the kitchen but with Miro, I definitely don't need one. I have access to more video now than I'll ever have time to watch.
Oh and I did I mention the best part? Yup, that's right--Miro is FREE. Some of the shows have commercials but like on your DVR, they are easily skipped over.
And the second best part (and why this post is in the General section) Miro is available for Windows (later versions only), the Mac (OS-X) and Linux!
Miro is v1.0 but I've only seen one error window running under Windows XP. It seems pretty solid.
I believe that with this new application we are beginning to see the future of video delivery. Sell your Comcast and DirecTV stocks, folks. In the future, the cable/satellite companies won't play the "gatekeeper" (as KH2 refers to them) any longer. Your video menu will be 100% ala-carte and you will be in charge of what you watch and when you watch it.
Today, Miro and the content it delivers is in a very nascent stage and you probably won't cancel your cable connection after you download it.
But I do see the future as being quite different.
ToC
Gadgetell: Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things
Posted December 1st, 2007 at 2:34 PM by Robert Nelson
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2pkray
Just when we were amazed at Verizon launching their 50Mbps service, Comcast has announced plans to begin offering DOCSIS 3.0 which means users can potentially see speeds of up to 160Mbps down and 120Mbps up.
This updated and much improved service is expected to be available beginning in 2008 with around 20% of their subscribers eligible for these increased speeds. Comcast has not yet announced just where those lucky 20% will be, but for once this seems like a time that many would be jealous and almost desire to be a Comcast subscriber.
There is a little bad news to go with all this good; isn't there always. The upload speeds will eventually reach a potential 120Mbps, however in the beginning they will be very limited as Comcast will focus on the download speeds. The faster upload speeds are expected to arrive sometime late in 2008 or even early 2009.
With a service offering like this, one could make a fairly safe guess that the coverage will most likely fall in line with Verizon's FiOS coverage areas in order to maximize the competition. I still consider myself fortunate to have a 15Mbps down connection and for the most part I am more than satisfied, I could not even imagine a 160Mbps down connection.
ToC
December 10, 2007
URL: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/97783/97783.html
Once a darling of the retail electronics market, CompUSA has been purchased by an investment firm and will close shop after selling as much of its remaining inventory as possible during the holiday season. CompUSA's fall is just the latest in a long series of brick and mortar retailers that couldn't last in a rapidly consolidating market that's been particularly hard-hit by online sales.
CompUSA currently operates over 100 retail stores in the US, and Gordon Brothers Group, which recently acquired the company, said it will close down any that aren't sold off after the holidays. The group is also selling CompUSA's other assets, including the compusa.com Web site and CompUSA TechPro technical support service.
CompUSA was founded in 1984 as Soft Warehouse but changed its name to CompUSA and went public in 1991. It later bought Tandy's Computer City "super store" chain. The company was purchased in 1999 and made private in 2000.
CompUSA lost money its last two years in business and announced in February 2007 that it would close 126 stores as part of a last-ditch effort to save the company. CompUSA contacted rivals such as Circuit City and Micro Electronics to see about a possible sale, but none were interested. Circuit City, of course, has had its own financial problems and has recently launched its own reorganization.
Gordon Brothers Group bought CompUSA late last week for an undisclosed sum. The company specializes in the selling off of assets, inventories, and overstock. According to a press release, Gordon Brothers Group planned to engage immediately in an "orderly wind down" of CompUSA's operations.
Of course, not all electronics retailers are doing poorly. Industry leader Best Buy currently operates 1100 retail stores throughout the US and Canada and reported net earnings of $250 million on revenues of $8.8 billion in the most recent quarter. After recently opening Apple "store within a store" sections to many of its retail outlets--a former attraction at CompuSA--the electronics giant just announced a deal to sell Dell computers as well.
ToC
Mozilla Corp. said it will ship the next preview of the open-source browser before the end of the year.
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 5:00 PM PST
URL: <http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140496-pg,1/article.html>
Mozilla Corp. said developers have handed off the second beta of Firefox 3.0 to internal testing, and will ship the next preview of the open-source browser before the end of the year.
The tentative release date for Beta 2 has been set for Dec. 21, said Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's interface designer, in a posting to a company blog Monday. "If all goes well during the testing, Firefox 3 Beta 2 will be released on [Dec. 21] in the early afternoon, Pacific Standard Time. You can track our progress on the Firefox 3 Beta 2 Release Checklist," Beltzner said.
Mozilla dropped Beta 1 on users Nov. 20; a day later, Mike Schroepfer, the company's vice president of engineering, said the goal was to get another beta out the door before 2007 ended.
On Friday, Mozilla will hold one of its all-comers test days, where it asks for volunteers to run the beta through a series of stress tests.
Some bugs present in Beta 1, however, have not been fixed in the newest preview, according to messages on the mozilla.dev.planning forum. Last Friday, after the final five bugs that had held up Beta 2's progress were resolved, Schroepfer gave the green light, even though others proposed holding the code until three more problems were fixed.
"Nope, sucks if it is back but I wouldn't block on it," Schroepfer said, referring to a bug related to site certificates that can crash Firefox. None of the three bugs had been marked as fixed by Tuesday in Bugzilla, Mozilla's bug tracking database and management tool, but at least two other patches squeezed in under the deadline.
Mozilla will also take steps similar to ones put in place last month if bloggers or reporters link to the server hosting the "nightly builds," code that's updated daily and used primarily by developers and testers. A posting to Digg.com before Beta 1 was ready prompted Mozilla to redirect users to an explanatory page to keep the nightly server online.
"In order to limit distribution of this not-yet-tested release, anyone who [has] linked to the release candidate download directory will be redirected to this announcement," Beltzner said in his Monday post. "While we appreciate the attention and devotion of our users, we ask them to wait until we have completed testing."
ToC
[Editor's Note: My thanks to Kevin Hisel for submitting the previous four articles in this section of the newsletter.]
ToC
Before Apple makes any more smug OS-related attacks on Microsoft, it ought to take a good look in the mirror.
By Oliver Rist <http://www.pcmag.com/author_bio/0,1908,a=3766,00.asp>
November 29, 2007
URL: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2223921,00.asp>
I'm not sure what ticks me off more about Leoptard (I can't take credit for that nickname -- some Brit coined it): the fact that so many of the semi-important changes don't work, the fact that Apple turned a stable OS into a crash-happy glitz fest, or that the annoying, scruffy Live Free or Die Hard actor infecting my TV (and our Web site, by the way) is pretending that Leopard is better than Vista. It's not better than Vista. Leopard is Vista. And Tiger is better than both of them!
I had to be talked, wined, dined, and peer-pressured into buying my first MacBook Pro this past January. But once I plunked down the bucks for the slightly less hardware oomph per dollar than I'm used to, I was impressed by one thing: Everything. Just. Worked. Period.
Tiger just works. End of story.
But Apple marketing has the swinging pair of crabapples to actually print "Leopard Just Works" on its Web site. Hey, at least Microsoft reps have the decency to look a little abashed when you point out their product's screwups. Apple reps just glare at you like they're daring you to say something. Well, I've got something to say. Several somethings.
XP Pro pre-SP1 crashed all the time, and Microsoft owned up to it -- mostly. XP Pro post-SP2 crashed once in a while, and we sighed and kept working while Microsoft looked embarrassed and yelled at someone to work faster on SP3. From the start, Vista crashed noticeably less than XP Pro with SP2; it just doesn't work with 50 percent of new software -- a year after its shrink-wrapped release. Cue the sound of teeth gnashing. But I digress. Here's the point, in case any Apple reps missed it: Microsoft has delivered clear improvements in stability over time -- a feat you'd think Apple might want to emulate.
Let's see, Tiger crashed -- oh yeah, NEVER. Ten months and I'm installing everything from production-level Office for the Mac 2004 to 0.x releases of VLC, Seashore, and Ecto -- even betas of Firefox and Parallels. Whatever my nerdy little heart desires. I've had those early apps crash, but Tiger never faltered.
A month of using Leopard with the same software I had under Tiger and the OS has dumped six times. That's six cold reboots for Oliver. Apple isn't even honest enough to admit that Leopard is crashing: The OS just grays out my desktop and pops up a dialog box telling me I've got to reboot. Like the whole thing is my fault. I even snapped a picture of it. After all, I HAD PLENTY OF CHANCES! And all my complaints, mirrored by online forum traffic, are the same complaints I heard about Vista when it first reared its unbaked head.
Leopard is the new Vista. All the way. And here are five examples.
Vista Similarity 1: Wait for a Service Pack -- Perpetually
Even our own reviewer, who loves Leopard, says not to upgrade until 10.5.1. And now that Apple has coughed that up, he'll probably say to wait for 10.5.2. Or .3. Now where have I heard that advice before? Oh yeah, every time I reviewed Vista.
What makes it worse is this convoluted argument that my Apple friends give me: They're more upset at Microsoft on account of it being in perpetual service pack limbo because Vista was supposed to be a ground-up redesign, whereas Leopard is really just a juicy point release. That makes zero sense to me. As far as I'm concerned, they both suck.
Vista's ground-uppedness wasn't nearly as major a landmark as I was expecting -- aside from massive and continuous software and hardware incompatibilities. Leopard is touting many of the same "new" features, including the vaunted 64-bittedness. Vista took five years and lost a whole bunch of features along the way, so the fact that it's still unbaked after half a decade blows my mind.
No one is 100 percent sure how long Leopard took, since Apple whispered its name only just last year, but if it is "just a point release," then it should have been much easier to Q/A. And yet, it's still unbaked despite an ad campaign that implies it's fresh, steaming, just out of the oven, and delicious.
Vista Similarity 2: Needless Graphics Glitz
Then there's the new look. Vista comes out and we're all wondering, what was the big deal about window transparency? Yeah, it's great that the OS can support bigger, better video, but unless I'm seeing it as part of a game or an actual productivity app, I just don't care. Looking down to the bottom of my desktop as if I'm snorkeling in a clear blue Bahamas lagoon doesn't really do anything for me. Everyone agrees, and Vista's Aero gets nuked as just another example of Microsoft being in bed with hardware vendors, forcing all of us to run out and upgrade hardware -- video cards, in this case.
Poof, here's Leopard, and the first thing the Apple folks want to show me is window transparency. Now all of a sudden that's the coolest thing ever and an obvious example of cutting-edge OS evolution. I had to check to make sure my ears were working when I heard that one.
Vista Similarity 3: Pointless User Interface "Fixes"
Then there's how Microsoft screwed up Vista's UI, reorganizing things that didn't need to be reorganized -- like the networking screens, for example. Under XP you can get to those with a single right-click on the desktop. Under Vista, it's three layers down for no good reason. Or those new Save As dialog boxes. Drunken monkeys could figure out what was going on under the XP format, but under Vista I've got users asking me for help -- and this is at PC Magazine Labs!
Not to be left behind, Apple has messed up its own UI, too, but Apple did it with piles of senseless graphics enhancements. Users either have to deal with these or learn some nasty hack to kill them off. So much for ease of use.
Who's responsible for Apple's redesigned dock? I could understand a programmer thinking a mirrored dock would look great on his résumé. But I can't imagine that a UI expert looked at it and said it was more functional than Tiger's. A stupid cornflower-blue fuzzball is no replacement for Tiger's clear, dark arrow that let me know what apps I had open. I could actually see the arrow. The blue fuzzy thing just blends in with the pointless mirrored reflections of the app icons, so now I've got to squint for the same information.
Okay, Cover Flow I like, but at any normal resolution that's about as much preview capability as I need. So why add that two-clicks-down QuickLook deal? And what's with that curving Stacker thing off of docked folders? Any subfolder takes you back to Finder anyway, so why not just start there? Oh, wait, I'm forgetting about the new folder icons with the barely visible and nonintuitive subject tattoos on them. And the pièce de résistance: rounded corners on menu bars! Awesome. I have so been waiting for those!
Vista Similarity 4: Nuked Networking
Microsoft made a big deal out of Vista's completely redesigned TCP/IP networking stack, with a big part specifically intended to make wireless networking easier and more stable. And the OS did that fine. Only problem is, now wired networking tends to drop mysteriously every once in a while. But, hey, that's what SP1 is for, right? (Yeah, that was sarcasm.) At least Microsoft had a good reason to mess with its networking stack: XP's networking was a fiery offense against man and nature. What's Apple's excuse?
I actually don't know. Yeah, I know the OS went to full-on 64-bits, but that's no reason to mess with the networking stack. Especially since Tiger's networking just plain worked. Plug into an Apple network -- you're good to go. Plug into a Windows network -- you're good to go. Plug into any IP-based mixed-client network?you're good to go. Bring up a new Windows share in a mixed network, and Tiger usually sees it before the Windows client does. Did someone actually sit down and say, we've just got to improve on that?
Leopard's networking sees the physical part of the network just fine, wired or wireless. And if there's an AFP share, that pops up like a puppy for a doggie treat. But the Web abounds in complaints -- plaintive cries as to why Leopard seems to ignore Windows shares, and semi-effectual fixes. Or it sees Windows shares for a little while and then in a fit of pique decides to drop them again. It's like the French waiter of networking. Oh, but who cares, Oliver? After all, it's not as if networking were in any way related to business functionality. Or that interacting peaceably with Windows is in any way required. As long as we can talk to the iPod and Apple TV we're good, right?
Vista Similarity 5: Bundled Apps as New Features That Suck
This drives me nuts. With Vista, it was SideShow. Not Sidebar, which is the annoying and semifunctional widget Microsoft copied into Vista because it just couldn't let Google and Yahoo! hog all the kudos. Sidebar is a decent example of a New Feature That Sucks, but SideShow is a great example. SideShow is that promised hardware-bundle feature that would let users scan e-mail, play music, and perform similar functions on a notebook or PDA-style Vista PC without opening or booting the computer (this requires a little screen on the notebook lid with some nav buttons). I saw a bad implementation on the much-cursed FlipStart mini PC, and there's a Dell notebook around now that has it, but on both it was essentially a non-feature.
For Leopard, the sad bundled app-as-feature is Time Machine. To hear Mac moonies tell it, this is the best thing to happen to backup since the letter b. In reality, however, it sucketh and it sucketh huge.
Okay, the screen looks like Star Wars. That's cool in an I-want-to-stay-a-virgin kind of way. But "easy to use"? Which groupie said that? Try putting a new Apple user in front of this app and see what happens. For one, you can't set up Time Machine from within Time Machine. How is that easy? You'll find some of the settings buried in System Settings and others in Time Machine. And if you want to kick off a manual backup, you've got to know to right-click on the Time Machine icon in the dock. Is Britney Spears moonlighting as Apple's UI designer?
Then there's the annoying marketing ploy showcasing how amazing it is that Time Machine takes a snapshot of the entire file system. News flash: EVERY backup app can take a snapshot of the entire file system. That would be the reason we call them "backup programs." Other backup apps simply tell you to choose which files and folders you want saved -- up to and including the entire file system. Time Machine does it the other way around and says "I'm backing up everything unless you tell me otherwise." How is this better than, say, Vista's bundled backup?
In fact, Vista's backup kicks Time Machine's butt in three rather important ways: First, you can do an image-based bare-metal restore with the MS version -- provided you've paid for the privilege by buying a more expensive version of Vista. (See, being able to do a bare-metal restore makes losing all that drive space that you eat by taking a full-system snapshot worthwhile.) Time Machine needs a working version of Leopard to talk to, so why am I backing up all that system stuff?
Second, Vista does block-level incremental backups to help conserve drive space and decrease backup time. With this type of backup, a previously backed-up file that's been recently changed has only the new changes saved and the rest of the file referenced. Time Machine doesn't do that at the file level. You change a file and it just snaps the whole thing again. Not such a big deal for Word docs, but for my Entourage mail database? My Fedora or Vista virtual machine files? That's a lot of data to just keep snapping away at.
So why doesn't Time Machine do block-level backups? I have no idea. Apple controls the file system. It controls the backup application. Generally, that's all you need. Maybe Apple couldn't spare the programmers working on the hugely important Star Wars core animation splash-screen project. Can't skimp on that, can we?
Third, Vista's backup works over a network. In its ads Apple blithely says that Time Machine can, too, but when you read the fine print - or try it in real life - you discover that Time Machine works with USB- or FireWire-connected drives only. Really? In 2007? When I saw that, I actually looked around to see if Ashton Kutcher was going to pop out from behind my lab bench and tell me I'd been punked.
Meanwhile, maybe I'm a boring old sys admin guy, but EMC's Retrospect worked just fine under Tiger, and some version of that app comes free with any number of networked hard drives or home NAS products. No Star Wars splash screen, though -- just easy-to-navigate wizards, damn them.
Okay, I probably had a little too much coffee this morning, but Leopard really is just one big popped balloon of disappointment. Let's get it straight, however: I'm not any more against Leopard than I am against Vista. Both of them got too much wrong. I'll close with a little tidbit for that pudgy PC guy in the Apple commercials who's so sad because his users are "downgrading" to XP. Well, maybe they are -- I know I did. But I'm writing this on an XP workstation right now because my Mac is busy reinstalling Tiger. Leopard can keep its glitzy crash-prone spots. I'll stick with the OS that really "just works" -- for now.
Want to see Oliver rant? Check out our video review.
- Mac OS X Leopard Video Review <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2223014,00.asp>
For a different take, read our OSX 10.5 (Leopard) review.
ToC
- Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard) <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2207556,00.asp>
From: Tomoharu Nishino <tomoharu@nishino.us>
On Nov 16, 2007, at 9:26 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:
Putting aside the legalities, I was wondering what folks thought about this. Apparently after a lot of work, a group has managed to hack OSX to run on generic x86 hardware.
<http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php>
<http://lifehacker.com/software/benchmarks/hackintosh-vs-mac-pro-vs-macbook-pro-benchmarks-322866.php>It seems that with an $800 investment you can build a computer that runs OSX roughly as well as a $2500 Mac Pro.
What do folks think that the repercussions of being able to do this will be? (Clearly building your own Mac isn't for everyone, just as building your own Windows PC isn't for every Windows user. It may be that even though you can build your own Mac that very few users will actually undertake to do so.)
I'm wondering how hard Apple will come down on the "OSx86 Project."
But one thing they say is that in order to boot into OSX, you have to have the OSX DVD-ROM in the drive, and this is true for every reboot.
And if you read through the wiki and forum pages, one thing you notice is that it works fine on some configurations, but some functionality does not work in others---presumably from lack of drivers for various bits of hardware. Others also report some software (like iWork and iLife) not working in certain configurations. This may not be such a big deal if you are building your own desktop from scratch, and can specifically choose components to be OSX compatible, but with laptops it appears to be a total crapshoot (unless others have already tried your particular model).
This is presumably one of the reasons why Apple chooses not to release OSX for intel for generic PCs (well, that and the fact that they make their money from hardware)---having to support all the disparate hardware components in literally infinite combinations is one thing that makes Windows so messy.
And I don't think software updates are automatic either (you have to patch every new point release).
OSX86 is an interesting endeavor, but seems to suffer from minor (e.g. the DVD issue) and not-so-minor (e.g. missing functionality) issues to be a realistic solution. I can see how the hacking itself can be a fun challenge for hobbyists, and if you wanted to just "try out" OSX this might give you a taste (albeit a mediocre one if some of the functionality is missing), but for real work this isn't it. If I have to spend time patching the initial install, or troubleshooting every point release upgrade, or patching files to get some functionality, or dealing with unstable applications, the money saved will quickly disappear in productivity lost.
And just the thought of running a patched OS gives me the chills (especially if you go the blatantly illegal route of downloading a pre- patched disk image).
Apple has holes in its hardware lineup that could be well filled by existing PC hardware---for example, I would love to have my Fujitsu P1610 run Mac OSX---but OSX86 just seems too involved and risky to be a realistic solution.
ToC
By Mark T. Bohr, Robert S. Chau, Tahir Ghani, and Kaizad Mistry
URL: <http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5553/1>
As you read this, two of our most advanced fabs here at Intel are gearing up for the commercial production of the latest Core 2 microprocessors, code-named Penryn, due to start rolling off the lines before the year is up. The chips, based on our latest 45-nanometer CMOS process technology will have more transistors and run faster and cooler than microprocessors fabricated with the previous, 65-nm process generation. For compute-intensive music, video, and gaming applications, users will see a hefty performance increase over the best chips they are now using.
A welcome development but hardly big news, right? After all, the density of transistors on chips has been periodically doubling, as predicted by Moore's Law, for more than 40 years. The initial Penryn chips will be either dual-core processors with more than 400 million transistors or quad-core processors with more than 800 million transistors. You might think these chips don't represent anything other than yet another checkpoint in the inexorable march of Moore's Law.
But you'd be wrong. The chips would not have been possible without a major breakthrough in the way we construct a key component of the infinitesimal transistors on those chips, called the gate stack. The basic problem we had to overcome was that a few years ago we ran out of atoms. Literally.
To keep on the Moore's Law curve, we need to halve the size of our transistors every 24 months or so. The physics dictates that the smallest parts of those transistors have to be diminished by a factor of 0.7. But there's one critical part of the transistor that we found we couldn't shrink anymore. It's the thin layer of silicon dioxide (SiO_2 ) insulation that electrically isolates the transistor's gate from the channel through which current flows when the transistor is on. That insulating layer has been slimmed and shrunk with each new generation, about tenfold since the mid-1990s alone. Two generations before Penryn, that insulation had become a scant five atoms thick.
[Editor's Note: Due to length, I'm not including the whole article. For more of this story check out the link above.]
ToC
by Jason Paur, Marketplace Morning Report
Thursday, December 6, 2007
URL: <http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/12/06/server_farms_harvest_rural_power/>
In a rural area of Washington state that doesn't draw heavily on the power of the electric grid, Internet companies are taking advantage of an opportunity to set up their servers.
Doug Krizner: The state of Washington is the nation's top apple producer. Now, its got a new cash crop: computer servers. Server farms are sprouting up in rural communities along the Columbia River because of the region's inexpensive electricity. Jason Paur reports.
Jason Paur: After driving past acres and acres of apple orchards, I'm standing in a non-descript office building about two hours east of Seattle. It's a quiet place, until Kevin Timmons opens a door on the top floor.
Kevin Timmons: I'm about to take you into where the actual Internet lives, here in central Washington.
Timmons is the vice president of operations for Yahoo. And those are computers you hear. There are thousands of square feet filled with nothing but servers stacked from floor to ceiling that store much of the content Yahoo provides.
Simmons says Yahoo was drawn to the region by the cheap electricity to not only power the computers, but also to cool them.
Timmons: Electricity is one of our largest single line items as far as our expenses for one of these centers. So that's certainly a key consideration to locate a center.
Cheap electricity is just one issue. Simply having enough is another. Even a small server farm can use as much electricity as several thousand homes.
In many urban areas, these facilities would be too much of a drain on the local power grid. But here along the Columbia River, where numerous hydroelectric dams produce the abundant cheap power, local communities are happy to have the extra business.
Pat Connely is a port commissioner in Quincy, a town about 45 minutes down the river.
Pat Connely: This does bring a lot of revenue into the area. We just view it as a good thing, it diversifies our economy a whole bunch so we're not dependent solely on agriculture.
Microsoft, Intuit and Yahoo are all opening server facilities in Quincy in the coming months. And when many of the surrounding fields are covered in snow, these new farms will continue to produce a bounty crop of data 24 hours a day.
ToC
On The Media, November 23, 2007
Transcript <http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/11/23/02>
Download MP3 <http://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm112307b.mp3>
Last week, Amazon unveiled a new electronic book reader whose display incorporates digital ink technology and looks remarkably like paper. Michael McCreary of E-Ink Corporation hopes that consumers will finally give up the dead-tree version of books.
<http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/21/magazines/fortune/fastforward_kindle.fortune/>
<http://svextra.com/blogs/gmsv/2007/11/amazon_bets_big_on_kindle_e-reader_bookies_wary.html>
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. This week, Amazon.com unveiled a new electronic reader device called the Kindle. It's the size of a thin paperback, it weighs ten ounces and it can hold thousands of books. To make the device a must-have, Amazon will offer more than 80,000 electronic books, as well as subscriptions to dozens of newspapers, magazines and even blogs at fairly low prices.
Now, this isn't the first E-reader device, but one feature Amazon hopes will set the Kindle apart is its use of so-called E-Ink technology. This, they say, will finally make reading digital text a pleasant experience. Unlike computer screens, E-Ink is not backlit. It looks more like actual paper.
Michael McCreary, E-Ink's vice president of research and advanced development, says the new display is a vast improvement over previous unsuccessful E-readers.
MICHAEL McCREARY: In the early days, in the late 1990s, it took about 200 volts or so [LAUGHS], much higher than your actual house current, to create an image. And they were very, very crude images. They were blue, and the images weren't particularly stable. Today the technology is very comparable to what you would see in a printed newspaper.
BOB GARFIELD: Permit me to ask three questions all at once. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How does it work?
MICHAEL McCREARY: The look is just like regular paper. Right now, it is rigid. It doesn't bend like regular paper. But within the next year so, it'll be thin and feel like regular paper as well. Of course, the difference is, unlike regular paper, you'll be able to change the image.
What we're talking about are real pigments, the same kind of pigments you have in ink or in wall paint. And even if you remove the batteries, that image is there for years.
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me the technology behind it. How does it work?
MICHAEL McCREARY: The principle of the electronic paper is microscopic charged particles, in the primary case, black and white. And it's possible to move either the white to the front or the black to the front, so when you do that at a much smaller scale than you can actually see with your naked eye, what you end up with is something that looks exactly like paper.
And the displays that you have on your computer and TV have a light that's on 100 percent of the time. You're using power all the time, and if you take that computer outside, you can't read it in sunlight. And that's a major disadvantage compared to traditional paper, and that disadvantage is not there with electronic paper.
BOB GARFIELD: One of the criticisms of virtual paper is that it doesn't feel like a book or like paper. It's, you know, it's plastic film, and it's cold and impersonal and digital.
MICHAEL McCREARY: I'm actually holding an electronic book in my hands right now. It has a leather cover. The book is maybe the size of a paperback in two dimensions, but it's maybe one-half or less the thickness of a paperback.
And I love the feeling of the leather cover. I love the look of this, like paper. This is basically a library book. I'll still have my hundred-year-old books in my library at home, but I don't carry those in my briefcase [LAUGHS] to read them when I go out on a business trip.
BOB GARFIELD: There seem to be some obvious ecological advantages - no trees killed and so forth. Is that real? What are the implications?
MICHAEL McCREARY: It's absolutely huge. It's been said that if all the newspapers in the United States switched to electronic papers and the forests stayed standing that we would meet the Kyoto Treaty requirements with those steps alone. So it's very big, especially for paper that's only read once.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay, fine. I'm in an airplane. I have my E-book. I'm on page 567 of War and Peace and things are really getting exciting - Napoleon's on the run - and I run out of batteries. Whom do I kill?
MICHAEL McCREARY: [LAUGHING] Well, the chances of running out of batteries are very, very small because you can read thousands of pages on these E-books without having to recharge your batteries. And the book does not require power to maintain an image, only to change an image.
So the chances of finishing your paper book on the airplane [LAUGHS] and being frustrated because you don't have another book are probably much greater than [LAUGHS] the chances of actually running out of batteries on your electronic book.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, Mike. Thank you so much.
MICHAEL McCREARY: So good to talk to you.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael McCreary is vice president of research and advanced development for E-Ink.
ToC
from <http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1679/>
Last week's issue of Newsweek (dated November 26) has an interesting review of Kindle by Steven Levy. See <http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983>
--
I've got to wonder if Kindle will ever be able to access the free books at project Gutenberg? Unfettered free access to that library might actually make the little gadget worth buying.
--
Apparently so. See Andy Ihnatko's Kindle review at <http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/672259,CST-FIN-Andy29.article> where, as part of his testing, he used the Kindle to read a book downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
--
The Kindle is a product looking for something that doesn't need a solution. When I go on a trip, I might listen to hundreds of songs or podcasts. An MP3 player like the iPod filled a niche. When I go on a trip, I might read a half dozen books which really don't take up all that much room. Taking a Kindle loaded with a 100 books doesn't really do too much for me.
Plus, ebooks create a few more problems than they solve. I do go to the library, and I borrow books from friends. In fact, most of what I read is either passed down to other members of my family, or sent to me from family when they finish their books. Until you can find a way to share a book on an ebook device, you don't have a viable solution to the "reading problem".
--
The codex book proves itself a remarkably effective bit of end-stage technology, time and again. No ebook or etext or epaper that I know of solves as many usability problems as simple paper, ink, and appropriate binding. The biggest usability problem, I think, is sharability and retrieval over time.
Time is part of engineering; any book that relies any technology not intrinsic to itself eventually will not be retrievable. Batteries fail. PDF requires a stable electrical supply and therefore power plants. DRM requires specific hardware and software that surely won't exist 10 years from now.
Remember all the cool stuff for the Newton?
Once a book is made, it is made. You don't need to upgrade anything or dig old machines out of a closet to pick it up 50 years from now.
So Kindle strikes me very much as a marketing toy rather than a serious attempt at making a better book. Or even a usable book.
ToC
by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
TidBITS#905/19-Nov-07
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9327>
Amazon has released its much-anticipated Kindle, a $399 electronic book reader that features a persistent high-speed network connection using Sprint's 3G EVDO cellular network. Amazon is offering over 88,000 books for sale for use with the Kindle, with New York Times best-selling titles and new releases generally priced at $9.99. Short stories and classics cost $2 or less; a seemingly small number of books cost more than $10 in a quick browse through the library.
<http://amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/tidbitselectro00/>
The Kindle breaks away from previous electronic book readers by providing a large number of titles and a continuous network connection. The most closely comparable device prior to the Kindle is the Sony Reader, a second generation of which shipped recently with a street price of around $300 (see "Sony's PRS Ebook Reader and Connect Bookstore," 2006-12-18 for a review of the first generation). The iPhone isn't a direct competitor, but it's worth comparing because of its network connection and highly legible screen.
<http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&partNumber=PRS500U2&INT=sstyle-PortableReader-tophero-portable_reader>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8794>
The Sony Reader uses the same E-Ink technology as the Kindle, which apparently provides an extremely bright, low-glare display that can be read in direct sunlight and at varying angles. The Reader is 6.9 by 4.9 by 0.3 inches (17.5 by 12.5 by 0.8 cm) and weighs 8 ounces (0.23 kg). The heftier Kindle is 7.5 by 5.3 by 0.7 inches (19 by 13.5 by 1.8 cm) and weighs 10 ounces (0.28 kg). The iPhone, which offers no built-in book-reading features - even reading email-delivered or Web-hosted PDFs is a chore - is smaller than both, at 4.5 by 2.4 by .46 inches (11.5 by .61 by .12 cm) and weighing in at 4.8 oz. (0.14 kg).
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-11/Kindle-front.png>
The displays on the Kindle and Sony Reader are both grayscale (4 shades of gray for the Kindle versus 8 shades for the Sony Reader), so books with complex illustrations or which require color won't work well or at all. Both devices have 6-inch diagonally measured screens that display 600-by-400 pixels at about 160 pixels per inch (ppi). The iPhone is a full-color device that uses anti-aliasing to improve text legibility on a 480-by-320-pixel, 3.5-inch diagonally measured screen at about 160 ppi.
The Kindle features a Secure Digital (SD) expansion slot and a USB port. The Sony Reader has both, along with support for Sony's proprietary Memory Stick, while the iPhone has just USB connectivity. Amazon doesn't list Kindle's memory capacity, but notes that the unit can hold 200 titles, while an expansion 256 MB SD card would hold 300 titles. Given the operating system and other overhead, I would expect the Kindle has 256 MB built in. The Sony Reader has 192 MB; an iPhone a whopping 8 GB. The iPhone trumps the others here because it's designed to play audio and movies.
Whereas both the Sony Reader and the iPhone require a computer (Windows for the Sony Reader, Mac or Windows for the iPhone), the Kindle doesn't require a computer at all. However, if you do want to load personal content or audio files, the Kindle mounts as a USB drive, and you can manually back up content or copy over new items in formats Kindle supports. (The Kindle is therefore the first electronic book reader that works with Unix, Linux, and variants.)
<http://amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200137060>
After those basics, though, the differences between the three multiply. The offerings for what to read with the Kindle make it clear how serious Amazon is about making Kindle a success.
<http://amazon.com/b/ref=sv_kinc_2/103-7427955-9375052?ie=UTF8&node=165389011>
<http://amazon.com/b/ref=sv_kinc_4/103-7427955-9375052?ie=UTF8&node=241646011>
<http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9203>
Much of what makes Amazon's overall approach with Kindle work is its persistent network connection. The Kindle is the first device I'm aware of that ships with high-speed network access and without a subscription fee or a recurring fee of any kind. The cost of network use and data delivery is built into the price of each item you purchase or subscribe to. It's the first portable ebook reader that might have a shot because of how it marries legibility, a network, and a large library.
Blogs and periodicals are delivered as new issues or posts appear using what Amazon calls "Whispernet," which is a continuous push network for content you subscribe to. When you purchase a book, it's immediately downloaded.
The Sprint EVDO network that Amazon relies on is available extensively in most medium-sized and larger cities, but is scarce outside of major population centers. That might lead to Kindle being more frustrating to use when on the road or in smaller towns where the Kindle uses a more widespread, but modem-speed technology called RTT.
However, extensive use of Kindle - in the millions of units - could conceivably lead Sprint to change its deployment pattern for where to put new EVDO base stations, as Sprint will receive a piece of all transactions in lieu of subscription revenue. As Amazon head Jeff Bezos said at the device's announcement, "We pay for all of that behind the scenes so you can just read."
<http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/amazon-kindle-live/amazon-kindle-e+book-reader-launch-live-324292.php>
Before I sound overly enthusiastic about the Kindle, let me note a few problems.
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200140600>
With Amazon's marketing power and customer reach behind this device, with a full-time network connection, and with so many titles available at such low cost at launch, it's possible Kindle will light the fire that Amazon hopes, and finally get a mass audience of ebook readers.
One wonders, though, why Amazon produced such a toadstool of a product when the thoughtfulness for what lies within is so obvious. In pictures, it's the only real misstep. The iPhone is among the most beautiful and functional devices ever created, while the Kindle is just plain homely for something that similarly aims to change the world.
ToC
November 23, 2007
Transcript <http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/11/23/04>
Download MP3 <http://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm112307d.mp3>
A management consultant dreamed of instantly printing books. An editor dreamed of selling classics that are hard to find in megastores. Together they created the Espresso Book Machine. Their only obstacle: glue. Daniel J. Kramer reports on the ATM machine for literature.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: New technology has been developed to ensure that paper books survive. Time Magazine and Reader's Digest have just named the Espresso Book Machine one of the top inventions of 2007, though its creation spans nearly three decades.
Costing about 140,000 dollars and the size of a very small car, it's a bookstore, a very, very big bookstore in a box. Daniel J. Kramer has the story of the EBM.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: In 1989, Harvey Ross was a management consultant for the communications industry. He was conducting research into how radio, TV and publishing would be affected by emerging technology - when lightning struck.
BRUCE FABLER: I remember him sticking his head in my office one day and told me about this idea he had, which is what became the Book Machine.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Bruce Fabler was a long-time friend of the late Harvey Ross.
BRUCE FABLER: He came up with this notion of being able to generate a book on demand. He was so captivated by the idea that he significantly curtailed his consulting practice and jumped headfirst into refining, getting a patent and deploying the system.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Ross went looking for people who could make his vision of printing books on demand a reality. In St. Louis he found patent attorney Bill Cunningham, and together they hammered out a concept patent for storing books on a computer and printing them as needed.
But vision only takes you so far. That's where inventor Jeff Marsh fits into the picture.
JEFF MARSH: Harvey needed someone that could take the concept and create working hardware.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Marsh had previously worked in the automotive industry and approached the idea of making a machine that can print a book on demand with eyes unclouded by the publishing world. And those eyes saw the biggest obstacle to printing high-quality books on demand - the glue.
JEFF MARSH: I started looking at some of the processes that went into making a book, and I recognized that the gluing of the spine, if you will, or the binding process was not going to work for a book machine. And what wound up on that is, is I conceived ultrasonic binding.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Obviously. In traditional bookbinding, hot glue is continuously replaced and refreshed. It's never compromised by being too long on the boil. But in the world of on demand publishing, it's hard to predict how many books will be produced. Glue kept hot for too long gets too thick and less adhesive and also leaves a terrible stench in the air.
JEFF MARSH: And that's what drove me to say, hey, we need a way to have glue in its fresh state and then we need to energize that glue real quick and then have it melt into the pages and into the cover of the book and set up real quick.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Marsh produced a machine that hit the glue with a concentrated burst of energy to bind the pages together - from salt. Finally, they had a machine that could print any book in five to seven minutes. This meant in theory that no book ever had to go out of print, following Jeff Marsh's mission statement of -
JEFF MARSH: Any book, anywhere, any time.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Ross and company now had the hardware for instant publishing but had nothing to publish. Ross dove into the book world in hopes that someone with enough clout would see how his machine could change the world. And that's where Jason Epstein fits in.
The former editor of Random House was trying to find a way to offer consumers classic literature that had become hard to find in the new mega-mall bookstores of America.
JASON EPSTEIN: I created a mail-order catalog with about 40,000 backlist titles in it which readers could order over an 800 number. At first, it was a very successful venture. We sold lots and lots of catalogs and a great many books, and discovered after a year or so that we were losing money on every sale just because it was so expensive to handle individual orders physically.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Epstein folded his mail-order business, but still he knew there had to be a way to get -
JEFF MARSH: Any book, anywhere, any time.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Then he heard about Ross' machine.
JASON EPSTEIN: I went out to see it and it did exactly what I had anticipated such a machine should do. And I said to myself, well, this now transforms the publishing business. It replaces the whole Gutenberg structure that had existed for 500 years.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Jason Epstein teamed up with an old friend, former Dean & Deluca CEO Dane Neller, to form On Demand Books. They licensed Marsh's machine, dubbing it the Espresso Book Machine. It's like an ATM for literature. Just as an ATM can deliver money in any currency, the EBM can furnish books in any language. Jason Epstein.
JASON EPSTEIN: The 40 million Hispanic people in the United States who are underserved by the existing book distribution system would now be able to download books in their own language.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: And it can relieve any publisher hit with an unexpected bestseller. Cary Goldstein, director of publicity, Twelve Books.
CARY GOLDSTEIN: Our first printing, For God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens, was about 40,000 copies. Within about a week of publishing that book, we went back for print about three times, and we're up to 90,000 copies in print.
Books sold so quickly that there was about a week where books were not available. But having these print on demand machines would make them immediately available to people.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: This machine is not designed for the indecisive reader. It's for people who know exactly what they want. But there is a certain pleasure in entering a bookstore with no particular purchase in mind. It's called browsing. E-books and audio books have their place, but we like to touch and smell and see.
Fred Bass owns the Strand in Manhattan, which proudly boasts over 18 miles of books.
FRED BASS: There's something that's very attractive about looking at a dust jacket on a book or the color of the book or the way it's bound that makes the book more interesting, determining just by handling the book whether you really want to read it or not.
DANIEL J. KRAMER: Currently there are six EBMs in the world. The first one was at the World Bank. Now it's at the Library of New Orleans, where it will help replace the books washed away by Katrina.
There's one at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, another at the University of Alberta in Canada, one in Australia, another one in San Francisco - and the sixth is moving from the New York Public Library to the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont. There, over 200,000 public domain titles will be available instantly, thanks to the EBM.
Now, instead of spending years tracking down Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, you just print it out, go home with a copy of it in your back pocket and finally read it.
For On the Media, I'm Daniel J. Kramer.
ToC
Paul Thurrott
URL: <http://www.wininformant.com/>
Remember the "old" Microsoft, you know, the one that would promise products at a certain time and then deliver them months or even years later? The Microsoft of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and WinFS? You know those guys. Well, that Microsoft may be coming to an end, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly. In the last week alone, everyone's favorite recalcitrant monopolist actually delivered two major product milestones well ahead of schedule, and I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more press. First, after a nearly silent beta program, the company released Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) over a month ahead of schedule. The, the company delivered a public Hyper-V Beta release, also a month ahead of schedule. Granted, Hyper-V has been delayed before, and the final release will now ship in mid-2008, about three months after Windows Server 2008. But I don't think anyone expected Microsoft to deliver this public beta on schedule, let alone ahead of schedule.
As it should, really. This week's release of a public beta of Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology triggered an interesting public reaction from VMWare who, in case you're unaware, is the unequivocal leader in this particular market. VMWare's take on Hyper-V is sort of humorous, mostly because it's true: The company says that while Microsoft's delivery of a beta version of a hypervisor-based virtualization solution is admirable, their own similar solution, ESX Server, has been available for seven years in production form and is more mature, functional, and well-supported. The different approaches offered by the two companies are interesting. Microsoft is basically embedding Hyper-V in its Windows Server 2008 OS while VMWare, of course, is offering ESX as a standalone thin-server product as well as a server that runs on top of Windows, Linux, and Solaris servers. I think the big difference, frankly, is maturity: ESX is well-established and proven. But Microsoft's entry into the market will definitely mix things up. It should be an interesting fight.
Chipmaker AMD took the rare step of publicly apologizing to Wall Street this week for its botched release of the quad-core Barcelona microprocessor, which arrived late, buggy, and slower than previously promised. To date, AMD has yet to ship Barcelona in volume thanks to a design flaw. And with the company's stock tanking a full 40 percent since October, AMD has to make some changes. The company says it has learned its lesson and will perform better in 2008, but I can't help thinking that the industry is just passing them by. As being first to market with 64-bit x86 chips (now called x64), AMD seems to have really mucked up dual-core and now quad-core computing. They may never recover.
Google this week shipped a beta version of its next generation IE toolbar, which wouldn't normally be an interesting topic per se, but for one crucial feature. It supports settings synchronization so that you can install the toolbar on multiple PCs and ensure that it's configured exactly the same way on each, automatically. I think this kind of functionality is crucial, and it follows an earlier feature that lets you store bookmarks up in the cloud in the same way, rather than trap them locally on a single PC. Google Toolbar 5 for IE is now available in beta form from the Google Web site ( <http://toolbar.google.com/T5/> ) (make sure you navigate there in IE).
When it comes to competition, there's transparent baloney (most of Apple's Vista-oriented "I'm a PC" ads, for example, or those qualification-laden pharmaceutical ads), and then there's good, old-fashioned fisticuffs. This week, Microsoft and Mozilla engaged in the latter form of competition, with both sides claiming that their respective Web browsers are more secure than the other's. It all started when Microsoft security strategy director Jeff Jones blogged about a Microsoft study comparing IE 7 and Mozilla Firefox security vulnerabilities over the past year. (Guess which one won.) "Over the past 3 years, supported versions of Internet Explorer have experienced fewer vulnerabilities and fewer High severity vulnerabilities than Firefox," Jones said (in case it wasn't obvious). Mozilla, go figure, wasn't amused. And it countered that Microsoft was conveniently not counting all of the security vulnerabilities that have bedeviled IE 7 in the past year, throwing cold water on the claims: Microsoft, they say, actually bundles bug fixes into single packages, lowering the supposed bug count. Anyway. I suspect that both IE 7 and Firefox 2.0 are pretty secure. But please, for our enjoyment, do keep up the fight.
And finally, Dell is expanding its retail presence this week with a deal it announced with US electronics retail giant Best Buy. The PC maker will begin selling its notebook and desktop PCs in over 900 Best Buy locations in the US starting as early as late this month. That dramatically expands the company's retail presence, all the more impressive when you consider that Dell's machines were available only online and via the phone as recently as a year ago. You can also find Dells in Wal-Mart, Staples, Carefour (in France), and Gome, a China-based retailer. Whether these changes are enough to catapult Dell ahead of market leader HP is unclear. Indeed, HP seems to have only widened the gap between it and Dell in recent quarters.
ToC
December 13th, 2007
URL: <http://itsvista.com/2007/12/improve-vistas-disk-performance-by-15-without-sp1/>
Microsoft released a slew of updates on Tuesday, which extended beyond security related fixes. They also made available the Release Candidate for Service Pack 1, which among other things, is said to improve performance when copying and moving files. If you're running Vista on your production machine, you probably won't want to install SP1 RC, as it's not quite ready for prime time. You can now get the disk performance improvements without installing SP1 RC through an official Microsoft Update that was also released on Tuesday.
Referred to simply as a "reliability" update, KB943899 <http://tinyurl.com/39ar8k> is said to "improve performance, responsiveness, and reliability of Windows Vista in various scenarios". The three main fixes included are:
- You receive a "Stop 0x000000A0" error when you try to switch the computer to the hibernate state.
- You receive a "Stop 0x0000009f" error when you switch the computer to the hibernate state or to the standby state. Or, you receive this Stop error when you resume the computer from the hibernate state or from the standby state. This problem occurs on a computer that has a wireless network connection.
- The disk does not spin down after a specified time of inactivity.
After mentioning those fixes, almost as an afterthought, it states:
Additionally, this update can help improve performance when you perform operations that are related to large disk I/O. After you apply this update, you may notice up to a 15 percent performance improvement in some copying operations and when moving some large files.
That's an awful nice "by-the-way". This is listed as an Update, not a Hotfix, so it has gone through quality control and should be ready for your production Vista installs. So, grab the 32-bit or the 64-bit update and give it a try. Leave a note on your experience, did it make any difference on your machine?
ToC
December 11th, 2007
URL: <http://cybernetnews.com/2007/12/11/vista-sp1-introduces-hotpatching/>
Microsoft must be prepping for the release of Vista SP1 RC1 this wee
