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INTEREST: Stanford's "Clean Slate" Internet redesign...
by billing 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

...from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html?th&emc=th Do We Need a New Internet? By JOHN MARKOFF Published: February 14, 2009 Two decades ago a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student brought the Internet to its knees with a simple software program that skipped from computer to computer at blinding speed, thoroughly clogging the then-tiny network in the space of a few hours. The program was intended to be a digital “Kilroy Was Here.” Just a bit of cybernetic fungus that would unobtrusively wander the net. However, a programming error turned it into a harbinger heralding the arrival of a darker cyberspace, more of a mirror for all of the chaos and conflict of the physical world than a utopian refuge from it. [...] ...from: http://cleanslate.stanford.edu/about_cleanslate.php About Clean Slate Mission Our mission is to "reinvent the internet" so Future Internet can: • overcome fundamental architectural limitations (e.g. lack of security and mobility support) of today's Internet • incorporate new technologies (e.g. sensor networks, optical networks) • enable new class of applications and services (e.g. content dissemination, sensorized physical world, large scale virtual world environments) • continue to be a platform for innovations and thus be an engine for economic growth and prosperity for the society. We know our mission is ambitious - that is what makes it worthy of our group of very talented students, staff, and faculty. Our Approach • We think of the Internet in very broad terms: it is not just about the TCP/IP protocol stack and switches and routers. It is the collection of systems that make the heart of the Internet: the services, computation and storage - those concentrated in dedicated centers, and those globally distributed. It is also the diversity of ways that we will connect to, and interact with, the Internet - via mobile and personal communication, with virtual presence and virtual worlds, reaching all parts of the globe. Together, these form the online infrastructure that society will continue to depend on. • We are taking an interdisciplinary approach with students, staff, and faculty from Departments of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Management Science and Engineering and from Business School and Law School. Stanford's depth and breadth of expertise combined with its collaborative culture makes the interdisciplinary program possible. • We are also partnering with the industry to benefit from its insights, technologies, and resources. Stanford's long history of successful collaboration with the industry and its location and role in the Silicon Valley makes the industry collaboration at this scale possible. • We are reducing barrier to exploring a (radical) idea by creating a mechanism to seed exploratory projects. • We are also undertaking larger collaborative flagship projects to address broader research themes and associated challenges that require development of new architectures, technologies and systems and their deployment in a test bed network. For these projects, we are exploring special partnerships with the industry. • We are selectively collaborating with researchers outside Stanford and also contributing to national initiatives such as NSF's GENI initiative including FIND that we share a common vision with. • We are making it an enjoyable and fun experience for the participants in the program. Our Team We have assembled a great team with members that have a strong track record of contributions in all aspects of the Internet: • From theory to system development to deployment to technology commercialization • From physical layer technologies to network architectures and protocols to distributed systems and services to applications • Security and robustness of networks and systems • Economics and policy issues pertaining to current and future Internet You can learn more about the team by looking at People section of the website. We are always interested in new members including undergraduate and graduate students who have a passion to make the world a better place using innovations especially in networking and systems. If you are interested, look at Contact section of the website. ...from: http://yuba.stanford.edu/trainwreck/ The Future of TCP: Train-wreck or Evolution? April 1, 2008 Stanford University, Stanford, CA Sponsored by: The Stanford Clean Slate Internet Program Cisco Systems The Stanford Computer Forum Home Program Committee Important Dates Agenda Registration Logistics ParticipantsContact Workshop Description: Spurred on by a widespread belief that TCP is showing its age and needs replacing - and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of congestion control - the research community has brought forward many new congestion control algorithms. There has been lots of debate about the relative merits and demerits of the new schemes; and a standardization effort is under way in the IETF. But before the next congestion control mechanism is deployed, it will need to be deployed widely in operating systems and - in some cases - in switches and routers too. This will be a long road, requiring the buy-in of many people: Researchers, product developers and business leaders too. Our own experience of proposing new congestion control algorithms has been met with the challenge: "Show me the compelling need for a new congestion control mechanisms?", and "What will really happen to the Internet (and my business) if we keep TCP just the way it is?" As a community, we need examples that are simple to understand, and demonstrate a compelling need for change. We call them the "Train wreck scenarios". Examples might show that distribution of video over wireless in the home will come to a halt without new algorithms. Or that P2P traffic will bring the whole network crashing down. Or that huge, high-performance data-centers need new algorithms. Whatever your favorite example, we believe that if we are collectively armed with a handful of mutually agreed examples, it will be much easier to make a business case for change. Or put another way, if we can't articulate compelling examples to industry leaders, then is the cost and risk of change worth it? The goal of the workshop is to identify a handful of really compelling demonstrations of the impending train-wreck. The outcome will be a set of canonical examples that we will use to persuade industry of the need for change. You can choose the way you present your demonstration: You could bring equipment and show a live-demo; you could show simulations or animations; or you could produce a video showing a real or synthetic demo. Whatever method you choose, the goal is to create a case that will persuade a mildly-technical but influential business leader of the need for change. We will invite a panel of judges to give prizes for the most compelling examples in two categories: (1) The Overall Most Compelling Example, which will be judged on a combination of the technical merits and the presentation of the scenario, and (2) The Most Technically Compelling Example, which will be judged on its technical merit alone, without consideration of the way it is presented. The whole purpose of the workshop it to focus on the problem, not the solutions. We are most definitely not interested in your favorite scheme, or ours. So we need some ground-rules. No-one is allowed to mention a specific mechanism, algorithm or proposal at any time during the workshop: Not in their talk, not in a panel, and not in questions to the speakers. The only mechanisms that will be allowed mention are: TCP (in its standard and deployed flavors), and idealized alternatives for purposes of demonstration. For example, comparing TCP with an oracle that provides instantaneous optimal rates to each flow. We will video the entire workshop and all the demonstrations, and make it publicly available on the Internet. We will make any proceedings and talks available too. The goal is to open up the demonstrations for public scrutiny and feedback after the event. The event is hosted by the Stanford Clean Slate Program and local arrangements will be made by the Stanford Computer Forum, Nick McKeown and Nandita Dukkipati. The workshop has received offers of support and funding from Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Last updated March 30, 2008

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FYI: got a car? Look out for computer malware...
by billing 06 Feb '09

06 Feb '09

...from: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?date=2009-02-03 The SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security: an affiliation of over 165,000 computer security personnel around the world) has posted the above article on their site. The short story is that fliers put under the windshield wipers of cars in Grand Forks, ND alluded to parking violations and gave a web site URL. Browsing to the URL installed malware on Microsoft Windows machines. Click on the link for all the "gory" details.... Wayne

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INTEREST: Treating Stuttering with iPhone
by billing 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

...from: http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/02/start_treating_your_stuttering_wi… Monday, February 2, 2009 Start Treating Your Stuttering with iPhone Filed under: Neurology , Rehab Hollins Communications Research Institute, based in Roanoke, Virginia, is a premier organization dedicated to treatment and research of speech impediment disorders, specifically stuttering. Until now, patients at the facility had to regularly come in to receive objective analysis of their speech using desktop computers. To increase compliance with therapy and to help people assess their own speech on the go, an iPhone application was created which can listen to and provide objective feedback to the patient and clinicians back at the facility. The iPhone device was programmed at HCRI with a sophisticated voice monitoring system that evaluates and scores speech behaviors taught during stuttering therapy. When clients use the device during training in outside situations, such as in a shopping mall, restaurant or business setting, fluency measurements for each utterance are displayed on the iPhone screen. Having this data immediately available to stuttering therapy program participants makes speech practice more effective and helps improve the speed with which fluency results are achieved. In addition, the iPhone records every speech sample in an onboard file for later transmission to HCRI. This information enables the institute's therapists to provide more detailed and precise training to clients, as they learn to apply new speech capabilities in everyday situations. The iPhone has exceeded expectations during trials with stuttering therapy participants, according to HCRI Founder and President Ronald L. Webster, Ph.D. Client scores in outside trials were similar to those made in the clinical environment, indicating that quality transfer of fluency skills was being attained. Webster added that client responses during the trials, which were completed last week, have been extremely positive. He attributes the device's strong appeal to the fact that the iPhone is a practical and fun piece of technology to use for the advancement of stuttering treatment outcomes .

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FYI: Seagate hard drives locking up: more info available; still need to contact Seagate tech support
by billing 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

- original info: > While it's been some time since Seagate drives shipped in Apple > machines, external drives or other machines may have them.... here's > a description of the problem and a link to find out if your Seagate > drive may be susceptible... > > ...from: > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39596623,00.htm ...and from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/16/barracuda_failure_plague/ Countries affected by the hard drive firmware failure: ...and to determine if your SEAGATE hard drive may have the problem visit: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931 An issue exists that may cause some Seagate hard drives to become inoperable immediately after a power-on operation. Once this condition has occurred, the drive cannot be restored to normal operation without intervention from Seagate. Data on the drive will be unaffected and can be accessed once normal drive operation has been restored. This is caused by a firmware issue coupled with a specific manufacturing test process. Support is available through Seagate’s call center, which can be reached by dialing: 1-800-SEAGATE (1-800-732-4283). Seagate also says that customers can expedite assistance by sending an email (discsupport(a)seagate.com). The company asks that you include your drive's model number, serial number, and current firmware revision. Thank-you, Wayne Billing Information Services and Technology University of Manitoba

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INTEREST: the Macintosh is 25 years young...
by billing 29 Jan '09

29 Jan '09

This past Saturday (January 24) 25 years ago, Apple launched the Macintosh with an add during the SuperBowl: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-715862862672743260 25 years later, MacWorld magazine has a bit of a "photo retrospective" of 25 years of Macintosh.... and Steve Jobs. ...from: http://www.macworld.com/article/138405/2009/01/mactimeline.html Wayne

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INTEREST: hard disk encryption coming soon...
by billing 29 Jan '09

29 Jan '09

..."You can use these [enabled] drives to childproof your laptop because it operates outside of Windows. Windows hasn't even booted yet. Your kid can't crack it unless [he] has the password. You can leave the laptop at home and rest assured a 14-year-old can't get on it," Thibadeau said. IT departments will also be able to repurpose drives using the encryption standard by cryptographically erasing them with a few keystrokes. Cryptographic erasure changes the cryptographic key, thus making data permanently inaccessible.... ...from: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&tax… Coming soon: Full-disk encryption for all computer drives Drive makers settle on a single encryption standard By Lucas Mearian January 27, 2009 (Computerworld) The world's six largest computer drive makers today published the final specifications(download PDF) for a single, full-disk encryption standard that can be used across all hard disk drives, solid state drives (SSD) and encryption key management applications. Once enabled, any disk that uses the specification will be locked without a password -- and the password will be needed even before a computer boots. The three The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) specifications cover storage devices in consumer laptops and desktop computers as well as enterprise-class drives used in servers and disk storage arrays. "This represents interoperability commitments from every disk drive maker on the planet," said Robert Thibadeau, chief technologist atSeagate Technology and chairman of the TCG. "We're protecting data at rest. When a USB drive is unplugged, or when a laptop is powered down, or when an administrator pulls a drive from a server, it can't be brought back up and read without first giving a cryptographically- strong password. If you don't have that, it's a brick. You can't even sell it on eBay." By using a single, full-disk encryption specification, all drive manufacturers can bake security into their products' firmware, lowering the cost of production and increasing the efficiency of the security technology. For enterprises rolling out security across PCs, laptops and servers, standardized hardware encryption translates into minimum security configuration at installation, along with higher performance with low overhead. The specifications enable support for strong access control and, once set at the management level, the encryption cannot be turned off by end-users. Whenever an operating system or application writes data to a self- encrypting drive, there is no bottleneck created by software, which would have to interrupt the I/O stream and convert the data "so there's no slowdown," Thibadeau said. "Also, the encryption machinery uses no power. When it reads data from the drive, it displays it to the user in the clear. It's completely transparent to the user," he said. The TCG includes Fujitsu, Hitachi GST, Seagate Technology, Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital, Wave Systems, LSI Corp., ULink Technology and IBM. "In five years time, you can imagine any drive coming off the production line will be encrypted, and there will be virtually no cost for it," said Jon Oltsik, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. Here are the three specifications: • The Opal specification, which outlines minimum requirements for storage devices used in PCs and laptops. • The Enterprise Security Subsystem Class Specification, which is aimed at drives in data centers and high-volume applications, where typically there is a minimum security configuration at installation. • The Storage Interface Interactions Specification, which specifies how the TCG's existing Storage Core Specification and the other specifications interact with other standards for storage interfaces and connections. For example, the specification supports a number of transports, including ATA parallel and serial, SCSI SAS, Fibre Channel and ATAPI. Several of the drive manufacturers, including Seagate, Fujitsu andHitachi, already support the standard on some of their drives. Hitachi, for instance, is shipping its internal Travelstar 5K500.B laptop drives with full-disk encryption. Several encryption management software vendors, including Wave Systems, WinMagic Inc. and CryptoMill Technologies, have also announced product certification for the standard. Brian Berger, a marketing manager with Wave Systems and chair of the TCG marketing work group, said the specifications call for the use of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Vendors are free to choose either AES 128-bit or AES 256-bit keys depending on the level of security they want. Neither have been broken. "Things like key manageability and patch management become things of the past," he said. "You don't have to worry about what version of encryption software is running or what [encryption appliance] your system's plugged into. When encrypted drives are under management, users can't turn off encryption, so there's no chance of users losing machines with valuable data on them after having turned off encryption." The effort to create the encryption specifications, which began six years ago, focused on full-disk encryption, which protects data on a computer by encrypting all of the information on the computer's hard drive regardless of what partition it's on. In order to gain access to the information, users would first have to supply a password, which, in turn, would be used to unlock a key used to decrypt the data. "You can use these [enabled] drives to childproof your laptop because it operates outside of Windows. Windows hasn't even booted yet. Your kid can't crack it unless [he] has the password. You can leave the laptop at home and rest assured a 14-year-old can't get on it," Thibadeau said. IT departments will also be able to repurpose drives using the encryption standard by cryptographically erasing them with a few keystrokes. Cryptographic erasure changes the cryptographic key, thus making data permanently inaccessible. "The specific way in which encryption is done inside the drive doesn't matter for interoperability," said Jorge Campello, senior manager of architecture and electronics at Hitachi. "What matters is how they drives are configured and how access control is configured. So any drive, in conforming to these standards, will have the same interface commands."

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INTEREST: Engadget article on Win7 BETA installs
by billing 28 Jan '09

28 Jan '09

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/20/windows-7-install-roundup/#continued Windows 7 install roundup by Paul Miller, posted Jan 20th 2009 at 11:01AM After resting up and settling into our post-CES golden desk chairs, team Engadget got busy at installing Windows 7 on pretty much anything they could find. Most installs went off without a hitch, and BSoDs were fairly few and far between. You can check out all our various first impressions after the break... the names aren't made up, but the stories are true. Joshua Topolsky System: • MacBook Pro (unibody) • 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo • 4GB of RAM Install process: Partitioned the drive with Boot Camp, popped in a burned Windows 7 disc and booted to it just fine. Formatted the partition and installed, nary a bump. Installed Vista graphics drivers from NVIDIA's site. First impressions: Fast boot times, and the graphics drivers and WiFi work great. Unfortunately, the sound and webcam still aren't working, and the trackpad experience is pretty bad with the new unibody MacBook Pro button-free pad, even with the latest drivers -- there's no right click, for instance. Also, hit a BSoD when trying to resize an active title bar. Microsoft has clearly taken time to listen to people this go-round and made some noticeable ease-of-use improvements, but I think the real power of Win 7 likely lies in its trimmed requirements and ability to adapt to a wide variety of systems... just like XP. Paul Miller System: • Dell Dimension 9150 • Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz dual core • 2.5GB RAM • NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT graphics • Windows Vista SP1 Install process: Ripped the install DVD and put the contents on a USB flash drive in a folder called "windows," ran setup.exe from there. The "upgrade" method failed, but failed gracefully, with the full original Vista setup remaining. Tried a clean install (with the old install moved to windows.old) and it worked flawlessly. Took about an hour. First impressions: Boot times and responsiveness seem comparable to Windows Vista, though the time from start-up to usability is improved. Drivers for a multitude of odd hardware pulled just fine. Unfortunately, there seem to be some problems with returning from sleep with the GeForce card -- certain window elements won't draw, the system becomes unstable and it continually cycles the graphics card, none of which happened with Windows Vista. System: • Sony Vaio P • Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz • 2GB of RAM • Windows Vista SP1 Install process: Ripped the install DVD and put the contents on a USB flash drive in a folder called "windows," ran setup.exe from there. A clean install (with the old install moved to windows.old) worked flawlessly. Took about 45 minutes. First impressions: Machine became much more responsive and usable. OS includes a simplified, more usable version of Vista's DPI setting panel that scales UI elements to look much better on the high-res screen. We wrote up the rest of our impressions of Windows 7 on the P right here. Thomas Ricker System: • MacBook Pro • 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo • 2GB DDR2 SDRAM • Leopard 10.5.6 Install Process: Ripped Windows 7 Beta installer to .DMG image using Disk Utility and renamed .DMG image to .ISO. Created new virtual machine in VMware Fusion 1.1 and selected .ISO image of Windows 7 when prompted. After about 10 minutes I was up and running Windows 7 Home Basic on WiFi network. First impressions: There's a slight lag felt when running in the default 512MB memory slot allocated to Win7. The lag mostly disappears when dialing up the memory to 1GB -- that's mainstream netbook territory. I keep Fusion running in OS X Spaces for quick access to the Windows applications I require for day-to-day computing. Only real problem seen so far is the occasional wonky behavior when jumping in and out of VMware Fusion's full screen mode (the Win7 desktop disappears). Nilay Patel System: • MacBook Pro • 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo • NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics • 3GB DDR2 SDRAM Install Process: Installed really quick'n'dirty on a Boot Camp partition just to play around for a while -- I'm going to buy a dedicated Windows 7 box soon, so this install will get deleted anyway. Didn't pay much attention to anything along the way for that reason -- I just let things happen the way they happened, and everything works fine except for trackpad right click, but I solved that by plugging in an external mouse. Took about 45 minutes start to finish. First impressions: Works great so far -- I'm really liking the automatic window management. Can't say I've done much to stress the system other than poke around the web and download software updates, but overall it's fast and responsive. There's still a sense that the OS is trying to help you a little too much when you do things, as opposed to the go-it- alone feeling of XP, but that might just be familiarity talking. Definitely a vast improvement over Vista -- if this is just the beta, I'm encouraged to see what the final product looks like. Kevin Wong System: • MacBook Pro • 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo • 4GB of RAM Install process: A breeze to install via VMWare Fusion using the .ISO and entering the key. Was surprised how quickly it installed all of the updates, without a bunch of messy pop up windows or warnings. Took me all of 15 minutes to install (at most) and use right away. Allocated one core, 10GB of hard drive and 1GB of RAM and it's running smoothly. First impressions: Compared to Windows Vista, Windows 7 is a god send. Being a recent Apple convert, I've used XP all my life. I was stoked for Windows Vista before it came out because it looked nicer than my XP setup, but now I can look forward to Microsoft releasing a better looking product that works! It's snappy, quick and looks great, everything Vista should have been. Looking forward to installing it on a touch screen netbook soon! Ross Miller System: • HP Pavilion Elite m9150f • 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad • 3GB RAM • NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT • Windows Vista Home Premium • HD DVD player ... cause I'm cool like that Install Process: Installed from DVD. The upgrade initially refused to run, citing nondescript reasons. Eventually figured out I had to uninstall my antivirus software entirely. From there, the update ran smoothly -- good to go in less than 15 minutes. First impressions: Haven't noticed too much of a speed boost yet. Aero Peek is useful for checking the desktop widgets, but so far not much else. Really love being able to drag windows to the side or top of screen for tiling and maximizing, respectively. Navigation is much better, but still not as efficient for me as OS X's Exposé. Wrap-up Overall, pretty good experiences all around. Microsoft has clearly done a lot to get the install quick and painless, and it's great to boot an OS that seems in most cases to bring with it immediate performance and usability improvements. We'll be delving in further in the coming weeks, but Windows 7 certainly passes the "first date" test. A typical install -- including Paul's fateful upgrade failure -- plus some larger shots of our desktops are in the gallery below.

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INTEREST: Blank CD-R tax to increase 38 percent in Canada; new music CD charging model
by billing 22 Jan '09

22 Jan '09

...from: http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1245&It… Blank CD-R tax to increase 38 percent in Canada Wednesday, 17 December 2008 The Canadian Copyright Board has announced that it will raise the tax on blank compact discs to 29¢ (US$0.23), a 38% increase. Previously the tariff on blank recordable CDs was 21¢ (US$0.1679), according to Billboard.biz. Blank CD manufacturer Brad Yeager, senior product manager optical media for Memorex, toldOne to One that this decision pretty much kills the CD-R business in Canada. The tariff is collected on behalf of the Canadian Private Copying Collective, an organisation formed in 1999 and created to collect money that compensates musicians and stakeholders for having their music copied by individuals. The board says there were two reasons for the increase. Billboard quotes the report. "First, increased mechanical licence royalties, coupled with the elimination of container deductions and free goods allowances in the calculation of the performers' and makers' remuneration, greatly add to our estimation of the total remuneration per pre-recorded CD," the board said in a report. "Second, the use of compression technology raises from 15 to 18.4 the average number of tracks copied on a blank CD used to copy music." Using the new royalty rate, blank CD sales would have generated $29 million (US$23 million) in revenue in 2008, the board said, adding that despite the rate increase, the total amount collected would remain consistent with past years due to falling blank CD sales. "Should this forecast not materialise, the estimated amount of royalties would be adjusted accordingly," the board said. The increase of 8 cents will lead "most consumers to use blank DVDs or flash-based products. The CD-R business has been decreasing by about 15-20% per year over the past three years. A 50 pack will cost about $15.00 less in the United States. Paying an additional $10.50 for a 50 pack was a stretch, but paying $14.50 Canadian is mind boggling," says Yeager. "The Canadian Copyright Board should find a way to target users of CD- R that are actually copying music. This "shot gun" approach to collecting money for musicians unfairly penalises nearly all of MAM- A's Canadian customers. A very small percentage of MAM-A discs sold into the Canadian market are used for music," said Joe Weisenbach of MAM-A Inc (pictured). The decision leaves the rate for audio cassettes at 24¢ = - = - = - = ...from: http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1273&It… New business models for music Wednesday, 21 January 2009 According to the IFPI's Digital Music Report 2009, which gives a comprehensive overview of trends in the music business internationally, the industry has shifted its approach from one based only on unit sales of music to 'monetising' access to music across a multitude of channels and platforms. John Kennedy (pictured), chairman and chief executive of IFPI, said: "The recorded music industry is reinventing itself and its business models. Music companies have changed their whole approach to doing business, reshaped their operations and responded to the dramatic transformation in the way music is distributed and consumed." However, while music companies are embracing new revenue models, and offering consumers more choice, the download model still has its own headaches: an estimated 95% of music downloads are unauthorised, with no payment to artists and producers. "The music industry has transformed its business models, offering consumers an increasing range of new services with leading technology partners," says the report. "Yet generating value in an environment where 95% of music downloads are illegal and unpaid for is still the biggest challenge for music companies and their commercial partners." The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25% to $3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15% in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined.

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INTEREST: whither Apple sans Jobs?
by billing 22 Jan '09

22 Jan '09

...from: http://www.macworld.com/article/138240/2009/01/triumvirate.html?lsrc=mwweek Jan 15, 2009 11:50 am20 Comments+ 5 Recommendations Strong Apple team can fill in for Jobs by Dan Moren, Macworld.com The downside of being a company that gets as much press attention as Apple is that it cuts both ways: while even the most minor product release can grab headlines, less positive news gets amplified as well. So Steve Jobs’s announcement on Wednesday that he’d be taking a six month leave of absence for medical reasons has apparently caused more panic and consternation than Godzilla setting foot in Tokyo Bay. It’s true: there is no one person at Apple who can replace Jobs as an icon. He’s been the public face of the company for the last 10 years and his image has been inextricably tied to Apple since he co-founded the company more than 30 years ago. Ten years of keynotes and special events has solidified the image that the company’s a one-man show, even if we all know that’s not really true. But while Steve as the one-man prophet, priest, and king may be irreplaceable—and I brook no argument over the fact that he's a Great Man—that doesn’t mean that he can’t be replacedat all. Over the years, Apple’s developed a solid roster of senior talent in a myriad of fields, all of them players brought to the majors with the approval of Jobs himself. As CEO, he’s built a team that subscribes to his ideology, who can ably steer the ship in his absence, whether it be temporary or permanent. So, instead of the Caesarean dictatorial rule of the Jobs era, think instead of the triumvirates of ancient Rome. Apple still has Tim Cook to run the day-to-day operations of the company—which, for many intents and purposes he’s been doing for awhile; Jonathan Ive to handle the design, as his gaggle of awards shows he’s capable; and Phil Schiller to handle product demos, as he ably did last week at Macworld Expo. Just because Jobs's image has conflated the roles of showman, designer- in-chief, and CEO into one über-role doesn’t mean that that’s the way it has to be. Sure, it’s one of the things that sets Apple apart from many of its competitors, but it’s certainly not the norm in the tech business world. The triumvirate of Cook, Ive, and Schiller may lack some of the fabled reality distortion field of Steve Jobs, but there’s no doubt to my mind that they’re capable of creating the same kind of great products that we’ve come to expect from Apple. And that’s because, consciously or not, those executives have been learning from Steve—and, I’d argue, vice versa—for almost a decade. They’re attuned to the way he does things, because they’d have to be just to survive at Apple, never mind at such a high level. But if there’s one thing that—"worries" is too strong a word—makes me curious in such an arrangement, it’s the issue of executive power: who has the authority to veto a project that isn’t up to snuff, and how will they use it? If Cook takes the CEO reins, will he exercise that ultimate verdict wisely, listening to counsel from the likes of Ive, hardware VP Bob Mansfield, and iPhone VP Scott Forstall? Or will he focus instead on the strength of his own instincts for operations, potentially killing off products that simply needed more time to mature? Take the Apple TV, for example: would a “hobby” like that survive in a Cook administration, or would it fall prey to the hatchet of operational efficiency? We just don’t know. But then again, if that’s the biggest question, the company’s in pretty solid shape. So don’t cry for Apple. This isn’t a repeat of 1985, where Jobs was ousted by a man in a suit with a completely different vision of the company—the people who are left running the company in Jobs's absence are the people Jobs put there. While there may be no single hand- picked successor to Jobs, it doesn’t mean that there’s no successor at all—far from it. In fact, he’s got a whole company of successors, people who have come to Cupertino because they want to help make great products that they love. So even if Steve Jobs isn’t at the company in person, you can be sure that his influence will continue to be felt on every level for a long time to come.

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FYI: Seagate offers recovery service for disk drive firmware bug...
by billing 19 Jan '09

19 Jan '09

While it's been some time since Seagate drives shipped in Apple machines, external drives or other machines may have them.... here's a description of the problem and a link to find out if your Seagate drive may be susceptible... ...from: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39596623,00.htm Bug hits Seagate disks Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk Published: 19 Jan 2009 16:12 GMT Seagate on Friday acknowledged failures among recent models of its Barracuda and DiamondMax disk drives. Users affected lose all access to data on their disks, and the disks themselves are reported to become undetectable to the computers in which they are mounted. Seagate acknowledged the problem in a statement on its website that said: "A number of Seagate hard drives… may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on." The drives in question are the Barracuda 7200.11, which comes in capacities ranging from 160GB to 1.5TB, the DiamondMax 22 and the Barracuda ES.2 SATA drive. Once a drive has become affected, "the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted", the Seagate statement read. According to the company the issue is caused by a problem with the firmware on the drive, which "is affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008". With the statement, Seagate provided details on how users could check if their drives were affected, but did not provide an immediate update to the firmware that could fix the problem. Instead Seagate advised users of affected drives to contact the company directly, and offered a data-recovery service if required. More information on the issue is provided on the Seagate website. Users who believe they have affected disk drives Seagate must contact the company by calling them directly. According to a Seagate spokesperson, although an international call is required it should be at no charge. Users can also contact the company by sending an email (discsupport(a)seagate.com ), mentioning drive model number, serial number and current firmware revision. ZDNet UK contacted Seagate for comment but the company had not responded at the time of writing. = - = - = - = http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931 Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners. A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on: Barracuda 7200.11 DiamondMax 22 Barracuda ES.2 SATA Once a drive has become affected the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted. Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008. Please use the following tools and instructions to determine if you have one of the affected products. If your drive is affected, we recommend that you update the firmware on the disk drive to prevent this condition. To identify your drive, retrieve the model number, serial number and firmware revision without removing your drive. There are multiple methods: Seagate DriveDetect.exe method (recommended) Click here to download Drive Detect: When running Drive Detect you will see a screen like this. Look for the drives that are attached: In the example above the Drive Name is the same as the Model: ST31500341AS, the serial number is 9VS00J20 and the firmware revision is SD1A. Device Manager Method : Use Microsoft Windows Device Manager to see the model numbers of your disk drive. - Choose Start | Run | type: devmgmt.msc - Click Ok. - Expand the Disk Drive branch to see the model numbers: Seatools for Windows Method: Download SeaTools for Windows which displays all of the required information. After determining your serial, model and firmware revision please attempt to find your model in the following list of affected models. If you have one of these drives you can choose it from the list for model-specific instructions to update the firmware. Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS ST3750330AS ST3640330AS ST3500320AS ST31500341AS ST31000333AS ST3640323AS ST3640623AS ST3320613AS ST3320813AS ST3160813AS Barracuda ES.2 SATA ST31000340NS ST3750330NS ST3500320NS ST3250310NS DiamondMax 22 STM31000340AS STM3750330AS STM3500320AS STM31000334AS STM3320614AS STM3160813AS If you need assistance updating your firmware you can email us directly at disksupport(a)seagate.comPlease include the following disk drive information: serial number, model number, and current firmware revision. We will respond to your email request with appropriate instructions.

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INTEREST: Windows 7 on MacBook Pro
by billing 11 Jan '09

11 Jan '09

Microsoft is now allowing anyone interested in testing a BETA version of Windows 7 to download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx ...more info and features of Windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jan09/01-07CES09PR.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/events/ces/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/ces/keynote.aspx?initialVideo=Win… Not content until pushing the limits of several envelopes at one time, some have installed it onto one of the new "unibody" MacBook Pros: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/11/windows-7-gets-installed-on-macbook-pro-… Wayne

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FYI: iPhone University Program for teaching iPhone/Touch app development
by billing 05 Jan '09

05 Jan '09

Program Details: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The iPhone University Program program is now open for applications from Canadian degree granting universities and colleges who wish to teach iPhone development as part of the curriculum. The iPhone Developer University Program is a free program designed for higher education institutions looking to introduce curriculum for developing iPhone or iPod touch applications. The University Program provides a wealth of development resources, sophisticated tools for testing and debugging, and the ability to share applications within the same development team. Institutions can also submit applications for distribution in the App Store. We would like to invite you apply for the program. The steps you need to take are as follows: 1. As you prepare to apply please identify: the professor who will be teaching, and a legal signing authority for the university 2. You will need to apply via this web site. --> http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/university.html 3. You will be prompted for an Apple ID. If you do not have an AppleID you will need to create one. Once you have applied the application will be reviewed by Apple Corporate and your signing authority will be contacted before a decision is made. Thank you for your patience, we look forward to seeing your application in the near future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me know if you have any questions... Take Care, Rob Klassen --------------------------------------------------------------- Systems Engineer  Apple Inc. Email: rklassen(a)apple.com Voice: 204.285.7513 Cell: 204.227.1464 --------------------------------------------------------------- = - = -= - = - = - additional resources: http://iapps.stanford.edu/ - Stanford course curriculum: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/index.php

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INTEREST: Happy New Year and sorry 'bout the Zune's leap-year thing...
by billing 05 Jan '09

05 Jan '09

...from: http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml;j… Zune Leap Year Bug Fixed, Microsoft Says The software maker says affected users need to drain their batteries and restart the device. By Paul McDougall InformationWeek January 2, 2009 09:39 AM Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) says it has resolved a glitch that caused the 30-GB model of its Zune MP3 player to freeze up over the past week. "You can go back to using your Zune!" the company said in a support note posted Thursday on its Web site. The note details steps that Zune owners should take to eliminate the bug by resetting their players. CBSSPorts.com GM(NYSE: GM) Jason Kint Talks About the Video On Demand Offering for March Madness 2008 Earlier this week, thousands of Zune users flooded blogs and support forums with reports that their devices had locked up. Microsoft traced the problem to a software bug that caused the Zune's internal clock to fail when switching from the past leap year to 2009, which is not a leap year. To fix the problem, Microsoft advised users to unplug the Zune from its power source and allow the batteries to drain. "Wait until the battery is empty and the screen goes black," the company said in its support bulletin. It then instructed users to power up the devices, but only after 7 a.m. Eastern time on New Year's Day Thursday. "No other action is required," said Microsoft. However, the company added that Zune owners with copyright-protected songs might have to resync their devices with their PCs after rebooting in order to restore DRM files that allow the songs to be played. Prior to Microsoft's posting of the fix, some Zune owners took matters into their own hands and turned to the Internet for help. One procedure for resolving the problem that made the rounds involved opening the device and disconnecting the battery in order to force a reset. "This is a bad idea and we do not recommend opening your Zune by yourself," said Microsoft, noting that such a move would immediately void the warranty on the device. The inability of Microsoft's engineers to anticipate a leap year is the latest black eye for the company, which has been stung by criticism of its unpopular WindowsVista operating system and by Xbox 360 hardware failures. The glitch also won't help the Zune gain ground against Apple's popular iPodplayer, which controls more than 70% of the MP3 hardware market.

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INTEREST: Spam levels climb as crippled botnets restored
by billing 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

...from: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&article… Spam levels climb as criminals replace crippled botnets Four weeks after McColo takedown, spam back to 63% of earlier volume By Gregg Keizer December 9, 2008 (Computerworld) Four weeks after spam levels plummeted when a rogue hosting company was yanked off the Internet, junk mail volumes are again up, a researcher said today. According to IronPort Systems Inc., spam volumes have partially recovered since the Nov. 11 takedown of McColo Corp., the California hosting firm that was pulled off the Web by its upstream service providers after security researchers presented them with overwhelming evidence that it was harboring a wide range of criminal activity. Among McColo's clients: cybercriminal groups that ran some of the biggest spam-spewing and malware-spreading botnets in the world. Yesterday, approximately 94.6 billion spam messages were sent worldwide, said IronPort, which estimated today's volume at 96.8 billion. Those numbers were 62% and 63%, respectively, of the 153 billion spam messages sent four weeks ago, the dayMcColo went offline. Immediately after the takedown, spam levels dropped to 64.1 billion, just 42% of the pre-McColo volume. Spam's resurgence comes courtesy of several botnets -- some well- known, some not -- that were largely unaffected by McColo's disappearance, said Joe Stewart, director of malware research atSecureWorks Inc. First of all, reports that the "Srizbi" and "Rustock" botnets have beenresurrected are "mostly untrue," said Joe Stewart. "These botnets are not monolithic, especially Srizbi, which is in the hands of a lot of people. Each has a couple of variants [of the bot Trojan], and maybe a few thousand bots. Some have regained control of their botnets, some have not." In fact, Srizbi and Rustock -- which were the world's largest and third-largest botnets, respectively, before Nov. 11 -- have effectively faded into the background. "It's looking like these botnet spam providers have had their customers jump ship," said Stewart. Other botnets have stepped up to take their place. "Mega-D has come back to its original strength," Stewart said, referring to another botnet that had been controlled by McColo-hosted servers. "Cutwail is running strong, and so is Kraken. Botnets that weren't badly affected [by McColo going offline] seem to have picked up customers." Other researchers have recently reported Mega-D's restoration. London- based Marshal8e6, for example, said yesterday that Mega-D's controllers have set up new command servers, re-established links with their compromised PCs and have resumed spamming. The criminals who ran Srizbi and Rustock have had far less success, said SecureWorks' Stewart. "Everyone fully expected Srizbi to come back," he noted, although that's not happened. Srizbi's controllers were stymied for a while by FireEye Inc., which for a time was registering the domain names the bots would use to reconnect with new command servers. FireEye, however, was unable to finance the tactic indefinitely, and stopped. "We're seeing Srizbi bots that are asking for [routing] domain names that aren't registered to anyone," said Stewart. He was unable to explain why the hackers had walked away from their botnets, but speculated that it was a business decision. "The longer they left it, the more the botnet diminished," he said, noting that botnets continually lose machines as PCs are cleaned of the malware or taken out of service and replaced by new systems. "They have to make a decision, is it worth it to regain control or just build a new botnet?" In the meantime, once-smaller players have grown in size as spammers turned to new providers. "Xarvester is one that has seemed to pick up a lot of traffic," said Stewart. "It's somewhere between Mega-D and Cutwail in size, so it's moved into the top three with at least 130,000 bots." Xarvester and another botnet, which Stewart has dubbed "Gahg," are spamming some of the same types of messages that once came from bots controlled by Srizbi's and Rustock's herders, he added. "There aren't any new botnets, not so far," Stewart continued. But he warned that the criminals responsible for Srizbi and Rustock could very well be working on new malware and spreading it on vulnerable PCs. "That could be one reason why they haven't restored the [downed] bots, they could be in development right now." = - = - = - = ...from: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art… Massive botnet returns from the dead, starts spamming Criminals regain control after security firm stops preemptively registering routing domains By Gregg Keizer November 26, 2008 (Computerworld) A big spam-spewing botnet shut down two weeks ago has been resurrected, security researchers said today, and is again under the control of criminals. The "Srizbi" botnet returned from the dead late Tuesday, said Fengmin Gong, chief security content officer at FireEye Inc., when the infected PCs were able to successfully reconnect with new command-and- control servers, which are now based in Estonia. Srizbi was knocked out more than two weeks ago when McColo Corp., a hosting company that had been accused of harboring a wide range of criminal activities, was yanked off the Internet by its upstream service providers. With McColo down, PCs infected with Srizbi and other bot Trojan horses were unable to communicate with their command servers, which had been hosted by McColo. As a result, spam levelsdropped precipitously. But as other researchers noted last week, Srizbi had a fallback strategy. In the end, that strategy paid off for the criminals who control the botnet. According to Gong, when Srizbi bots were unable to connect with the command-and-control servers hosted by McColo, they tried to connect with new servers via domains that were generated on the fly by an internal algorithm. FireEye reverse-engineered Srizbi, rooted out that algorithm and used it to predict, then preemptively register, several hundred of the possible routing domains. The domain names, said Gong, were generated on a three-day cycle, and for a while, FireEye was able to keep up -- and effectively block Srizbi's handlers from regaining control. "We have registered a couple hundred domains," Gong said, "but we made the decision that we cannot afford to spend so much money to keep registering so many [domain] names." Once FireEye stopped preempting Srizbi's makers, the latter swooped in and registered the five domains in the next cycle. Those domains, in turn, pointed Srizbi bots to the new command-and-control servers, which then immediately updated the infected machines to a new version of the malware. "Once each bot was updated, the next command was to send spam," said Gong, who noted that the first campaign used a template targeting Russian speakers. The updated Srizbi includes hard-coded references to the Estonian command-and-control servers, but Gong was unaware of any current attempt to convince the firm now hosting those servers to yank them off the Web. In the meantime, FireEye is working with several other companies -- including VeriSign Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Network Solutions Inc., a domain registrar -- on ways to reach the more than 100,000 users whose PCs FireEye has identified as infected with Srizbi. Discussions about how to best handle any future McColo-Srizbi situation are also ongoing, Gong said. "We're trying to find a solution, and talking about ideas of how they can help fund efforts for some period of time to [preemptively] register domains," he said. "Right now, though, we have this window of opportunity to help clean all those [100,000] machines," Gong said. "Registering those domains was just a way to buy us time. We have to reach those machines to clean them up." Although some message security companies said yesterday that spam volumes had climbed back from post-McColo troughs, Gong was hesitant to finger Srizbi's return as the reason. "Srizbi may have contributed," he said, "but Rustock is also back." Rustock, another botnet whose command-and-control servers were hosted by McColo, was partially restored when a Swedish Internet provider briefly stepped in 11 days ago to reconnect McColo to the Web. Even though McColo's connection was quickly severed by TeliaSonera after it received complaints, Rustock's controllers had enough time to instruct some of the bots to look to a Russian-hosted server for commands.

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INTEREST: digital boarding passes
by billing 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

...from: http://www.gadling.com/2008/11/26/so-how-well-do-these-digital-boarding-pas… So how well do these digital boarding passes work? by Grant Martin Nov 26th 2008 @ 10:30AM Digital boarding passes in this eco-friendly, high-tech world are the next new big thing among the big airlines. Continental, American and Northwest are rolling out service to airports all over the country, and if you haven't got a kiosk at your local airport, there is probably one on the way. In concept, the system is pretty simple. When you check in online, instead of printing off your boarding pass you're given the option to receive it digitally onto your phone or PDA. In addition to saving paper, the big advantage is that those on the go without a printer can just flash the barcode (it's actually a matrix code) at security and at the gate then not have to worry about the slip of paper. In actuality, the system still needs some time to get going – or rather, the airport employees still need some time to adapt. This past Friday on the way to New York's LaGuardia airport I was given the chance to try out a digital boarding pass on my iPhone. After the jump I'll tell you how it went. In the two weeks that I had been away from Detroit, McNamara terminal incorporated the barcode system into their gate and security checkpoints. Forgetting that the system was in place when checking in for my regular New York bound flight that Friday, I was surprised to find that e-boarding was an option, so had to give it a try. From my desktop terminal at work, getting the boarding pass was easy. I went through the normal online check in procedure and instead of clicking "Check in and print boarding pass" I selected the e-boarding pass option and hit continue. The software then asked me for my carrier (AT&T), device (iPhone) and mobile phone number, digested them and sent me a text (SMS) message containing an online link to the pass. Opening that page with Safari gave me a one-page boarding pass with the QR code and gate information which I took my merry way to the airport. Walking up to the security checkpoint at McNamara terminal, I cheerfully greeted the TSA agent with my iPhone and driver's license extended. "Oh.... one of those," she said. The agent reached in front of her to a device just smaller than a breadbox, flipped a switch on the back of it and a red light illuminated at the top. Gesturing to me, I flipped my phone face down on to the window and let it sit. Nothing happened. Gently I waved the phone back and forth. "Stop that," she scolded me, and asked me if my backlight was on. As she poked at the machine a bit I turned the phone back to me and zoomed in on the QR code. Then I flipped it back over to the red light and it immediately accepted it. The agent silently gave my ID back and ushered me into the security line, where after a brief wait I found myself pushing my belongings through the X-ray. But what to do with the boarding pass that I was supposed to show the metal-detector wielding agent? I waved my phone at him as my belongings were swallowed by the monster. "Put it anywhere, just don't keep it on your body." "It's got my boarding pass," I muttered, probably too quietly. "Put it anywhere, just don't keep it on your body." Okay. I tossed it in the vanishing bin and walked through the X-ray. "Boarding pass?" I told him it was on my phone and shrugged. The agent visibly rolled his eyes and paused. "I'll.... just need to pat you down." He felt the pockets of my sweater and my jeans, turned me around and patted my lower back. Then he sent me on my way, ushering for the next passenger to pass under the magnetic arch. Since I was a little late for my flight, I reached the gate only twenty minutes before departure. By that time the boarding zone was nearly empty and the gate agent was attending to a few stragglers. Walking up to the gate I showed her my iPhone with the QR code still zoomed in. She didn't bat an eye, gestured to another red light and I flipped my iPhone over the top of it. The machine blipped happily, like a child who has just eaten a grilled cheese sandwich, and passed into the jetbridge, one sheaf of paper saved. In summary, the system is works fairly well and I can see it being fairly useful some day when I'm in a hurry on the way to the airport. The small drawbacks I can foresee, which largely have to do with phone battery life, can be planned around, and in the worst scenario you can always get a paper copy. Once the TSA and airline staff are all up to speed on procedure, I think that the technology will really gain traction.

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INTEREST: OK, now 50 GB Blu-ray... then what: holograms?
by billing 19 Nov '08

19 Nov '08

...from: http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1202&It… GE nears 1TB storage Wednesday, 19 November 2008 Imagine storing 200 DVDs on one disc? GE Global Research is working on it. Specifically, GE is designing a next-generation optical data storage technology that will fit at least 1 terabyte (TB) of information on a standard CD-size disc. This is not only equivalent to 200 DVDs, but also 40 Blu-ray Discs. GE's approach to this next-generation technology is called single-bit micro-holographic data storage and uses microscopic holograms throughout the volume of the plastic disc to store information. The GE technique goes beyond the traditional surface-based storage technology to use an entire volume to store data in 40-50 layers, Todd Alhart, a spokesman for GE Global Research, told One to One. Potential applications for this technology extend from the individual consumer to professional domains. In the consumer space, high-definition video formats and high- resolution entertainment continues to grow and expand. "As a result, consumer-generated content proliferates the corresponding requirements for content storage and distribution," said Alhart. "In the professional segment, information is increasingly generated in bandwidth-hungry native digital format." High-definition broadcast and motion picture video generation creates new demands for long-term, high-density archival storage systems. In addition, "medical imaging techniques are moving away from static- information film to dynamic digital detection and storage that can generate thousands of petabytes [1PB = 1,000TB] of electronic medical records data each year," Alhart added. Commercialisation for professional markets is targeted for 2011, and some GE technology may start to penetrate consumer markets as soon as 2012.

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INTEREST: MCor to introduce less expensive 3D printer; uses paper
by billing 09 Nov '08

09 Nov '08

...from: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/0704/1215054785022.html http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/0704/1215054784815.html Friday, July 4, 2008 3D printing: how does it work? Video: navigate to http://www.mcortechnologies.com/ and click "NEW" FAQ at: http://www.mcortechnologies.com/faq.html#3 THE MCOR Matrix printer creates an object out of paper from a computer- generated CAD (computer-aided design) model. A standard CAD file for a design is prepared for the printer by proprietary MCor software, which renders the design into slices (each slice for a single piece of paper). About three reams of office paper are loaded into the machine to produce the object, though several – as many designs as will fit the size of an A4 sheet of paper stacked three reams high – can be made in one go. The paper is passed sheet by sheet into the printer and cut by a tungsten carbine blade. Each sheet is sprayed with nanoparticles of a water-based adhesive to adhere to the next sheet and, slowly, the object is built from the bottom up. More adhesive goes on the cross-sections and less on the waste paper, to reduce wastage. A sheet might have up to 48,000 dots of adhesive. When finished – a process that takes several hours – the object comes out still encased in the block of paper and is then popped out. It looks and feels as if it is made from lightweight wood. The model can then be coated with a special adhesive, sanded and painted to give it a hard protective exterior. The objects and waste are biodegradable and ecofriendly. "This is a machine that will revolutionise the way things are designed in the future," says chief executive Dr Conor MacCormack, who co- founded the company in 2004 with his brother Fintan. Before him on a table sit a solid model of a human hand, a motor impeller, and a small hollow model of a house, all made in their printer from compressed paper. The house took about eight hours to produce, while the solid hand ran to 15 hours, he says. The Mcor Matrix is now available direct in Ireland and the UK and it is expected to be rolled out globally in 2009.

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INTEREST: Windows 7 in 2010...
by billing 01 Nov '08

01 Nov '08

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/07/windows-7-still-slated-for-2010-says-mic… Windows 7 still slated for 2010 says Microsoft, Bill Gates just crazy- talking by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 7th 2008 at 6:58PM If your pants / panties were in a "bunch" upon hearing news that Windows 7 would be headed into your ever-loving arms "next year," you might just want to hold off on those party invites for a little bit. Sure, Bill Gates just happened to mention that we'd see a new version of the OS "Sometime in the next year or so," but it's looking like that "or so" makes a world of difference. Microsoft wants to chill everyone out with the somber news that its got no plans to introduce Windows 7 any earlier than January 2010 (three years from the launch of Vista), and reassure us that crazy old Gates may have just been talkin' developer speak. "As is standard with the release of a new product, we will be releasing early builds of Windows 7 prior to its general availability as a means to gain tester feedback," a spokesman for Microsoft said, downplaying Gates' statement. Of course, this means that XP's cutoff will suddenly move even further down the line, which makes us wonder what the point of setting that June 2010 date was in the first place. Why are you toying with us like this, Microsoft? [Thanks, Tony] READ = - = - = - = - = ...FROM: HTTP://WWW.ENGADGET.COM/2008/10/28/WINDOWS-7-DETAILS-GALORE-INTERFACE-TWEAK… Windows 7 details galore: interface tweaks, netbook builds, Media Center enhancements by Nilay Patel, posted Oct 28th 2008 at 1:58PM Microsoft's Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we'd try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we'll see how development goes -- there's still a ways to go. Some notes: Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new "jump lists" of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can "peek" at the windows you're pointing at. Gadgets now appear on the desktop -- the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent. Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty. The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should -- everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined. User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained -- you can set them by app and by level of access. They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC -- it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging "what is this good for / that'll get old fast" concerns weren't really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There's also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again -- could be amazing, but we won't know until it's out in the wild. We've always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his "personal" laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We're guessing it was running a VIA Nano, since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.) At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs. Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors -- it's a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well. Media Center has been tweaked as well -- it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There's also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you're playing music. Devs got a pre-beta today; a "pretty good" feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it'll be released to market apart from that "three years from Vista" date we've known forever. That's just the good bits -- hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we'll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times! Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed

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Re: [APPLE-L]: FYI: today only - CodeWeaver's Crossover free to download
by Tom Dubinski 28 Oct '08

28 Oct '08

According to billing... > http://www.codeweavers.com/ > For today only (until midnight CST), you can download Crossover for > Mac and or Linux for free Bwahaha! Cheap bastard that I am, I investigated and... Main Website Temporarily Offline Due to the high volume of traffic for the Lame Duck Challenge Free Offer, we have temporarily streamlined the CodeWeavers main website. We apologize for any inconvenience. We still love Digg, even if our server disagrees. ;-) Use this form to register for a serial number. Due to load, expect your serial number to be emailed to you in a few days. -- Tom Dubinski Phone: +1.204.474-8841 Fax: 474-7609 Computer Science, E2-596 EITC CompSci General Office: E2-445 EITC University of Manitoba E-Mail: tom_dubinski(a)umanitoba.ca Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~tdubins/

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FYI: today only - CodeWeaver's Crossover free to download (OS X and LINUX)
by billing 28 Oct '08

28 Oct '08

..from: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/27/codeweavers-says-cheap-gas-free-software-tom… Three months ago, CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White offered a challenge to another CEO -- the nation's chief executive, George W. Bush. If the president achieved one of White's six "Lame Duck" goals during the twilight of his 2nd term, White would make Windows-API enabler & WINE GUICrossOver free to customers for one day. Some considered White's proposal a great motivational tool for GWB; others found it smug, partisan and kind of a goofy way to promote the company's products, but in any event none of his six challenges seemed to be on the path to achievement, so that's where the story should have ended. CrossOver is a fine way to run Windows apps on your Mac, but as a force for political change, not so much. Then a funny thing happened on the way to January 20th: due to global economic conditions and through no fault of the president, the price of crude oil dropped precipitously and the cost of gasoline moved in parallel... bringing the average price per gallon in Minneapolis down to the target $2.79 level called for in White's goal #1. http://www.codeweavers.com/ For today only (until midnight CST), you can download Crossover for Mac and or Linux for free - -- it's usually ~US$40 or so. About CodeWeavers CodeWeavers' mission is to make Linux and Mac OS X fully Windows compatible operating systems. We do this through the power of Wine, which powers all of our CrossOver products. The CrossOver products make it possible to run Windows programs on Mac OS X and Linux without needing a copy or license for Windows itself. About Wine Wine is an open-source reimplementation of the Win32 API for Unix- based operating systems. Wine allows Windows applications to be run without a Windows operating system license. CodeWeavers is the largest corporate sponsor of the Wine Project, and contributes all of its work free to Wine. Crossover is a commercial version of the WINE emulator, that allows the user to run Windows apps on Mac or Linux.

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FYI: An Elephant Backs Up Google’s Library
by billing 14 Oct '08

14 Oct '08

...from: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/an-elephant-backs-up-googles-libra… October 13, 2008, 6:17 PM An Elephant Backs Up Google’s Library By MIGUEL HELFT Google often says that it likes to take the long-term view of things. But Google’s idea of long term does not appear to be long enough for some librarians, who tend to equate long term with forever, at least when it comes to preserving books. On Monday, a group of major libraries that are participating in Google’s Library Project, said they are working together to create what amounts to a publicly accessible backup of the digital library that Google is creating. The project, which is called HathiTrust, includes libraries at 12 Midwestern universities like the University of Michigan, the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois, plus the 11 libraries of the University of California system. (Hathi is Hindi for “elephant,” an animal that is said to never forget.) In the Google Books Library Project, the Internet giant has been scanning the collections of several large libraries. The company gives users access to the complete text of books that are in the public domain, and to snippets of books that are protected by copyrights. Google also gives each library a copy of the books it digitized from that library. “Google is an excellent partner,” Paul Courant, university librarian and dean of libraries at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. “They are a corporation with a responsibility to its stockholders. Google could last 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years. We are academic institutions with a commitment to the preservation and use of scholarship and the scholarship record for the indefinite future.” Mr. Courant said that the majority of the 2 million or so volumes already in HathiTrust were digitized by Google. HathiTrust also includes fragile and hard-to-find books that the libraries have digitized on their own, he said. HathiTrust is an agreement by several of those libraries — but not all of them — to pool their digital copies into one giant database that will be accessible online. It will not make snippets of copyrighted works available, as some authors and book publishers said that amounts to copyright violations, but will allow users to search those texts. “I am hoping others will join, and I am hoping that we will be a destination for hundreds of thousands of people on the Web,” Mr. Courant said. “Google will probably be better than we are at large- scale consumer applications.” But Mr. Courant said that for some services aimed at scholars “we’ll be as good or better than them at that.” http://www.hathitrust.org/

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INTEREST: Parental Restrictions on iPod touch and iPhone?
by billing 10 Oct '08

10 Oct '08

The Limits of iPod touch/iPhone Restrictions By Christopher Breen mailto:cbreen@macworld.com I recently got an e-mail from a reader asking if he could place parental control restrictions on an iPod touch's Web browsing functionality with Safari. Yes, and here's how it works. On an iPhone or iPod touch, you go to Settings: General: Restrictions, tap on Enable Restrictions, and enter and confirm a four-digit code. With this done, you have the option to switch off these features: Explicit iPod Content, Safari, YouTube, iTunes, and Installing Apps (the iPhone adds Camera as a final option). When you slide the On/Off toggle for Explicit iPod Content, any tracks marked Explicit become invisible. They're still on the device, you just can't access them. Toggle off Safari, YouTube, iTunes and/or Installing Apps and the associated applications on the iPhone or iPod touch are hidden. But then, how difficult would it be for someone to work around these restrictions? As it turns out, not difficult at all. All a kid has to do is restore the iPod touch or iPhone in iTunes. This removes the restrictions. The person could then restore from a backup and then enable restrictions on his or her own--using a new passcode instead of yours. That way, should you eyeball the thing and see Safari and YouTube missing from the Home screen, you might think your restrictions were still in place. Of course, if you're sneaky you'd then grab hold of the device and test restrictions to see if it works with your passcode. "Ah, but wait," you think, "all I have to do is switch on Parental Controls on my Mac and disable access to iTunes. That way they can't restore the thing!" And that would be great if your family lives in the middle of the Australian Outback and your next nearest neighbor is 400 kilometers away. You can restore an iPod touch or iPhone on any computer running iTunes. If your kid has a single friend with access to a computer, say goodbye to restrictions. In other words, yes, parental controls are built-in, but those controls are about as sturdy as a damp piece of bathroom tissue. Technological parental controls have their place, but communication and trust between parent and child remain the most effect tools available. Get all the latest iTunes and iPod news at http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/ipodblog.html?lsrc=mwipod.

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INTEREST: Blu-ray or DVD?
by billing 10 Oct '08

10 Oct '08

NOTE: One-to-One (OTO) is a trade journal of the CD, DVD and other recorded and recordable media industry. Their masthead bills it as "the leading publication" for this industry. ...from: http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1124&It… DVDs still the heart of home video Wednesday, 24 September 2008 Once again, industry is dealing with the 'Mark Twain Syndrome': "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Two recent reports indicate that DVDs are alive and well worldwide - yes, even in the US. According to a recent report from the NPD Group, $8 out of every $10 spent on movies goes to buying and renting DVDs. As for trends in Western Europe, FutureSource Consulting reports that the home video market is expected to generate total retail revenues of €11 billion by the end of 2008, with 97% of those revenues coming from packaged media (DVD and Blu-ray) and 3% from new digital video (online and mobile video). Admittedly, the online video market in Western Europe is expected to gain traction and will be encouraged by technology advancements such as faster broadband speeds. Futuresource anticipates online video revenues to increase significantly by 2012 and, along with mobile video, this will represent 13% of total video revenues in Western Europe. As the vast majority of revenues in the short to medium term will come from packaged media, there are a raft of initiatives in the market aimed at boosting sales. Certainly the continued release of blockbuster titles on Blu-ray will be key factor in holding up packaged media; however, in the near term the focus continues to be on DVD." Across Europe an increasing amount of titles are being heavily re- promoted in the 3-4 month post-release period. There is a continued appetite for TV content on DVD. Although TV content is performing well in the UK, it has been Germany, Spain and Belgium that has witnessed impressive 25% growth rates in volume terms for TV content on DVD in an otherwise near-flat market. "As in any mature market as well as focusing on sales boosting initiatives the studios are also equally focused on improving efficiencies and reducing costs throughout the home video supply chain," said Jim Bottoms of Futuresource. "As a result, all the major issues preoccupying the minds of those involved in the home video supply chain will be debated in the forthcoming European Supply Chain Academy Conference in Prague on 2-3 October, with Futuresource a co- producer of the event." According to information presented recently by NPD, less than 1% of Americans' movie budget is currently spent downloading movies and TV shows from the web. Entertainment Trends in America, an NPD report, suggests that 41% of dollars budgeted for movies and video was spent on DVD movie purchases, 11% for purchases of TV programmes on DVD and 29% on DVD rentals.

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FYI: Windows XP availability extension?
by billing 09 Oct '08

09 Oct '08

To help clarify the following article, while there doesn't yet seem to be any related material at the Microsoft web site, most major computer manufacturers appear to be saying that Windows XP will continue to be an option on new computer purchases until July, 2009 (as the article states). It should be noted, however, that the program which allowed Windows XP OEM to be purchased apart from the purchase of a new computer has been discontinued and availability will probably dry up before the extension date so, if you were planning on getting a copy of XP to run under VMWare Fusion or the Parallels product, you might not want to wait too long to pick up a copy of XP. Wayne ...from: http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jh… Windows XP Gets Reprieve, Yet Again With Vista struggling, Microsoft has extended the period in which it will make XP available for PC makers' downgrade programs. By Paul McDougall InformationWeek October 8, 2008 12:29 PM Windows XP is proving harder to kill than a Halloween vampire. With businesses having all but shunned Windows Vista, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has decided to extend the period in which it will make copies of its older sibling available to PC makers. Microsoft originally planned to stop distributing Windows XP media to large OEMs on Jan. 31, 2009, but this week said it would move the deadline to July 31 of next year. A Microsoft spokesman claimed in an e-mail that the move is designed to help businesses upgrade to Vista painlessly. "As more customers make the move to Windows Vista, we want to make sure that they are making that transition with confidence and that it is as smooth as possible. Providing downgrade media for a few more months is part of that commitment," the spokesman said. The fact is, however, that very few large companies are eyeing Vista. A survey released last week by the UK's Corporate IT Forum showed that only 4% of businesses in that country are using Windows Vista on workplace systems, while 35% said they were "not yet interested" in Vista. 58% said they were still using Windows XP, now seven years old. A document obtained by InformationWeek last week revealed that state IT officials in Maine will likely skip Vista and stick with XP until Windows 7 becomes available sometime in 2010. Users have complained about Vista's resource requirements, intrusive security measures and lack of compatibility with older software. Vista's unpopularity in the business world may have forced Microsoft to extend XP's shelf life. The company officially retired the OS in June for most markets, but continues to make XP Professional available to PC makers who offer it as a "downgrade" option from Vista on business systems. Downgrade availability was set to end on Jan. 31 but will now continue through next July. If Microsoft is on schedule with Windows 7, that will leave a gap of just six months between the end of the XP program and Windows 7's availability. It's a sign that Microsoft has conceded that Vista has flopped in the corporate market. Microsoft is hoping Windows 7 will receive a better reception. In an effort to burnish Windows' reputation and pave the way for the next version, the company recently launched a $300 million ad campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates, and a host of ordinary PC users. The ads make no mention of Vista. Microsoft, however, has warned that Windows 7 and Vista share the same basic architecture. As a result, applications that aren't compatible with Vista won't likely run on Windows 7, either. Microsoft shares were off 2.7% to $22.60 in mid-day trading Wednesday as world financial markets continued their downward slide.

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INTEREST: stopping telemarketing calls using the new https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/
by billing 03 Oct '08

03 Oct '08

I realize this posting is not really computer related nor even Macintosh related but, since it's tough getting through to the actual site (it's so busy), and it seems like a Very Useful Thing, I hope you will forgive this posting if you already know about the Canadian "Do Not Call" service: ...from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Do_Not_Call_List Canadian Do Not Call List From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Government of Canada announced on December 13, 2004 that they would introduce legislation to create a Canadian Do Not Call List. The Canadian list follows the model set by the National Do Not Call Registry established in the United States in June 2003. Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act, S.C. 2005, c.50 was the legislation which followed this announcement. It received royal assent on November 25, 2005 and came into force September 30, 2008. It gives theCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) authority to establish a national do not call list, to establish procedures to administer the Act and to levy penalties for violations. Starting September 30, 2008, Canadians began to sign up online at the Do Not Call List website or by calling the toll-free numbers 1-866-580- DNCL (1-866-580-3625) or 1-888-DNCL-TTY (1-888-362-5889). The number of Canadians trying to register on the first day overwhelmed the system bringing the website down eight or nine hours after the official launch.[1] = - = - = - = - = - = The official site is at: https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/ ...try again later if you get the following message (the site is not broken just very busy): The service is not available. Please try again later. NOTE: this registers your phone number for DoNotCall but there are some exceptions. (Also from the Wikipedia entry: Criticism Professor Michael Geist, an authority on technology, Internet and copyright law and holder of the prestigious Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa has criticized the changes adopted in the amended Act. He observes that the legislation contains too many exemptions. Professor Geist expresses particular concern about the extent and duration of the existing business relationship exception. On March 28, 2008 Professor Geist introduced iOptOut.ca, a free service which assists in the process of creating a personal do not call list. The service notifies callers selected by the user that the individual exercises his or her right under privacy laws not to receive communications from the notified business. It is intended to cover those organizations excluded from the Do Not Call List. You need to register on the iOptOut.ca site before you can avail yourself of that service. Wayne

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