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INTEREST: How the iPad changed my reading habits
by billing 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

...from: http://www.macworld.com/article/153299/2010/08/ipad_reading.html?lsrc=nl_mw… How the iPad changed my reading habits One editor reflects on how the device has changed how he peruses magazines and books by Jonathan Seff, Macworld.com The iPad is a curious device—not quite an iPod, not quite a laptop. I typically bring it to work with me during the day, and keep it on my nightstand at home at other times. And although I use it for many different purposes—checking e-mail, ordering from Amazon, catching up on Twitter, controlling one of the Macs in the other room—what I’ve really noticed is how the iPad has changed how and what I read. Magazines I typically have magazines strewn about the house in various states of being read—especially The New Yorker, which comes 47 times a year—with bind-in cards or random scraps of paper used as bookmarks. And when I’m done with them, they often wait their turn to be tossed in with the recycling. Zinio has been around for a while now, providing digital subscriptions to magazines that you can read on a Mac, PC, or iPhone/iPod touch. I never really found it very enjoyable to read a magazine on my computer or the small screen of my iPhone. But with the iPad and a universal version of the app, it’s a whole different story. (Disclosure: the digital version of Macworld is a Zinio publication as well.) Rolling Stone in Zinio With the Zinio app on an iPad, I have a large screen on which to enjoy digital replicas of magazines. Unlike with printed magazines, however, I can pinch out to zoom into section to make it easier to read. The app keeps my place without the need for paper bookmarks. There are hyperlinks that take me directly to the jumped portion of an article without making me flip to the back to pages that often have no page numbers on them. I can read in bed without a light after my wife goes to sleep. I can download new issues as soon as they’re available and carry around as many magazines as my iPad can hold. And there’s nothing to recycle. Thanks to Zinio, I’ve re-subscribed to Rolling Stone—a magazine I haven’t read for years. When my current print subscription to Outside Magazine is up after one more issue, I plan to switch to the Zinio version. And I look forward to Conde Nast bringing The New Yorker to the iPad (although I recently renewed my print subscription for another three years). To be fair, the Zinio app and experience are far from perfect. Subscription pricing is all over the map and seems to change on a whim—I checked the Outside Zinio page three times over the course of several weeks, and a one-year subscription went from $16 to $20 before finally settling to $24 in that time. Also, there are no multi-year subscription options. Although Outside currently offers me one year of print for $30, I can opt for two years for $40 or three years for $50, dropping the price per issue if I’ll commit for longer. With Zinio, that’s not an option. I don’t mind paying the same price for Zinio as for a printed magazine, but it shouldn’t cost more. Also, as with other types of digital publications, I can’t hand an issue off to a friend or family member when I’m done with. And there’s no way to loan or share these types of purchases with other Zinio members. Books Before the iPad, I had never read an entire book on a portable device. I’d read bits and pieces using the Kindle app on my iPhone (including a 25 cent version of Alice in Wonderland) but I don’t own Kindle hardware. Hitch-22 in iBook I tested out the iBookstore by purchasing Samantha Bee’s I Know I Am, But What Are You?. After adjusting the font, type size, and brightness to my liking (and turning on the Sepia background option) I enjoyed breezing through the book, without worrying about remembering my place. The iPad is heavier than other e-book-only devices, but I haven’t found it oppressively so. A nice thing about the iPad (or Kindle or Nook or other e-reader) is the ability to download and carry multiple books with you for a vacation, say, rather than schlep around lots of heavy tomes. Or buy a new book from your hotel room without having to care about finding the nearest bookstore (and worry about its selection). Having finished that first book, I’ve now moved on to Christopher Hitchens’ Hitch-22: A Memoir. Comic books I must admit that I haven’t read a comic book since I was a teenager (although I still have a few boxes of nicely preserved issues in the basement). Or at least I hadn’t until I started playing around with the Marvel app on the iPad. Ultimate Spider-Man in the Marvel app Thanks to Marvel’s selection of free comic book issues (which change on a regular basis) I’ve given the iPad a opportunity to show me what it can do with another type of reading material. (This “the first taste is free” mentality seems to be an important marketing tool for the shifting comic book business, as our editor in chief, Jason Snell, discovered at Comic-Con recently.) Although I’ve yet to plunk down my credit card to buy any comics, I’ve found the reading experience to be mostly a nice one. Text can be a little small and hard to read without zooming in—especially on double pages displayed while reading in portrait orientation. It’s not quite the same tactile experience as I remember from my comic-reading days, and digital distribution means an end to collecting in the classic sense. But in general, the graphics look great and are very colorful, and it’s nice to have yet another reading option on the iPad.

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INTEREST: Safari extensions
by billing 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

...from: http://www.macworld.com/article/152101/2010/08/safariextensionshandson.html… Hands on with Safari extensions Posted on Aug 10, 2010 8:00 am by Dan Frakes, Macworld.com The latest version of Safari (5.x), released earlier this summer, introduced a new extensions feature to Apple’s Web browser. Extensions allow you to alter the behavior of Safari through small, downloadable packages from by developers, created by using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Activating the extensions feature Now that we’ve logged a few months of browsing with Safari 5, it’s time for a closer look at this feature: how to turn it on (if it isn't already), how to install and use extensions, how to update extensions, and how to troubleshoot issues with misbehaving extensions. Once you've gotten a handle on Safari extensions, take a look at some of our favorite extensions. Starting with Safari 5.0.1, the Safari-extensions feature is enabled by default. Launch Safari 5.0.1, and extensions just work—you can skip to the next section to learn how to download and install them. If, for whatever reason, you're still using Safari 5.0 and can't update yet, turning on the feature isn’t as obvious as you’d think. In fact, Apple has hidden the feature in Safari’s Develop menu…which is alsodisabled by default. So the process for turning on extensions requires a couple steps: In Safari’s Preferences window (Safari -> Preferences), switch to the Advanced pane, and then check the box to Show Develop Menu In Menu Bar. In the new Develop menu that appears in the menu bar (between Bookmarks and Window), choose Enable Extensions. Once you’ve used the Enable Extensions command, you can uncheck the Show Develop Menu In Menu Bar setting to regain that valuable menu-bar space. Installing extensions With the extensions feature activated, Safari’s Preferences window sports a new Extensions pane that lists all installed extensions and lets you customize the behavior of each. This screen also lets you disable and enable individual extensions or turn off the extensions feature altogether—useful when troubleshooting (more on that below). So how do you get extensions? With the release of Safari 5.0.1, Apple introduced the Safari Extensions Gallery, a curated collection of third-party extensions Apple has chosen to showcase—you can even access the Gallery right from the Safari menu. Divided into categories such as News, Social Networking, Security, and Productivity, the Gallery currently contains more than 100 extensions, each with a short description, a link to the developer's site, and an Install Now button. (If you haven't updated to Safari 5.0.1, you won't see these Install Now buttons.) Click the Install Now button for an extension, and in a second or two the button will change to an Installed graphic indicating that the extension has been installed. But there are plenty more Safari extensions out there that don't appear in the official Gallery. Some you'll find while browsing the Web, but perhaps the best alternative source for extensions right now is the Safari Extensions blog, which has been publishing info about newly available extensions since Safari 5.0 was released. I recommend subscribing to the blog's RSS feed so you can keep an eye out for useful new extensions as they're released. However, extensions you download outside of the official Gallery require a different installation procedure—they don't install automatically. The Website hosting the extension will provide a standard download link, and then Safari will download the extension—a file (actually a Mac OS X package) ending in .safariextz. (If, instead of downloading a .safariextz file, Safari displays a window of ugly code, click the Back button and either Option-click the download link or right-click—or Control-click—on the link and choose Download Linked File.) Depending on how you’ve configured Safari to handle downloaded files, Safari may immediately ask you if you want to install the new extension. If not, find the newly downloaded file package in the Finder and double-click it to view the same Don’t Install/Install dialog. Read the official warning text, click Install, and the extension is installed. (In case you're wondering why a third-party extension isn't included in Apple's Gallery, there are a couple possible reasons. The first is simply that the developer hasn't submitted it to Apple for possible inclusion. The second is that the developer has submitted the extension and either Apple hasn't yet approved it or has rejected it for some reason. This doesn't mean you shouldn't install extensions that don't appear in Apple's Gallery, but you should be a bit more careful before doing so.) Safari's Preferences window sports a new view when extensions are turned on. Whichever method you use to install extensions—Apple's Gallery or manual download and install—installed extensions are stored in ~/Library/Safari/Extensions and appear in the new Extensions screen of Safari's preferences window. For some extensions, the new features they provide are immediately available—no restart or other action is required. In fact, if the extension uses a toolbar button, that button may automatically be added to Safari’s toolbar without any further action from you. (If it isn’t, just choose View -> Customize Toolbar and then manually add the toolbar button.) However, I've found that most extensions work only on new tabs you open after installing the extension—you won't get the new features on existing tabs. (This is often the case even if the extension has automatically added a toolbar button to Safari—the button won't do anything when viewing existing tabs.) Using and managing extensions As mentioned above, many Safari extensions function as new buttons for Safari’s toolbar. For example, Ars Technica and Macworld contributor John Siracusa’s Reload Button restores the Reload button found in Safari 3 and earlier, and Clint Ecker’s Short URL adds a new button that automatically shortens, using either is.gd or bit.ly, the current tab’s URL. You use these toolbar buttons just like any other: click the button to access the simple feature. Other extensions add new commands to Safari’s contextual menus: right-click somewhere on a Web page, and you’ll see the new options. For example, Shortenz Linkz lets you right-click on any URL link on a Web page to generate a shortened URL using the URL-shortening service of your choice. It also provides an option to send the URL in a Twitter message. But many Safari extensions work in the background, doing their thing without any effort on your part. For example, there are already extensions that automatically reformat YouTube pages or Google Reader’s interface for easier viewing, that add additional options to specific Web pages, or that disable JavaScript elements hosted by particular servers. If an extension provides settings to customize its behavior, you’ll find those settings in the Extensions pane of Safari’s Preferences window. Select the extension in the list on the left, and that extension’s options appear to the right. If you decide you don't like a particular extension's feature(s), you can disable it. Just select it in the list of installed extensions and then uncheck the Enable [extension name] box. Alternatively, you can uninstall it, as explained below. Updating extensions Like other software, Safari extensions are updated to fix bugs and add new features. This is especially true right now, as developers are still learning how to create and perfect extensions. Thankfully, Safari provides a built-in mechanism for checking for, and updating to, new versions of extensions. Open the Extensions pane of Safari Preferences, and click the Updates item in the lower-left corner. To the right, you’ll see a list of any extensions for which newer versions are available. Click an individual Update button to update that extension—the new version is downloaded and installed. Alternatively, click Update All to install all pending updates with a single click. To avoid having to manually check for available updates, you can check the box to Install Updates Automatically. This configures Safari to automatically download and install updates whenever they’re available. Given how frequently extensions are being updated these days, this is a welcome option, although it’s not yet clear how often Safari checks for new versions of installed extensions. Troubleshooting extensions Depending on which extensions you choose to install, the neat features you gain may come with a price: Safari crashes. Between the release of Safari 4 a year ago and the release of Safari 5 in June, I had very few problems with Safari; in the first couple weeks after installing Safari 5.0 and testing extensions, I had literally dozens of crashes, and I was able to trace nearly all of them back to issues with extensions. (Unfortunately, unlike the Safari 4-and-later feature that lets Safari plug-ins crash without taking down the entire browser, an extension problem often crashes Safari outright.) I've personally had the worst luck with extensions that aim to block specific JavaScript hosts that alter the behavior of sites. For example, several extensions block JavaScript from intellitxt.com in order to let you avoid those annoying ads that pop up on Web pages when you mouse over words. Unfortunately, whenever I’ve had one of these extensions installed and active, Safari would crash regularly. I also occasionally experience a problem where simply disabling a particular extension, by turning off that extension in the Extensions screen of Safari Preferences, crashes Safari. This seems to be especially common when disabling an extension that use a toolbar button. In many cases, I've been able to avoid such crashes by manually removing the extension’s toolbar button (using Safari's Customize Toolbar screen) and then disabling the extension. Thankfully, over the past couple months, I've found that Safari's stability has improved dramatically when using extensions. I suspect the biggest reason is that extensions developers have been improving their extension-coding skills, but it's also possible that Safari 5.0.1 included some extensions-handling improvements of its own. Whatever the combination, using extensions seems to be notably safer—in terms of browser stability—these days than when the feature first debuted. That being said, extensions can still cause problems with Safari, so it's good to know some basic troubleshooting procedures. If you know which extension is causing a problem, you’ve got two options: The first is to simply disable that extension (as explained above) and then wait for an update to see if a new version fixes the problem. The second is to remove the extension completely. To do this, select the extension in Safari Preferences and then click the Uninstall button that appears to the right. What if you don’t know which extension is causing a problem? Remember the “classic” Mac OS extension conflict? Welcome back, old friend. It’s time to do some conflict testing. The first step is to turn off Safari extensions completely: Open the Extensions screen of Safari Preferences and move the main slider to the Off position. Then browse the sites that were open the last time Safari crashed or exhibited otherwise troublesome behavior—Safari’s Reopen All Windows From Last Session command (in the History menu) is great for this. If the problem still occurs, you know extensions aren’t the cause. If the problem is gone, at least one of your extensions is to blame. Turn the main extensions slider back to On, then scroll through the list of installed extensions in Safari Preferences, noting which ones are currently enabled. Then disable one and reload your last session. If the problem occurs again, the extension you disabled is likely not the cause. Disable the next suspect and reload the last session again. Is the problem gone? You’ll want to repeat this process until disabling an extension fixes the problem—that extension is likely the cause. Of course, just as with classic Mac OS extension conflicts, it’s possible that a combination of Safari extensions is the real issue, but I haven't yet come across such an issue (and uncovering such combinations is the topic for another article…). Use it wisely As you browse Apple's Gallery and the Web for useful extensions, keep in mind that the more extensions you install, the more you increase the chance of problems. But just as important is that you increase the complexity of the browser itself—more toolbar buttons, more keyboard shortcuts, more contextual-menu commands, and more ways in which the content on Websites is tweaked or otherwise affected. So use extensions judiciously. Despite downloading and testing scores of extensions, I've kept only a couple dozen installed, and only a few of those are currently active. Nevertheless, Extensions has become one of my favorite new Safari features in years.

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INTEREST: UK government: Upgrading away from IE6 costs too much
by billing 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

...from: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/08/despite-petition-uk-governmen… UK government: Upgrading away from IE6 costs too much By Emil Protalinski | Last updated a day ago The UK government is not yet interested in ditching Internet Explorer 6, saying the costs required to do so outweigh the benefits. Six months ago, an online petition started in hopes that the UK would abolish all use of the world's most-loathed browser. The petition debuted soon after the German and French governments began to advise their citizens to use a different browser than IE in the wake of the Chinese-Google hack attack. It closed on June 6 after gathering 6,223 signatures; on July 30, the government gave an official response. Here's the crux of it: Complex software will always have vulnerabilities and motivated adversaries will always work to discover and take advantage of them. There is no evidence that upgrading away from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure. Regular software patching and updating will help defend against the latest threats. The Government continues to work with Microsoft and other internet browser suppliers to understand the security of the products used by HMG, including Internet Explorer and we welcome the work that Microsoft are continuing do on delivering security solutions which are deployed as quickly as possible to all Internet Explorer users. The UK government is correct in saying that Microsoft will continue to keep IE6 updated and secure. In fact, the software giant has promised to do so until April 2014, which is when Extended Support for Windows XP (which includes IE6) ends. That said, Microsoft trash talks IE6 every chance it gets, promoting the increased security of IE8 at the same time. Furthermore, as IE flaws are discovered, IE6 and IE7 are affected more often than not, while IE8 usually remains unaffected. The true reason the UK government doesn't want to upgrade becomes clear in the last paragraph of its explanation. It doesn't want to spend the money: It is not straightforward for HMG departments to upgrade IE versions on their systems. Upgrading these systems to IE8 can be a very large operation, taking weeks to test and roll out to all users. To test all the web applications currently used by HMG departments can take months at significant potential cost to the taxpayer. It is therefore more cost effective in many cases to continue to use IE6 and rely on other measures, such as firewalls and malware scanning software, to further protect public sector internet users. On some level, this makes sense; not every benefit is worth the costs. But such testing will have to be done eventually, and not even Her Majesty's Government can stick with IE6 indefinitely.

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INTEREST: Bluetooth footpedal
by billing 27 Jul '10

27 Jul '10

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/airturns-bt-105-footpedal-is-a-real-page… AirTurn's BT-105 footpedal is a real page turner (video) By Sean Hollister posted Jul 19th 2010 9:06AM If you carry your sheet music in a laptop, AirTurn's got a USB dongle for that, but if you've migrated your musical cues to an certain slate, never fear, Bluetooth is on the way. The AirTurn BT-105 will bring the company's page turning technology to iPad, using a transmitter that attaches to standard professional footswitches, allowing you to turn full pages and half pages of sheet music while keeping hands firmly affixed to your instrument. Though there's no word on price, we imagine it'll cost close to the existing 2.4GHz version, which runs from $40 for a dongle to $100 for a package with two Boss pedals, and when it surfaces in Q4 of this year, we're hoping it will extend bicycling input to all the other wild and crazy appsyou dream up. PR and video after the break. = - = - = - = Airturn's home site with demo: http://airturn.com/press-releases/ipad-bluetooth-page-turner-footswitch-pro…

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FYI: Apple responds to congressional inquiry...
by billing 27 Jul '10

27 Jul '10

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/apple-responds-to-congressional-inquiry-… Apple responds to congressional inquiry, details location data collection in 13-page letter By Sean Hollister posted Jul 20th 2010 1:00AM When Apple's latest privacy policy revealed the company could track any iPhone's location in real time, it threw some for a loop... including a pair of gentlemen from the US House of Representatives, who asked what Cupertino was up to. In a thirteen page letter dated July 12, Apple's legal counsel explains the whole matter away, while giving us a fascinating look into how the company collects -- and justifies collecting -- all that GPS data. Legally the defense is simple, as Apple claims users grant express permission via pop-up messages for every single location-based service and app, and if you don't care to be tracked, you can simply shut down location services globally or (in iOS 4) on a per-app basis in the phone's settings panel. Where it gets more interesting is when Apple explains what it actually collects, and who they share it with -- namely, Google and Skyhook, who provided location services to earlier versions of the operating system. In iOS 3.2 and beyond, only Apple has the keys to the database, and what's inside are locations of cell towers, WiFi access points, and anonymous GPS coordinates. None of these are personally identifying, as the company doesn't collect SSIDs or any data, and in the case of device coordinates they're reportedly collected and sent in encrypted batches only once every 12 hours, using a random ID generated by the phone every 24 hours that apparently can't be linked back to the device. In the case of iAd, Apple says coordinates don't even make it to a database, as they're immediately converted (by remote server) to a advertising-friendly five-digit zip code. Concerning location data collection for services other than iAd, there's still the little question of why, but we'll just leave you with Apple legal's quote on that subject after the break, and let you hit up the full document yourself at Scribd if you want the deep dive. "To provide the high quality products and services that its customers demand, Apple must have access to comprehensive location-based information... these databases must be updated continuously to account for, among other things, the ever-changing physical landscape, more innovative uses of mobile technology, and the increasing number of Apple's customers."

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FYI: "autofill" exploit found in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari
by billing 27 Jul '10

27 Jul '10

More information may be forthcoming when Mr Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of White Hat Security, gives his presentation at next week's "Black Hat Security Conference" (http://www.blackhat.com/) but for now, you may wish to disable "autofill" on your browser until this has cleared up: Safari: Preferences: Autofill > deselect check boxes FireFox: Preferences: Security > deselect REMEMBER PASSWORDS FOR SITES ...from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/20/browser_info_disclosure_weaknesses/ IE and Safari lets attackers steal user names and addresses Ripe for the picking, researcher says By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author Posted in Security, 20th July 2010 21:15 GMT Free whitepaper – Robin Johnson: Questions and Answers The Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari browsers are susceptible to attacks that allow webmasters to glean highly sensitive information about the people visiting their sites, including their full names, email addresses, location, and even stored passwords, a security researcher says. In a talk scheduled for next week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of White Hat Security, plans to detail critical weaknesses that are enabled by default in the browsers, which are the four biggest by market share. The vulnerabilities have yet to be purged by the respective browser makers despite months, and in some cases, years of notice. Among the most serious is a vulnerability in Apple's Safari and earlier versions of Microsoft's IE that exposes names, email addresses, and other sensitive information when a user visits a booby-trapped website. The attack exploits the browsers' autocomplete feature used to automatically enter commonly typed text into websites. It works by creating a webpage with fields carrying titles such as “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Email Address,” and “Credit Card Number” and then adding javascript that simulates the user entering various letters, numbers or keystrokes into each one. Users who in the past have used the autocomplete features to store that information in versions 6 and 7 of IE or versions 4 and 5 of Safari will find that the information will be automatically zapped to the rogue website. No interaction is necessary other than to visit the page. Webmasters can set the input fields to be invisible to better conceal the attack. In the case of Safari, Grossman's proof-of-concept attack simulates a user entering various letters or numbers into the fields. In a demonstration, when the script entered the letter J under a field titled “Name,” the browser automatically exposed “Jeremiah Grossman” to the web server. Grossman said he alerted Apple to the vulnerability on June 17, but received no reply other than an automatic response saying his message had been received. “I would never have talked about this publicly if Apple had taken this seriously,” he told The Register. “I figured somebody else must have found this before because it's so brain-dead simple.” When he sent a follow up query “I never heard anything back, human or robotic.” Tricking IE 6 and 7 into coughing up the autocomplete details works in a similar fashion, but instead of simulating the entering of numbers or letters into a field, Grossman enters a user's down arrow twice and then the enter key to extract the stored information. If more than one record is stored in that field, the script will repeat the process so they can be lifted as well. Grossman's research is the latest to shatter the widely held myth that web surfing is largely an anonymous act, at least when done from a public or widely used IP address. In May, researchers demonstrated how a decade-old browser history disclosure vulnerability made the vast majority of web users vulnerable to practical attacks that lifted their viewing habits, including news articles they've read and the Zip Codes they've entered into online forms. That same month, separate researchers showed how most browsers leave behind digital fingerprints that can be used to uniquely identify their users. Grossman's research take those findings to new highs. In addition to the weaknesses in IE and Safari, he has uncovered flaws in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome that can expose passwords stored by the browsers. The feature is designed to automatically enter the user name and password when a user visits a site such as Gmail or Facebook. The researcher says it's possible for unscrupulous webmasters to steal that information by hiding malicious code on their pages. For the attack to work, an XSS, or cross-site scripting vulnerability must be present on the site on which the stored password is used. Grossman's Black Hat presentation will also demonstrate how a webmaster can silently delete all of a user's browser cookies. The mass cookie deleter works by setting thousands of cookies as soon as a user visits the site. When the number of cookies set exceeds a certain amount – it's about 3,000 for Firefox and just slightly higher for other browsers – all older cookies will automatically be erased. His proof-of-concept takes about 2.5 seconds.

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INTEREST: Google signs 20-year wind energy deal
by billing 20 Jul '10

20 Jul '10

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/google-signs-20-year-deal-to-power-data-… Google signs 20-year deal to power data centers with wind energy By Donald Melanson posted Jul 20th 2010 3:45PM It's not the first investment Google has made in wind power, but anyone wondering about its commitment needn't look any further than the company's just-announced deal with NextEra Energy. It's agreed to buy wind power from NextEra's wind farm in Iowa for the next twenty years, which it says will provide enough power to supply "several" of its data centers. What's more, Google says that the size and length of the deal (taking 114 megawatts of energy off the market) will also lead to other indirect benefits for the wind power industry, and give NextEra the flexibility to invest in additional clean energy projects. Head on past the break for NextEra's press release on the deal.

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INTEREST: Google acquires airflight search software
by billing 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

...from: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/google-acquires-ita-for-700m-dives-headf… Google acquires ITA for $700m, dives headfirst into airline ticket search By Darren Murph posted Jul 2nd 2010 1:02PM Look out, Kayak / Bing Travel -- you both are about to have your respective worlds rocked. While Google has managed to stay on top (or close to the top) when it comes to almost everything search related, the company has curiously allowed smaller niche brands to handle the travel side. Even amongst the hardcore Googlers, avid flyers typically head to a place like Kayak to weigh their options, while vacation planners either do likewise or turn to Bing Travel. In a few months time, we suspect some of that traffic will be diverted back to El Goog. The company has just announced plans to acquire Cambridge-based ITA Software for a cool $700 million, which will put one of the world's most sophisticated QPX software tools for organizing flight information into the hands of the planet's most dangerous search ally. According to Google, the pickup will allow consumers to search and buy airline tickets with less hassle and frustration, though it's quick to point out that it has "no plans to sell airline tickets [directly] to consumers." For the travel junkies in attendance, there's a high probability that you won't find any better news coming your way today than this.

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INTEREST: Sony launches Road to Zero environmental plan
by billing 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

...from: http://oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1845&Itemid… Sony launches Road to Zero environmental plan Share Wednesday, 14 April 2010 Sony Corporation has announced its Road to Zero global environmental plan. The plan includes a long-term goal of achieving a zero environmental footprint by 2050. It uses backcasting methods to set specific mid-term environmental targets for the next five years in line with that goal. Sony's definition of zero environmental footprint is not only limited to the neutralisation of carbon emissions, but also extends to waste and use of finite materials such as oil-derived virgin plastics. Targets are based on four environmental perspectives - climate change, resource conservation, control of chemical substances and biodiversity - across all product lifecycle stages, from research and development to recycling. The mid-term targets will be implemented globally across the Sony Group beginning in April 2011, and will extend through the end of fiscal year 2015 (March 2016), at which time new targets for the following five years will be set. "We are fully committed to putting our innovative spirit and technological expertise to use to help solve environmental challenges," said Sir Howard Stringer, chairman, CEO and president of Sony Corporation. "From the development of new materials and energy-efficient technologies, to the introduction of better processes in manufacturing and production, we will work aggressively to meet the ambitious targets we are setting for ourselves and, at the same time, establish a model for others in our industries to follow."

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FYI: Time Capsule repair eligibility
by billing 12 Jul '10

12 Jul '10

...from: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3351 Last Modified: July 09, 2010 Article: TS3351 Symptoms Some Time Capsules sold between approximately February 2008 and June 2008 may not power on or may shut down unexpectedly after starting up. Products Affected Time Capsule Resolution Affected Time Capsule models Some Time Capsules with serial numbers in the following range may be affected: XX807XXXXXX - XX814XXXXXX How to find the serial number on your Time Capsule. If your Time Capsule falls within serial number range above and it does not power on or shuts down unexpectedly after starting up, it may be eligible for repair or replacement. Contact the Apple representative most convenient for you: Apple Authorized Service Provider. Find one here. Apple Retail Store. Set up an appointment with a Genius (available in some countries only). Apple Contact Center. Find the phone number for your region. If Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider confirms that your Time Capsule is affected, Apple will repair or replace it free of charge. Note: If you need to retain the data that is on your affected Time Capsule, Apple provides options depending upon where you live. If you live in the U.S. or Japan and want to retain the data on the affected Time Capsule, contact Apple to arrange for mail-in service. Turnaround time for mail-in service will be 3 to 5 days. In all other countries, an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) can transfer your data from the affected Time Capsule to a replacement Time Capsule if desired. Your Retail or AASP representative can provide specific turnaround times for this service. If you believe that you paid for a repair or replacement Time Capsule due to this issue, contact Apple regarding a refund. As always, Apple recommends that you back up your data. Learn more about other back up options while you are without your Time Capsule. Apple is not responsible for data loss. This program covers affected Time Capsule models for 3 years from their original date of purchase. Apple will continue to evaluate the service data and will provide further updates to the program if needed. Wayne Billing Classroom Technology Support Audio Visual and Classroom Technology Support 130 Machray Hall Building 474-6649 474-7598 (fax) Wayne_Billing(a)umanitoba.ca

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FYI: iOS4 & Exchange ActiveSync
by billing 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

...from: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3398 iOS 4: Exchange Mail, Contacts, or Calendars may not sync after update Last Modified: June 28, 2010 Article: TS3398 Symptoms Immediately after updating to iOS 4, some users may notice that Exchange ActiveSync Mail, Contacts, or Calendars do not sync, or sync very slowly. In addition, some Exchange Server administrators may notice their servers running slowly. Products Affected iPod touch, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS Resolution To work around this issue, users should install a configuration profile from Apple that increases the amount of time the iOS 4 device will wait for the Exchange Server to respond to its sync requests. For best results, the profile should be installed on as many iOS 4 devices at your company as possible. To install the profile: Use Safari on your iOS 4 device to download the configuration profile. It may be easiest to read this article with your iPhone or iPod touch and tap the download link there, but you may also email the attachment to another email account on your iOS 4 device, and tap the attachment to open it. Tap Install to install the profile, and enter your passcode if prompted. A warning message will appear because the profile is not signed. Tap Install Now. Tap Done to complete the installation, then power off your device and power it back on. Wait for your Exchange data to finish syncing.

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INTEREST: Windows 8 pre-pre-pre-view
by billing 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

...from: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/06/leaked-windows-8-slides-an-ap… Windows 8 leak: an App Store for Windows, IE9 beta in August By Peter Bright | Last updated about 20 hours ago A set of slides distributed to Microsoft's PC partners in April of this year has been leaked onto the Internet. The slides outline Microsoft's vision for Windows 8's hardware ecosystem: the form factors the software giant will be targeting, the hardware capabilities that will be offered, and the demands that these parameters will place on OEMs. A new "Windows Store" is perhaps the most ambitious feature described. Microsoft would offer a store service to third-party software developers. The store would allow easy discoverability of applications both from within Windows and from the Web. The store would handle standard features like account management and software updates, as well as providing capabilities such as the ability to replicate applications and settings across different devices. The store would be curated, so only applications that reached a certain quality standard would be permitted. The basic model, then, is a cross between Apple's App Store and Valve's Steam. Indications are that such a feature would be well-received. The slides are not the first such communication between Microsoft and its OEM partners; they contain feedback from the first "ecosystem forum" at which the Windows Store concept was apparently first discussed. The slides say that Microsoft's partners believe that a Windows Store "can't happen soon enough," and think that an improved application distribution model, including a unified catalog and purchase experience, is a "critical component" to their success. The App Store has certainly won many fans on Apple's iOS platform, and similar models have been adopted on both Android and Windows Mobile/Windows Phone. Extending it to a desktop platform is in some ways logical, but thus far efforts to do so have been limited. Steam is successful, but relatively limited in scope, being used for games and game-related material. Microsoft itself has attempted a broader store—the Microsoft Marketplace, used in conjunction with the Digital Locker for online purchasing of both first- and third-party software—but its efforts were terminated last August. It's therefore a little surprising to see Redmond trying again, and so soon. However, it's probably fair to say that consumers and software vendors alike are now more attuned to the idea of having a centralized store for purchasing applications, and if other problems faced by the Microsoft Marketplace can be resolved (for example, it was not available outside the USA, it was not well-promoted, and it was not well-integrated within the OS), the company's next attempt may yet succeed. Still no tablet OS in the works The leaked documents suggest that Redmond still sees no value in creating a dedicated tablet-oriented operating system analogous to Apple's iOS. Microsoft describes three form factors that are particular priorities: slates, laptops, and all-in-one desktops. These form factors are regarded as important because they give OEMs more ability to distinguish and differentiate their products than conventional desktops. To drive home the significance of creating well-designed, attractive products, Microsoft references Apple in many of the slides, highlighting how Cupertino leverages strong industrial design and a consistent experience across its various products. The decision to equip slate machines with Windows 8 does not, of course, mean that Windows 8 might not be more finger-friendly than Windows 7 presently is, but it does mean that Redmond is still not going to have a platform that can properly compete with the iPad or Android-powered tablets. These low-powered ARM-based devices have no equivalents in the x86 world; if Microsoft wants to target them, it can't do so with Windows 8. Beyond that, there are many slides that say, in essence, that Windows 8 will be a continuation of Windows 7. Windows 7's (little-used) sensor and location APIs are being heavily promoted. Microsoft's view is that Windows 8 hardware will support a richer range of sensors (GPS, cell-tower positioning, proximity sensors, accelerometers, webcams, not to mention the company's own Kinect), and that there is considerable value to be had from vendors properly integrating these devices into the platform's frameworks. For its part, Microsoft outlined a few new possibilities that would exploit these sensor capabilities, such as the ability to automatically log on based on a webcam's detection of the user sitting at the keyboard, and then subsequently lock the machine when the user leaves. In other slides, the software company said that it was continuing to emphasize start-up, shutdown, and restore-from-sleep performance. These areas were performance targets for Windows 7, and that is apparently continuing with Windows 8. This will include a new "Logoff + Hibernate" feature that will act as an accelerated alternative to shutting down. Though it's possible that dates have slipped since the documents were distributed in April, they also stated that Internet Explorer 9 would have a beta release in August. Further, this beta release would include the full Internet Explorer 9 experience; the three Platform Preview releases have provided developers with access to the new browser's rendering engine and JavaScript processor, but have included only a rudimentary front-end. This front-end will be revealed in the beta. Mysteries remain The most interesting feature of the documents, however, is perhaps how uninteresting they are. Windows 8 is set to be a major release (like Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008, unlike Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2), so one might, naively, have expected Redmond to have a lot to say about it. Instead, the picture painted by the leaked documents is very much an evolutionary one. The use of sensors and the improvements to certain areas of performance are certainly welcome changes, but they're direct continuations of the work already done in Windows 7. A successful application store might be a big deal for software developers, but its direct impact on the operating system is negligible. Windows 8 may well be a major release, but the nature of its major changes remain a mystery.

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INTEREST: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Defends Apple "Flash" decision
by billing 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

...from: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/05/former-u-s-labor-secretary-defends-appl… Former U.S. Labor Secretary Defends Apple on Antitrust Issues Wednesday May 05, 2010 03:43 PM EST Written by Eric Slivka In a widely-publicized blog post today, Robert Reich, who served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, offers his thoughts on the rumored antitrust inquiry being considered by federal regulators over Apple's exclusion of cross-compilers for creation of applications running on its iPhone OS devices. Reich argues that the Federal Trade Commission's efforts targeting Apple could be better spent on investigating Wall Street banks, but federal law excludes the financial industry from the FTC's purview. Our future well being depends more on people like Steve Jobs who invent real products that can improve our lives, than it does on people like [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon who invent financial products that do little other than threaten our economy. Reich's position is that Apple's move is not anti-competitive, with many other companies rapidly innovating in the sector, and if Apple's decision results in less competition on the iPhone platform, Apple itself will be the one to suffer. Apple's supposed sin was to tell software developers that if they want to make apps for iPhones and iPads they have to use Apple programming tools. No more outside tools (like Adobe's Flash format) that can run on rival devices like Google's Android phones and RIM's BlackBerrys. What's wrong with that? Apple says it's necessary to maintain quality. If consumers disagree they can buy platforms elsewhere. Apple was the world's #3 smartphone supplier in 2009, with 16.2 percent of worldwide market share. RIM was #2, with 18.8 percent. Google isn't exactly a wallflower. These and other firms are innovating like mad, as are tens of thousands of independent developers. If Apple's decision reduces the number of future apps that can run on its products, Apple will suffer and presumably change its mind. While Reich is not the first to make this argument, his public statement comes with the perspective of an academic and political insider who has spent considerable time in the upper reaches of government.

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FYI: iTunes Booklets and iOS4 (iBooks)
by billing 28 Jun '10

28 Jun '10

...from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4194 iBooks: Syncing iTunes Digital Booklets to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Last Modified: June 24, 2010 Article: HT4194 Summary With iBooks 1.1 and iTunes 9.2 or later, you can now sync your iTunes Digital Booklets to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. To sync your iTunes Digital Booklets to iBooks, you will need to change the media kind of your booklet. Follow the steps below to change your booklet's media kind. Notes: iTunes LP and iTunes Extras are not compatible with iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Syncing iTunes Digital Booklets requires an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 or later. iBooks is not compatible with original iPhone or iPod touch (1st generation). Products Affected iPod touch (3rd generation), iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPod touch (2nd generation) Changing the media kind of your iTunes Digital Booklet Select the desired iTunes Digital Booklet from your Music library, and Get Info (from the File menu, chooseGet Info). Click the Options tab. From the Media Kind drop-down menu, choose Book. Click OK. Note: Once you change the media kind, your Digital Booklet(s) will no longer be visible in your Music library, but instead will be moved to your Books library, located on the left side of the iTunes window.. Syncing an iTunes Digital Booklet to iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch Once you've changed the media kind you can sync your iTunes Digital Booklet just like any other book. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in the Devices list on the left in iTunes 9.2 or later. Click the Books tab in the resulting window. Ensure that the Sync Books checkbox is enabled. If iTunes is set to only sync selected books, be sure to enable the checkbox next to the iTunes Digital Booklet you want to sync. Click Sync. Note: Your iTunes Digital Booklet will be displayed on the PDF shelf in iBooks. Additional Information For iTunes 9.2 system requirements, please click here. For information about iBooks, please see the iBooks Frequently Asked Questions.

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Mac Pro - Loaner for UofM Staff
by Doug Hamilton 17 Jun '10

17 Jun '10

Hello Everyone: Apple Canada has provided Computers on Campus with a loaner Mac Pro Tower (Two 2.66 Quad Core Intel Xeon CPUs/2x2TB HD/6GB RAM) with Mac OS X Server & Client pre-installed. We can loan this system to staff of the University of Manitoba for testing for a period of one or two weeks. Appropriate use of this system would include client/server integration into existing computer service infrastructure. Testing of either commercial or in-house software. If you're interested please provide me with the following details, so that I may fill out the loaner form. Name: Department: Loan Project (e.g. Server testing, Client testing, Software testing): Duration of Loan (1 or 2 weeks): Mac OS X Client - pre-installed software: ⁃ iLife '09 ⁃ Jam Packs ⁃ iMovie '06 ⁃ iWork '09 ⁃ Comic Life Deluxe ⁃ Comic Life Magiq ⁃ iStop Motion 2 Express ⁃ Google Sketch Up ⁃ MS Office 2008 ⁃ Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac (Web Services Edition) ⁃ Microsoft Document Connection for Mac (Included with SP2) ⁃ Inspiration 8 ⁃ InspireData 1.5 ⁃ Profcast ⁃ ScreenFlow ⁃ Wirecast ⁃ Doozla ⁃ Pixen Mac OS X Server - pre-installed software & running servers includes: Mac OS X v10.6.3 Snow Leopard Server Applications: ⁃ Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 Unlimited Client ⁃ All Print Drivers ⁃ All Language Supported ⁃ X11 ⁃ Rosetta ⁃ Developer Tools (including PackageMaker) - iWork'09 Services: ⁃ Address Book Server ⁃ AFP ⁃ DHCP ⁃ DNS ⁃ iCal (calendar server) ⁃ iChat ⁃ Netboot (DeployStudio rev19 installed) - NFS ⁃ Open Directory (snow.example.com) ⁃ Push Notification ⁃ SMB (workgroup only) ⁃ Mac OS X Software Update Server (updates downloaded) ⁃ Web (Wiki, Blog, Mail, & Web enabled) ⁃ Xgrid (xgriduser, apple) Regards. ------------- Doug Hamilton, BA, MA, APP Senior Apple Computer Consultant Computers-on-Campus; Univ. of Manitoba 204-474-6196 (Ph.) 204-474-7556 (Fax) http://www.umanitoba.ca/bookstore/

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FYI: Microsoft Office 2008 update
by Doug Hamilton 09 Jun '10

09 Jun '10

Microsoft has released the latest updates of their Office 2008 product, now at version 12.2.5 You can run Microsoft Update to obtain this update, alternatively you can download the update from this link http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_Office2008&fid=D46… Regards. ------------- Doug Hamilton, BA, MA, APP Senior Apple Computer Consultant Computers-on-Campus; Univ. of Manitoba 204-474-6196 (Ph.) 204-474-7556 (Fax) http://www.umanitoba.ca/bookstore/

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FYI - OSX/OpinionSpy
by billing 02 Jun '10

02 Jun '10

Just for your information, there are some screen savers being distributed that have "spyware" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware) in them. These screen savers attempt to install the spyware at the same time as the screen savers are being distributed. See the links below for more information but, basically, the advice coming out of this incident boils down to: (...from: http://rixstep.com/2/20100601,01.shtml) Bottom line: Don't download any lame screen savers. Seriously. Get a clue. Absolutely don't download anything from 7art-screensavers.com. Don't give your pass phrase to a bl**dy screen saver. Get serious. Wayne Billing Classroom Technology Support Audio Visual and Classroom Technology Support 123 Fletcher Argue Building 474-6649 474-7598 (fax) Wayne_Billing(a)umanitoba.ca Begin forwarded message: > From: Doug Hamilton <doug_hamilton(a)umanitoba.ca> > Date: June 2, 2010 3:56:37 PM CDT > To: C-REPs compureps <um-compureps(a)lists.umanitoba.ca> > Subject: [C-REPS] FYI - OSX/OpinionSpy > > Hello, > > Just a follow up regarding the "spyware" class of application produced by Premier Opinion, and was reported by Intego which they dubbed "OSX/OpinionSpy". Premier Opinion provides analytics to software developers. The method of installation is legitimate, below is a screen shot of the installer. > > > I believe a total of two business were distributing Premier Opinion with their Mac OS X applications "7art-screensavers" and "MishInc FLV to Mp3". > > If you require further information, here are a few additional links. > http://rixstep.com/2/20100601,01.shtml > http://osxdaily.com/2010/06/01/spyware-on-the-mac/ > > If you find a system with this software, here is a manual removal process. > http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/askjack/2010/jun/02/how-to-remove-opin… > > > Cheers. > ------------- > Doug Hamilton, BA, MA, APP > Senior Apple Computer Consultant > Computers-on-Campus; Univ. of Manitoba > 204-474-6196 (Ph.) > 204-474-7556 (Fax) > http://www.umanitoba.ca/bookstore/ > > > > > _______________________________________ > um-compureps mailing list > um-compureps(a)lists.umanitoba.ca > http://lists.umanitoba.ca/mailman/listinfo/um-compureps

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INTEREST: Apple surpasses Microsoft on the stock market
by billing 29 May '10

29 May '10

....from various sources including: http://itn.co.uk/8d2e878b316ccbc97e1eb8f1866db2cf.html (btw: "market value" - from The Economist magazine - can be described as follows: http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/224 Participants in the debate have understandably questioned the meaning of market value. The definition is critically important because the price charged for water goes well beyond mechanical computations based on cost to encompass broader social goals and objectives.... What is the market value of water? Let us start with what it is not. It is not simply a willingness to pay. It is not an arbitrary metric derived by capitalists to profit from scarcity. The market value of water should be a reflection of all the factors that make water a prerequisite for life and for living. [The meaning] can encompass ecological stewardship, biodiversity and sustainability in use. It also encompasses all of the costs associated with achieving those results: regulations, marginal supply costs and advanced treatment technologies.) Apple surpasses Microsoft on the stock marketFri May 28 2010 13:29:36Apple has surpassed its rival Microsoft to become the world's biggest tech company based on market value. The last time Apple had a higher market value than Microsoft was 1989. Just ahead of the international launch of the iPad,shares boosted the value of Apple to $222bn while Microsoft is valued at $219bn. The latest milestone marks an impressive resurgence for a company that faced an uncertain future as recently as the early 1990s. In 1997 Microsoft's market value was more than five times that of Apple and it invested $150m into its struggling rival. Apple, which models its products on stylish designs and easy to use formats, has turned its fortunes around and shares are now worth more than 10 times what they were worth ten years ago. But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has shrugged off being surpassed by his company's arch rival: "Where do we go, how do we make products that are more innovative, more popular, how do we make more profit and certainly there is no technology company in the planet that is as profitable as we are and I am certainly proud of that. How the stock market chooses to reflect all that is up to the stock market." He said. Microsoft still leads Apple in sales in the latest quarter with Microsoft reporting $14.5bn in revenue compared with Apple's $13.5bn.

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FYI: VMWare Fusion 3.1 Update
by Doug Hamilton 26 May '10

26 May '10

Hello All: Yesterday, VMWare updated the VMware Fusion for the Mac to version 3.1. Details about the update can be found here. http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10957 I think the VMWare update server is a little overwhelmed at the moment, currently it is easier to obtain the update by directly downloading it via the following link. http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/fus_310/ZGpkYmQqQGRiZHR0cA== Cheers.

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Virtualizing Mac OS X Client with Virtual Box
by Tom Dubinski 21 May '10

21 May '10

This might be of use to somebody out there -- consider it an FYI... Virtualizing Mac OS X Client with Oracle(!) [sic] Virtual Box http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20005524-263.html Mac OS X Server has been a candidate for virtualization for a while, but as far as I know, this is the first for Client. Disclaimer: I haven't tried this yet myself. -- 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: Apple Education Seminars Invitation - Academic Series: Aperture and Digital Story Telling
by Doug Hamilton 14 May '10

14 May '10

Academic Series: Aperture and Digital Story Telling Monday, May 31 2010 1:00PM to 4:00PMAdd to iCal You've been invited to an event Apple presents the Academic Series: Managing Your Digital Photographs. Designed for educators, this free half-day session will focus on the new Aperture 3 and how to best use it to tell your stories. Please use the address in this e-mail to register for the event. The Park Theatre & Movie Café 698 Osborne St. Winnipeg, MB R3L 2B9 Get Directions Copyright © 2010 Apple Inc. 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014. All Rights Reserved / Keep Informed / Privacy Policy

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FYI: Snow Leopard 101 Apple Certification
by Doug Hamilton 12 May '10

12 May '10

Good morning [firstame], just letting you know that our Apple Certification Snow Leopard Training Session is being held May 28th - 30th, 2010. The last time we offered this event it was sold out in just under a week. We will also be holding an EXAM DAY on May 31st if you wish to challenge any Apple certification exam. You can register here, for Snow 101 Training or the Exam Day. Mac OS X Support Essentials is a three-day, hands-on course that provides an in-depth exploration of troubleshooting on Mac OS X. This course is designed to give you a tour of the breadth of functionality of Mac OS X and the best methods for effectively supporting users of Mac OS X systems. The course is a combination of lectures and hands-on case study exercises that provide practical real-world experience. Who Should Attend: • Help desk specialists, technical coordinators, service technicians, and others who support Mac users • Technical support personnel in businesses that use Macs for general productivity or creative design • Technical coordinators or power users who manage networks of computers running Mac OS X — such as teachers and technology specialists who manage classroom networks or computer labs What you will learn: • The troubleshooting process and how to become more efficient with available tools and resources • Mac OS X 10.6 features in depth, including how to find additional information • How to prepare for Apple Certified Support Professional certification Prerequisites: Students should have the following prerequisite knowledge prior to attending this course: • Knowledge of Mac OS X • Troubleshooting experience Time & Place: From May 28 -30, you can find parking either in the back of the building or in Visitor spots at: • 1000 Waverley Street (link to map) • 9:30 am - 5 pm The three-day course is $895 for Manitoba residents ($1295 for out of province residents), which is the lowest price in Canada (and the World) for Snow 101 Apple Certification Training. For more information on what the course offers, please browse the Snow Leopard Course outline here: http://training.apple.com/itpro/snow101 If you believe that you already have the necessary knowledge to challenge the Snow 101 exam or any other Apple Certification exam, we will be holding an Exam Day on May 31st. The cost to challenge an exam is $250. If you have any questions or want more information regarding the Snow 101 course, or challenging an exam, please email Kert Gartner, our Certification Co-ordinator at kert(a)newmediamanitoba.com Register Now! P.S. There are just 4 SPOTS LEFT for our Introduction to Photoshop hands on training next week. If you are interested you'll want to register soon. Home | About Us | Meetings | Event Registration | Mailing List | Contact Us ------------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail was sent to doug_hamilton(a)umanitoba.ca because you are subscribed to at least one of our mailing lists. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from our mailing list, please feel free to do so by visiting: http://www.newmediamanitoba.com/index.php?option=com_lm&task=unsubscribe&g=…

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FYI: S. Jobs: "Thoughts on Flash"
by billing 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

Yesterday the following appeared on the Apple website addressing Apple's position on Flash: “... so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads..." The posting also addresses the current relationship between Apple and Adobe. ...from: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests. I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain. First, there’s “Open”. Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system. Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member. Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers. Second, there’s the “full web”. Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video. Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world. Third, there’s reliability, security and performance. Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash. In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform? Fourth, there’s battery life. To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies. Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained. When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Fifth, there’s Touch. Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript? Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. Sixth, the most important reason. Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices. We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers. This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms. Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X. Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform. Conclusions. Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short. The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games. New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind. Steve Jobs April, 2010

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INTEREST: "R" free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.
by Doug Hamilton 27 Apr '10

27 Apr '10

Some of you may not know of the GNU Open-Source project (free) statistic software suite simply called "R". Unlike SPSS which runs in a slow JavaVM environment, and SAS which does run on Mac OS at all, R exists exists for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. If you're up for it, even the source code is also available for download and compilation or modification. To download the software, here is a link to a Canadian "mirror" site hosted at Dalhousie University: http://mirror.its.dal.ca/cran/ What is "R": R is an integrated suite of software facilities for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display. It includes • an effective data handling and storage facility, • a suite of operators for calculations on arrays, in particular matrices, • a large, coherent, integrated collection of intermediate tools for data analysis, • graphical facilities for data analysis and display either on-screen or on hardcopy, and • a well-developed, simple and effective programming language which includes conditionals, loops, user-defined recursive functions and input and output facilities. Here is the main page for the R-project: http://www.r-project.org/ I also found this journal article of interest, which some in this group may find of interest "Transitioning to R: Replicating SAS, Stata, and SUDAAN Analysis Techniques in Health Policy Data" http://journal.R-project.org/archive/2009-2/RJournal_2009-2_Damico.pdf The "R" FAQ can be found here, http://mirror.its.dal.ca/cran/

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INTEREST: SAS-OnDemand (online)
by billing 26 Apr '10

26 Apr '10

[NOTE System Requirements for this product: Available for use on: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista Home - Basic or Microsoft Windows Vista Home - Premium. MacIntosh operating systems are not supported.] [NOTE: data being analyzed may reside at SAS web site.] ...from: http://www.sas.com/news/preleases/ondemandforacademics-nocostSGF10.html SAS® resources to be available to higher education students worldwide at no cost SAS® OnDemand for Academics develops valuable skills in high demand by employers SAS GLOBAL FORUM, SEATTLE (Apr. 12, 2010) – SAS is removing a potential barrier to students seeking experience using advanced data analysis to solve classroom and real-world problems. SAS OnDemand for Academics, already used at no cost by professors at some 200 colleges and universities, will be available at no cost to all students worldwide in fall 2010. SAS OnDemand for Academics quickly and easily delivers the power of SAS software to higher education. Modern society is awash in data. SAS coursework provides students the skills to analyze massive amounts of data and then use this knowledge to make sound decisions. Whether it is uncovering fraud in banking and government, improving health care or predicting which customers will respond to a marketing campaign, the applications of data analytics cross all industries, placing analytic skills in high demand. "When interviewers see SAS and data mining, it’s a very big plus on the résumé,” said Alan Olinsky, Professor of Applied Math at Bryant University. “There is so much data out there; we just don’t have enough people to analyze it. Statistics is becoming very popular, and SAS is an integral part of that." SAS OnDemand for Academics is an online service for teaching and learning data management and analytics. Users register and access SAS software via the Web and perform processing by connecting to a hosted server at SAS. Through SAS OnDemand for Academics, users have access to multiple SAS applications such as SAS® Enterprise Guide® (which includes access to Base SAS) and SAS® Enterprise Miner™ (which includes SAS Text Miner). Additional SAS software applications will be added over time. "While students can access SAS at no cost, professors remain the gatekeepers. We want to ensure that SAS is integrated into coursework in a thoughtful and effective manner, providing students the most engaging experience," said Ron Statt, Product Development Manager for the SAS Education Practice. "Students should ask their professors to consider using SAS OnDemand for Academics. We're happy to consult on the best ways to make that happen." To make adoption easier and more effective, SAS will continue developing supporting materials to use with SAS OnDemand for Academics, and encourages professors and students to submit ideas. With more than 2,000 college, university and business-school customers in 109 countries and education specialists on every continent, SAS serves the education industry by delivering software solutions, strategic services and academic programs that spark innovation and expand educational opportunities. Today's announcement was made at SAS Global Forum, the world’s largest gathering of SAS users, attended by more than 3,000 business and IT users of SAS software and solutions. ...more info at: http://support.sas.com/learn/ap/ http://www.sas.com/offices/NA/canada/9-services_support/320-academic_progra…

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