- apple-list - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

Quicktime 7.0 - gotcha's
by William Douglas Hamilton 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

Hi, Some of the very technology savvy people on list will have realized that Apple has posted the next major revision to Quicktime (QT), now at version 7.0. There seems to be consensus on the web regarding four accepts of the QT: 1. The video quality to absolutely phenomenal - High Definition video over the web ... who would thought it possible so soon. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/ 2. If you purchased the upgrade to QT Pro 6.0, your release key will not work to enable the pro functionality in QT 7.0. However, the upgrade price has not changed from version 6.0. Please bear this in mind if you are running FinalCut Pro in a production environment, as you might inadvertently disable your workstation until you pay to obtain the QT 7-Pro upgrade. 3. QT 7 includes the new video codec H.264. Okay so you're thinking "what does that mean" ... see point (1) above. This kind of modern mathematical compression technique requires significant CPU power to drive H.264 video at full frame rate (24 frames/sec). Specifically a high speed G4, 1.5GHz or better to see full frame rate. 4. For content creators H.264 also requires significant CPU power to encode video in H.264 (e.g. G5 processor). That said, QT 7.0 looks to be a excellent product for video professionals and regular users of video content. However, you might want to pause for a second a review your use of QT and how the new version will run on your equipment BEFORE downloading the update. Regards, Doug

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Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" -- Apple Event
by Doug Hamilton 26 Apr '05

26 Apr '05

Good Morning, Please find the attached invitation to the Apple Canada OS X 10.4 Tiger Technology seminar. The Winnipeg event is on May 10th from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Sheraton Winnipeg, 161 Donald Street Winnipeg, MB R3C 1M3. Please feel free to invite anyone who you feel would be interested in this session. You can register on-line at: www.apple.ca/go/tiger_education Regards, Doug ------------- 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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Strange (but useful) OS X tricks...
by billing 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

...from: http://www.macworld.com/2005/03/secrets/mayosxhints/index.php http://www.newmediamanuals.com/podcast/OMT-Summarize-Services- OSX_030.mp3 http://www.acqyr.com/home/2004/02/summarize_your_.html - Sherlock's Lost Translation: Sherlock has a built-in translation function (it actually uses the SYSTRAN engine http://www.systransoft.com/index.html). Launch it. Click the Translation "flag" button. Enter the text you want translated. Click translate. Here's an example: By far, there's too much information surrounding us all. It's close to impossible to absorb everything! After all, we live in the "knowledge economy" so reading reports, articles, emails and documents is a part of our every day life. Serlock's translation: French: De loin, il y a trop d'information nous entourant tous. Elle est près d'impossible d'absorber tout ! Après tout, nous vivons dans l'"économie de la connaissance" ainsi les états, les articles, les email et les documents de lecture est une partie de notre chaque vie de jour. Greek: Κατά πολύ, εκεί πάρα πολλές πληροφορίες που περιβάλλουν μας όλοι. Είναι κοντά σε αδύνατο να απορροφήσει όλα! Τελικά, ζούμε στη "οικονομία γνώσησ" έτσι διαβάζοντας τις εκθέσεις, άρθρα, τα ηλεκτρονικά ταχυδρομεία και τα έγγραφα είναι ένα μέρος της κάθε ζωής ημέρας μας. ...and back: By far, there is too much information surrounding us all. It is close to impossible to absorb all! After all, we thus live in the "economy of knowledge" the states, the articles, the email and the documents of reading is a part of our each life of day. By far, there very a lot of information that surround us all. It is near impossible it absorbs all! Finally, we live in the "economy of knowledge" thus reading the reports, articles, the electronic posts and the documents it is a part of our each life of day. ...and, of course, English->Japanese->English->French->Greek->French->English: Very, they are there of many data elements which surround us whole. It is roughly impossible thing which absorbs of all! Very back, we lived in the <economy of knowledge>, consequently the State of the book, the article, the ELECTRONIC MAIL and the document it is a part of our everyday lifes. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - Summarize Proust: "By far, there's too much information surrounding us all. It's close to impossible to absorb everything! After all, we live in the "knowledge economy" so reading reports, articles, emails and documents is a part of our every day life." So begins one description of Apple's OS X "Summarize Services". To summarize, "Summarize Services" is a service which will summarize a large body of text attempt to distil out the essence - you get to choose how much distillation takes place. Here's an example where the text has been taken from: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/proust.htm. This entry has 13 paragraphs and nearly 2000 words (according to Microsoft WORD). OS X's "Summary Services" at summarize to setting 1 and "Paragraphs": --------------------------- Remembrance of Things Past does not have a clear and continuous plot line. The narrator is Marcel. He is not Proust but resembles him in many ways. Marcel is initially ignorant - only slowly does he begin to grasp the essence of the hidden reality. At the end he is preparing to write a novel which is like the one just presented to the reader. Marcel's childhood memories start to flow when he tastes a madeleine cake dipped in linden tea such as he was given as a child. "And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine." -------------------------------- Microsoft WORD summarizing at 1% setting: --------------------------------------- From 1882 to 1889 Proust attended the Lycée Condorcet. Proust suffered from asthma throughout his life.Proust and Bergson knew each other socially. --------------------------------------- Microsoft WORD summarizing at 5% setting: -------------------------------------- From 1882 to 1889 Proust attended the Lycée Condorcet.(Proust inReading in Bed, selected and edited by Steven Gilbar, 1995). From 1895 to 1899 Proust worked on an autobiographical novel that remained unfinished. Proust suffered from asthma throughout his life. Proust is generally considered a pioneer of the modern novel. Proust's work widely influenced authors in different countries, among them Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. One biographer mentions that Proust liked tight underwear. A prolific writer, Proust also was an avid letter writer. --------------------------------------- You can access OS X's "Summarize Services" by selecting a piece of text (email, text document, web page) and choosing "Summarize" from the Application>Services menu. Changing the settings will dynamically change your summary. WORD provides an AutoSummarize... tool in the Tools menu. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Use iTunes to Organize PDFs Looking for a different way to organize a massive collection of PDFs? Use iTunes. That’s right, iTunes. When Apple released The Complete U2 digital box set last year, it distributed the collection’s liner notes as PDF files. To make sure people found them, Apple modified iTunes to handle PDF files in its library. The side effect was that iTunes (thanks to its Smart Playlist feature) also became a good way to organize large PDF collections. To test this out, just drag and drop a PDF (or several) onto iTunes. It will show up in your library, with its Finder name listed as its song name. To organize your PDFs, use smart playlists. Create a new smart playlist (File: New Smart Playlist) and set the conditions to Kind Contains PDF. Select the Live Updating option and click on OK. Now you have a playlist that contains all your PDFs. If you name your files following a certain pattern, you can add rules to the smart playlist to further sort your PDFs. Make a Recipes smart playlist that gathers all files whose names (“song” names) start with Recipe. Or create a medical-journals smart playlist that gets all the files with the prefix "Med_". Double-clicking on the iTunes entry for this document will open it using OS X's Preview. Wayne

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GRASS GIS gone to version 6.0
by William Douglas Hamilton 11 Mar '05

11 Mar '05

Hello, Thought you'd want to know as of yesterday GRASS GIS is now at version 6.0 after two years in development. Mac OS X, MS-Windows, and Linux distributions are available. Oh, for those of you who don't know this product its a FREE (open-source) commercial grade GIS (Geographic Information System). Details can be found here: http://grass.itc.it/announces/announce_grass600.html Cheers, Doug

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INTEREST: Doctors turn to iPods and open source to cut costs
by billing 06 Mar '05

06 Mar '05

...from: http://hardware.silicon.com/storage/0,39024649,39127655,00.htm Doctors turn to iPods and open source to cut costs February 07 2005 by Jo Best Apple is doctors' orders for storage While Apple is riding high on the sales of the iPod, the iconic music player is morphing into a business tool: radiologists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), are teaming the devices with an open source platform to help the medical community cut costs. UCLA's Dr Osman Ratib, whose background is in medical imaging, wanted to find a way to sidestep the $100,000 workstations needed to view high resolution images that required 3D rendering. With help from programmer and fellow radiologist Dr Antoine Rosset, he created OsiriX, an open source application, to enable radiologists to teleconference with the images on Mac desktop systems. "The platform has similar functionality [to the high-end workstations], it's accessible to the rest of the medical community and you don't have to spend $100,000, $200,000 to view the images," Ratib said. He added that he was a "strong advocate" of the open source development model. The doctors were able to build the software using ready-made components and add the environment and interface themselves. "It took nine months to create... the platform. It very quickly took off," he said. "Before we'd showed it in any meeting, we had hundreds and very soon thousands of users." When it came time to find a way to store the high-res images, Ratib turned to another Apple staple - the iPod. Ratib told silicon.com: "It was difficult finding enough space on the hard disc to keep image sets... They don't fit on discs, they don't fit on memory sticks." "It's amazing - [with iPods] people are carrying around 60GB in their pocket when I don't even have 60GB on my computer," he said. "That's the beauty of adopting consumer technology." As well as using the iPod for storing the image sets, Ratib adapted the software to cope with the iPod photo after its release in December, giving medical staff a "cute, sexy" way to show images to other personnel. Despite warnings from analysts that all removeable storage - including the iPod - is a security risk - Dr Ratib said that using an iPod doesn't present an additional inherent security risk. "It's not the device, it's how you use it... I don't think an iPod has any different risk to any informatics device. We strongly recommended to anonymise the data," Ratib said. "When [users] are outside the institution, they can be compliant or not, depending on their behaviour. It's not different to copying it to CD or memory discs." While Ratib described the medical profession as "a little more traditional in adopting technology," the software is also enabling medical workers to start working remotely; the software is compatible with Apple's videoconferencing software, so physicians can see and share medical images. "We rigged the software to mimic the camera... it basically shows what's on your screen" to other iChat users, Ratib said. "We were that close to having Steve Jobs presenting it as a feature in the San Francisco keynote," Ratib said.

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iLife ‘05 and Beyond & Audio Production Seminars
by Doug Hamilton 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

Sign up for one or both of these FREE seminars from Apple. iLife ‘05 and Beyond Apple has begun 2005 with an explosion of new revolutionary technology solutions. Attend this half-day seminar and discover all the amazing new software and hardware announcements made recently at the MacWorld Expo 2005. In this in-depth seminar learn about iLife '05, iWork, iPod Shuffle, and the all new Mac Mini. Attend this fun and informative seminar to discover how to supercharge your digital lifestyle. What You Will Learn ---------------------- • Why the Mac is the best computer for organizing and sharing digital photos • How easy it is to make movies with music, video and your digital photos • How to create your own music with amazing built-in realistic software instruments and record your next opus • How to enjoy a life ‘more random’ with the new iPod Shuffle • How to achieve new levels of style and flair in your next word processing document or presentation • That you can switch to the Mac or add to your Macintosh family for less than ever before Featured Products ------------------- • iLife '05: iPhoto 5, iMovie HD, iTunes 4.7, iDVD 5, and GarageBand 2 • Mac OS X "Panther" • iWork • iPod Shuffle • Mac Mini • Power Macintosh G5 • Apple Cinema Displays Who Should Attend -------------------- • Anyone who wants to capture and share exciting moments and create lasting memories • Beginners as well as individuals who already have some basic familiarity with digital media • Aspiring or recreational music hobbyist • PC users looking to an alternative to Windows Dates and Locations* ----------------------- Calgary, AB March 3 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Edmonton, AB March 1 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Markham, ON March 1 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Markham, ON March 22 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Saskatoon, SK March 10 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Winnipeg, MB March 8 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Seating is limited, so register today! Register online at: http://www.seminars.apple.com/goToSeries.html?id=5244 Audio Production Ecosystem Apple has become the premiere platform for Digital Music Creation. Learn how Mac OS X Panther provides an incredible platform for the audio professional with technologies such as Core Audio, Audio Units, and Native Midi. Enjoy a rare behind-the-scene look at various audio technologies unique to Apple and how to take your music making experience to whole new level. Learn about the Audio Production Ecosystem - the environment which combines Mac OS X, Power Macintosh G5, Logic Pro 7, and a host of incredible third-party audio technologies into the most powerful native music making system. Gain an understanding on how audio design on the Mac connects to video, film and DVD as an incredible tool in any production workflow. What You Will Learn ---------------------- • Why the Mac is the ultimate platform for digital music creation • About Core Audio, Audio Units, and other technologies built into Mac OS X for the audio professional • The power of 64 bit processing via the Power Macintosh G5 for digital music creation • How Mac OS X connects to the most popular third party hardware and software solutions to expand your music pallet • How to pump up your next jam with the popular Jam Packs 1,2,3,4 • How to use your Mac in the broadcast workflow or to score your next motion picture • Why it is a perfect time to switch to the Macintosh for music creation Featured Products ------------------- • Mac OS X "Panther" • Logic Pro 7 • DVD Studio Pro • Final Cut Pro • Motion • Logic Express • GarageBand 2 • Mac Mini • Power Macintosh G5 • Apple Cinema Displays • Popular third party products featured: FXpansion, Arturia, Native Instruments, Spectrasonics, Edirol, RME, M-Audio, Brian Moore Guitars Who Should Attend -------------------- • Aspiring or professionals in audio/music creation • PC music making users looking to an alternative to Windows • Broadcast, or Film Composers Dates and Locations* ----------------------- Calgary AB March 3 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Edmonton AB March 1 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Saskatoon SK March 10 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Winnipeg MB March 8 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Seating is limited, so register today! Register online at: http://www.seminars.apple.com/goToSeries.html?id=5243 ------------- *Date, time, location, speakers, and content may change without notice. Copyright © 2005 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.

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FYI: Apple online seminars: Application Performance and High Performance Computing Solutions
by billing 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

In March, Apple is giving two online seminars (you may need to install a small application to participate if you have not been part of one of these seminars in the past). More details and registration information can be found at the URL given. Internet Mar 10, 2005 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM LIVE WEBCAST: Maximizing Mac OS X Application Performance For General Audiences In this webcast, you'll learn the basics of optimization, including how and why every developer should turn a critical eye to the code they've just written. For more details: http://seminars.apple.com/goToEvent.html?id=32726&s=300 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet Mar 29, 2005 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM LIVE WEBCAST: Third-party HPC Solutions for Mac OS X For General Audiences Apple will be joined by representatives from companies who develop their software or hardware for the platform to talk about their products. For more details: http://seminars.apple.com/goToEvent.html?id=32748&s=300 Wayne

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Apple Webcast TODAY - Digital Academic Television Network
by Doug Hamilton 19 Jan '05

19 Jan '05

Hi Everyone: Sorry for the short notice. The Mac OS X Labs group (now Mac Enterprise) sponsored by Apple Computer Inc. is having a webcast today: **http://macenterprise.org/content/blogcategory/97/125/** **** **This webcast will discuss the implementation of the **University of Wisconsin-Madison DATN (Digital Academic Television Network), pronounced "Dayton". Regards, Doug

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INTEREST: dipping into Tiger... Now.
by billing 17 Jan '05

17 Jan '05

Apple's "Developer Connection" site has a few articles which give some good insight into some of the upcoming new technology to be included with Tiger. Mac OS X v.10.4 Tiger Overview: New features, APIs, and frameworks. Working with Spotlight: Powerful search technologies available to developers. Developing Dashboard Widgets: Powerful mini-applications that are quick and easy to develop. Developing 64-bit Applications: Mac OS X Tiger breaks the limitations of 32-bit computing. Working with Automator: Extend the value of your application with Automator Actions and Workflows. For example, here's a bit of the "Dashboard" documentation that talk about how to construct Dashboard's Widget's: ============================ http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html What's Inside a Widget? At its simplest, a Widget is simply a web page that is displayed in the Dashboard rather than in a browser, such as Safari. A Widget is contained on disk in a bundle—a directory that groups all the needed resources for the Widget together in one place. Widget bundles are named with the .wdgt extension. Like any other bundle, a Widget's bundle is managed by the Finder as a single entity. A basic Widget contains the following files: ▪ A main HTML file defining the user-interface for the Widget. ▪ A default background image in PNG format that can be displayed by Dashboard while it loads the Widget. The PNG format is used because of its excellent support for alpha channel transparency. ▪ A property list file named Info.plist that contains a Widget's identifier, name, version information, size, and the main HTML page as well as other optional information used by Dashboard. • Develop widgets using industry-standard web technologies—HTML, JavaScript, and CSS • Create a widget using only a text editor and browser, such as TextEdit and Safari ================= ...another example comes from the "Automator" documentation: ======================== http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/automator.html Using Automator Automator comes preloaded with a large library of Actions. These Actions expose functionality built into the operating system, such as finding files with Spotlight, or the various applications that ship with the system, such as iPhoto, Mail, and iCal. There are also Actions that let you write shell scripts and AppleScripts. You can use these Actions to rename a group of files, create a new event in an iCal calendar, or to resize an image. This library of Actions is accessed and organized on the left hand side of the Automator window. To assemble a Workflow from a set of Actions, simply drag-and-drop the Actions from the library into the sequence in which you want them to run. Each Action in the Workflow corresponds to an individual step that you would need to perform manually. Each Action comes with a small GUI panel that lets you tweak its options and settings. Automator shows these panels connected, along with the types of data that are flowing from one Action to another.

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FYI: Infoworld says Apple "Best Server HW" and "Best OS" in 2004
by billing 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

Happy New Year, all. Wayne ...from: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/12/30/01FEtoyplats_1.html?s=feature Innovation trumps commoditization Worthwhile platform and architecture choices abound By Tom Yager December 30, 2004 In 2004, we started seeing the products of engineering that went on underground during the recession. Whereas the market as a whole is doing the wait-and-see, early adopters are partying their butts off over true competition in operating systems and CPU architectures, the long-delayed delivery of the Java promise, and the essential paradigm shift from fast processors to fast throughput. Much of the technology that vendors were forced to put in the deep freeze has thawed. In 2005, the rest of IT will see why those forward-looking geeks (present company included) are so giddy. First, Sun rescued Java by becoming honestly and deeply engaged with the grassroots Java developer community. The impact of the fulfillment of the Java promise extends well beyond open source and academia. Oracle (Profile, Products, Articles) stands out as an example: The vendor now offers its entire commercial Java product line for free download. Oracle permits license-free use of its software for development and testing. You pay only when you deploy, and then only when you deploy to an Oracle-branded server. Expect to see more of the “develop now, pay later” approach to platform promotion in 2005. PLATFORMS: BEST SERVER HARDWARE Apple Xserve G5: Tightly integrated hardware/OS combo raises the bar for other server makers BEST BLADE SYSTEM HP Consolidated Client Infrastructure: Combines popular management tools with unrivaled reliability and scalability BEST OPERATING SYSTEM Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther): Continues to set the standard for simplicity and ease-of-use among 64-bit-capable OSes BEST VIRTUAL SERVER VMware ESX Server 2.1.1: Enables an extraordinary array of high-availability services and management capabilities [...]

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INTEREST: Oracle "OKs" Apple storage XRAID;
by billing 15 Dec '04

15 Dec '04

...from: http://news.com.com/Oracle+uses+Apple+storage+gear/2100-1015_3 -5480045.html Oracle uses Apple storage gear Published: December 6, 2004, 3:21 PM PST By Ina Fried Staff Writer, CNET News.com Apple Computer's rack-mounted storage system received a vote of confidence Monday, with database giant Oracle endorsing the Xserve RAID as part of an initiative to cut storage costs. Oracle has identified the Apple product as one of several storage systems that would make a good low-cost alternative to the types of high-end monolithic storage systems that have traditionally been used to store Oracle databases. Additionally, Oracle is using the Xserve RAID in its own technology department to store e-mail, voice mail and calendar information. Oracle is using the Xserve RAID for a task once reserved for pricier Fibre Channel-based disk arrays. The software giant noted in a white paper that the Apple approach was about three times lower on a cost-per-megabyte basis. "Its performance is excellent," Oracle said in the document. Apple said Oracle plans to use 50 to 100 terabytes of Apple storage. Apple itself has been shifting much of its data storage capacity from EMC and IBM systems onto Xserve RAID. In addition to Apple's storage box, Oracle also identified systems from HP, NetApp, EMC/Dell and Engenio as suitable candidates for its Resilient Low Cost Storage Initiative. Meanwhile, Apple also said Oracle is moving ahead with previously announced plans to offer its 10g software for the Mac sometime before the end of the year. Apple hopes the ability of Oracle's software to run on Mac servers will not only lead some businesses to move to the Mac but also help the Mac appeal to many of those developing their own applications that run on top of Oracle's software. "That opens the door to a lot of people that maybe have not looked at the Mac platform," said Brian Croll, a senior director of worldwide software product marketing for Apple. In addition to support from Oracle, Apple also plans to have its own $999 storage file system software, dubbed Xsan, available shortly. The software is still on track to be launched this fall, Apple said, giving the company about two weeks to apply the finishing touches and start shipping.

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INTEREST: Google Adding Major Libraries to Database
by billing 14 Dec '04

14 Dec '04

...from: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html? oref=login&th Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database By JOHN MARKOFF and EDWARD WYATT Published: December 14, 2004 [...] It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Oxford, Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections. [...]

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FYI: LIVE WEBCAST: Getting Started with High Performance Computing
by billing 09 Dec '04

09 Dec '04

Internet Dec 16, 2004 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM LIVE WEBCAST: Getting Started with High Performance Computing For General Audiences Webcast to discuss high-level concepts of HPC, issues and obstacles in setting up and using clusters, and to show some shortcuts you can take in the process. For more details and to register, please visit: http://seminars.apple.com/goToEvent.html?id=31886&s=300 ------------------- Presenters: • Elizabeth Kerr, Ph.D., Director of Worldwide Science and Technology Markets, Apple • Pear Urushima, Manager of Scientific Markets, Apple • Douglas Brooks, Product Manager for Xserve, Apple • Matt MacInnis, Manager of Research Computing, Apple Topics: • Types of applications used on HPC systems • High level concepts of deploying your own HPC systems and software • Types of clusters, and how to choose a model that works for you • The Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics • Customer case studies and examples • Live question and answer with webcast attendees Products to be discussed: • Xserve G5 and the Xserve G5 Cluster Node • Xserve RAID • The Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics • MATLAB and gridMathematica Who should view this webcast: • Scientists and engineers who need more computational power • IT managers who support HPC deployments and scientific computing environments • Lab or department research managers • Directors of research groups who want to expand their computational capabilities Logistics: 1-Register at the HPC Webcast Series Page 2-Install CAST:STREAM player 2.0 (or higher). Prior software installation and setup required.

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INTEREST: Neurolens (on G5): modernizing brain imaging software
by billing 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

http://www.neurolens.org ...from: http://developer.apple.com/business/macmarket/neurolens.html NeuroLens is a faster, more powerful, user-friendlier brain imaging application that owes its existence both to the insight of Rick Hoge, its developer, and to the unique features of the Macintosh platform. A Mac is a powerful and versatile tool in the life sciences—from the UNIX core of Mac OS X and the power of the G5 processor, to the Xcode Tools and the Mac’s native graphics capabilities. It’s a platform that lets researchers focus on their work instead of learning programming and waiting for results. Many of the previous brain imaging applications used by Rick and his collaborators were written for an earlier generation of computer workstations with performance and memory limitations that are now archaic. Rick and his team saw the opportunity with Mac OS X to develop an imaging application with modern computer performance parameters in mind. “The Apple platform is the largest installed base of any UNIX variant,” Rick explains. “In addition, it is extremely prevalent in the life sciences, and increasing in popularity and in adoptions in neuroimaging labs. It was perfect for what we needed to accomplish.” The result is NeuroLens, an integrated visualization and analysis package for quantitative physiological neuroimaging, now in public Beta. It is a research imaging tool that is easy to use, intuitive, and has the capabilities to analyze and combine data from many different sources in forms that are extremely useful for researchers. NeuroLens was developed by Hoge at the A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Charlestown, Mass. Rick is a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, whose interests focus on cerebrovascular physiology and the physics of how this affects the signal screen seen in MRI scans. The application is targeted specifically at the research community, who works with large data sets—neurologists, biologists, and neuropsychologists, all doing basic research on brain function. The work is funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy as part of a project to understand the genetic bases of addiction and depression. Discovering a Familiar UNIX Environment on Mac OS X “We were using UNIX software systems, and when Mac OS X arrived with its UNIX core, we realized that this was an ideal development opportunity,” Hoge explains. “Apple has a strong commitment to consumer-oriented systems that are easy to use, and we needed a program that eliminated the need for users to learn advanced UNIX concepts. In addition, many life sciences folks have Macs already, and UNIX was familiar to the developers.” First, Rick ported their current UNIX code to Mac OS X, which worked easily. The entire imaging team was very happy to have their UNIX applications on the same machine as their word processing and email programs. He adds, “But we saw immediately how outdated our application interfaces were after running these X11 applications side-by-side with Cocoa applications on Mac OS X. While the Mac became our new UNIX workstation, our legacy Unix applications were missing out on the huge performance boost offered by the AltiVec processor, and the advanced user interface refinements available through Cocoa.” The next logical step then was to design an application that could take advantage of this new platform. Advantages of Mac OS X Development It was an easy choice for Rick to chose Mac OS X as the development platform for NeuroLens, a well-engineered, high performance application, using the variety of Mac OS X development tools and performance capabilities, not just its UNIX APIs. Some of the many advantages of developing NeuroLens on the Mac included: ▪ A very refined user interface—NeuroLens was created using the Xcode Tools, especially Interface Builder, with very little work on the part of the developers. ▪ The highly optimized image and signal processing routines that Apple has developed for its successful consumer multimedia products are perfect for the requirements they have in medical imaging performance. ▪ Familiar, trusted UNIX APIs available under the hood, so that previous functionality was not wasted. ▪ Powerful tools like Xcode and Cocoa that made it possible to develop full-powered applications quickly, with a wide range of functionality, without writing a lot of code. Cocoa Makes Development Easy “We were extremely impressed with the Mac OS X development tools,” Rick says. “We ran through Cocoa tutorials initially and found them remarkable—in relatively short order I went from having nothing to having a complicated application, with very little effort on my part. I realized then that I could write a complicated imaging application with little work and taking advantage of the extremely fast performance of the OS, as well as its graphics and multimedia capabilities.” “The appeal of Cocoa for science users is that Objective-C is a simple superset of standard C, and it is easy to drop in or integrate existing C code or algorithms (unlike using Java, which would otherwise be another excellent choice for an imaging application), while also producing a great user interface,” Rick adds. “Interface Builder made it easy to build polished user interfaces, and features like Cocoa bindings made it easy to link the interfaces to program logic.” The integration of old code into the existing Mac OS X development framework is supported by Cocoa, rather than keeping it separated, which results in code that is easier to maintain, and that has a better user interface. “ It’s really all about ease of use,” he summarizes. “We made sure that we used the Apple Human Interface Guidelines when designing the NeuroLens interface, and that was extremely helpful.” The NeuroLens application is designed such that all processing operations (actions that take one or more datasets read from disk as input to generate a new dataset as output) are implemented as plugins. Plugin bundles for some standard processing operations are included within the application bundle for NeuroLens, and researchers can write their own plugins to extend the functionality of NeuroLens. To make this easy, Hoge wrote a template which, when installed, allows a developer to create a new Xcode project containing a skeletal but fully functional plugin complete with a basic user interface. Development using Xcode also gives users the ability to get data easily from the program into other documents. Brain images from NeuroLens can be dragged and dropped into Microsoft Word documents, emails, or presentations. Graphs of brain signals can be easily copied and pasted. “Cocoa makes it very easy to go from image display in the visualization environment to export of high quality graphics for presentation,” Rick says. “Because of the deep integration of PDF into the operating system and Cocoa frameworks, it’s very easy to drag a graph from the visualizer into a Keynote presentation as a high-quality vector PDF representation with nice anti-aliased fonts. This was very difficult in older UNIX/X11 apps in which typically we were limited to making a bitmap screen grab of a plot. And all this can be achieved with relatively little developer effort using the standard drag-and-drop/cut-and-paste interface familiar to Mac users.” By redesigning data structures from scratch based on the memory capacity of modern computers, it was possible to alleviate much of the disk I/O inherent in older applications and also keep more data in contiguous memory—greatly improving cache performance and memory efficiency. This would accelerate performance on any platform, but the additional performance gains afforded by adapting code for linear algebra and DSP functions to use the AltiVec processor—the 128-bit vector processing unit available on G4 and G5 chips that permits math operations to be done in parallel—resulted in an unprecedented level of performance. NeuroLens Solves Command Line Woes Much of the imaging software in common use now was first developed in the mid-1990s, by physicists using difficult-to-use UNIX command-line code. The engineering behind that software is now dated, focusing on things like a small memory footprint—performance bottlenecks were completely different than they are with current systems. Today, brain imaging software is being developed primarily by people in the life sciences and psychology, rather than physicists, and the training costs for them to come up to speed on this older software (as they frequently do not have UNIX or programming backgrounds) is quite high. NeuroLens takes care of these issues. “It can be challenging for a developer or researcher to deal with all the housekeeping associated with file formats and accurate visualization,” Rick says. There is often need to write custom code for data analysis, and the custom Xcode template allows them to do that without having to worry about detailed programming or how the data is arranged on disk or how to display it. With the Xcode template, a grad student who wants to perform a custom processing operation on a dataset can just create a new project in Xcode and immediately gain access to simple data structures. This allows anyone with a reasonable background in programming C to implement their algorithm. Hoge explains, “Such customization provides the developer/researcher with ‘free’ access to multiple complex file formats like DICOM, MINC, as well as Analyze and AFNI, and provides an automatic display of results and the ability to save them to disk. “We plan to release NeuroLens under an open source license and distribute an Xcode template with it so that users can create custom plug-in models with very little work, specific to their own research needs,” says Hoge. Better Interoperability with Multiple File Formats Most older programs were also written for specific labs that used only a few file formats and so tend to be very restrictive about what formats they will support. Rick designed NeuroLens much like [Adobe] Photoshop—it can read many data storage formats and get it into the program. Cocoa provides the architecture to support this—achieving that kind of broad functionality makes NeuroLens very useful in conjunction with other packages, allowing researchers to use NeuroLens’ remarkable imaging capabilities with data sets generated by other applications without having to convert file formats on the command line. “We focused on interoperability,” Rick explains. “In some instances, NeuroLens will be used for its front end to read three dimensional surface images of the brain with another program. In this way, it doesn’t replace other tools, but can be used in conjunction with them. The user interface we developed through Xcode makes the NeuroLens viewing environment much easier to use than our previous generation of software.” Faster Imaging with NeuroLens Brain imaging from MRI studies result in a series of three-dimensional images. Image analysis generally consists of image processing steps for data quality improvement, followed by statistical analysis to identify regions of brain activation during a task or stimulus that was applied when the subject was scanned. “For example,” Rick says, “a series of 3D images must be aligned to reduce the effect of subject motion and are often spatially smoothed in 3D to improve signal-to-noise ratio. Using the improved data structures, AltiVec-based processing routines, and the interactive workflow of Mac OS X, tasks that might have taken half an hour in the past can now be done in seconds. “Because of increases in speed, we can use interfaces that get away from the batch job approach that was required in the past when many operations took overnight. “This makes the processing more transparent to users—it’s like a Photoshop session where you might do a series of steps on a photo and save the results. At the same time, we use Cocoa’s strong XML support to embed detailed history about acquisition and processing in the output data files.” The end result is that NeuroLens bridges a large workflow obstacle by allowing a process that was often interrupted for minutes or sometimes hours to be done continuously. This creates a more logical process for researchers, and the performance means that users achieve a new level of interactivity with the work, resulting in more detailed quality assurance than was previously possible with such interrupted workflows. With the new level of interactivity, there is greater ability to spot problems with data that may occur at the time of acquisition (such as scanner spiking or excessive subject movement), and this immediacy allows users to understand the impact of various processing settings much more intuitively than in the past. “This has been a great teaching tool for us,” Rick explains, “as it allows students to get a grasp of the purpose of processing steps and how various parameters affect the end result. It is also very useful not to have to spend several hours or more getting students up to speed on how to use the UNIX command line. Mac OS X allowed us to create an extremely user-friendly and intuitive interface.” In addition, MRIs can produce both detailed structural and functional information, by showing images of the brain as well as its activity over time. NeuroLens allows researchers to overlay function on top of structure in one image, as well as putting the data into graphs, showing brain response over time. NeuroLens allows researchers to manipulate the basic data set in various ways, using Mac OS X functionality: extracting brain scan images for papers, producing graphs from data analysis of response signals. For more information on NeuroLens, see the NeuroLens Website at http://www.neurolens.org.

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INTEREST: more on Duke U iPod curriculum
by billing 01 Nov '04

01 Nov '04

...from: http://cit.duke.edu/about/ipod_project.do http://cit.duke.edu/about/ipod_faculty_projects.do http://www.duke.edu/ipod/help/faq.html In Fall 2004, in collaboration with Apple Computer, Inc., Duke is distributing 20GB Apple iPod device to each of its first year students. Duke hopes to stimulate creative uses of digital content by providing the iPod devices as a mobile computing device. We hope that students and faculty will use the device creatively and effectively to enhance their intellectual life at Duke. This is a collaborative project that includes Duke's Office of Information Technology, Division of Student Affairs, Office of the Provost, and the Office of the Executive Vice President. [...] Evaluation of Academic iPod Projects One goal of the Duke First-Year Experience is to assess the potential of the iPod and digital audio content in the teaching and learning context. CIT is developing a framework for assessing how this technology-intensive computing initiative has affected Duke faculty and students. CIT will work with faculty to gather data to identify: • successes and barriers in the integration of the iPod and digital audio content in courses • improvements and innovations in course design and delivery • measurable changes in student learning and student outcomes CIT supported projects will be assessed using a variety of evaluation strategies. Each project will have an individual evaluation plan to support assessment appropriate to the specific goals of the course and project. [...] ======================= Courses using iPods as part of course work are: Music, Sound, and Style University Writing Program Theory and Practice of Tonal Music I Economic Principles Social Minds: Memory as Collective Practice Berlin in the 20th Century Fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing Perspectives on Information Science and Information Studies Living Downstream: Ethics, Communities and Water Conservation Intensive Elementary Spanish Computational Methods in Engineering

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FYI: LOGIC 7 LAUNCH: see newest version of Apple's music and audio production SW
by billing 27 Oct '04

27 Oct '04

LOGIC 7 LAUNCH TOUR Advanced music creation. Powerful audio production. At this informative event, you'll learn how the new features and unprecedented capability in Logic Pro 7 make it the complete professional solution for music creation and audio production. Come to the Logic 7 Launch Tour and see what's new, including: -Distributed audio processing. Utilize networked computers for additional processing power. -Apple Loops support. Work with state-of-the-art loop composition tools. -New instruments and effects. Create with Sculpture, a leading-edge component modeling synthesizer; UltraBeat, an innovative drum machine; and Guitar Amp Pro, an advanced amp simulator. The flagship of Apple's audio fleet. In addition to Logic Pro 7, you can also learn about new Logic Express 7, Soundtrack and GarageBand. Come to the Logic Pro 7 tour and learn how Apple solutions can meet the needs of everyone from the hobbyist to the pro. Space is limited. Register today. Dates and Locations* --------------------- Victoria, BC November 15 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Vancouver, BC November 16 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Toronto, ON November 23 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Winnipeg, MB November 24 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Ottawa, ON November 25 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Edmonton, AB November 29 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Calgary, AB December 1 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Ville St. Laurent, QC December 1 1:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. (French) Ville St. Laurent, QC December 2 1:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. (English) Register online at: http://seminars.apple.com/logictour/ *Dates, time, locations, speakers, and content may change without notice. Copyright © 2004 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Apple site announces Canadian iTunes store...
by wbilling 26 Oct '04

26 Oct '04

...from: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/26itmseu.html Apple Launches EU iTunes Music Store Same Innovative Features & Breakthrough Price of €0.99 Per Song SAN JOSE, California—October 26, 2004—Apple® today launched a European Union version of its revolutionary iTunes® Music Store, giving music fans in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain the same innovative features and breakthrough price of €0.99 per song that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world. With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod® and groundbreaking personal use rights, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for PC and Mac® users to legally discover, purchase and download music online. Apple today also announced it will launch the iTunes Music Store in Canada in November. [...]

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INTEREST: Unpatched exploit nets 1.4 million Social Sec. Numbers
by billing 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

Hack at UC Berkeley Potentially Nets 1.4 Million SSNs By Lisa Vaas October 20, 2004 Hackers took advantage of a known vulnerability on an unpatched computer to potentially gain access to some 1.4 million names, Social Security numbers, telephone numbers, addresses and dates of birth at University of California at Berkeley, officials said Tuesday. The personal data was that of recipients and providers for the state's In Home Supportive Services program, which provides in-home care for elderly people. The data was being used by a researcher, who was studying the impact of wages and benefits paid for by providers and how it impacts the relationship between providers and recipients of in-home care, according to Carlos Ramos, assistant secretary at the California Health and Human Services Agency. [...] ...complete article at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1680799,00.asp

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INTEREST: Apple announces "Tiger" Early Start Kit for Developers; includes pre-release Tiger 10.4
by billing 20 Oct '04

20 Oct '04

Leap ahead with Tiger. Tiger, the next major release of Mac OS X, contains more than 150 breakthrough features, including time-saving APIs and powerful tools to help you pack Tiger innovations into your applications quickly and easily. Get your hands on Tiger now. Start building competitive solutions for Mac OS X with the Tiger Early Start Kit for Developers. Bundled with a year-long ADC Select membership, the Kit provides everything you need to develop for Tiger, including: Pre-release versions of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" and Xcode 2.0. One-on-one engineering consultation to get your application Tiger-ready. A special developer discount on the latest Apple hardware. Order the ADC Select membership and get Tiger Early Start Kit and Tiger training DVD. The Tiger Early Start Kit for Developers includes a free DVD-ROM filled with Tiger session videos from the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2004. This disc contains hours of detailed engineering instruction, along with presentation slides and sample code, on essential Tiger development topics. Order your Tiger Early Start Kit to begin development today at: http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/tigerkit.html

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Apple Logic 7 Presentation in Winnipeg
by Doug Hamilton 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

Hi Everyone: Apple will be show off what the new version of Logic (http://www.apple.com/logic) is capable of in November. You can see details about this free presentation here: http://www.seminars.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ASPRegistration.woa/8/wa/e… While this seminar is free, registration is still required because seating is limited. Regards, Doug ------------- 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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INTEREST: Financial Post reports "Market braces for Apple's iTunes Canadian Launch"
by wbilling 13 Oct '04

13 Oct '04

...original message from: > Jennifer Hardy > Manager of Administration & Communications > Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) ...article can be found at (FP subscription needed to read complete article at the URL): http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html? id=db69b6ed-dcec-4029-b3b8-425bbdc194ae Music giant readies Canadian launch Market braces for Apple's download division, iTunes Robert Thompson Financial Post October 13, 2004 ITunes, Apple Computer Inc.'s hugely popular online music service, is gearing up for a Canadian launch that could come as early as next month, music industry sources say. The launch of a Canadian iTunes store would dramatically alter the digital music landscape in Canada. To date, only Puretracks.com, Archambault.ca and Napster.ca have operated in Canada. ITunes, the world's most successful legal downloading service, with 125 million paid downloads in the U.S. since launching in April, 2003, skipped this country earlier this year over copyright issues. In June this year, Apple launched iTunes in Europe, selling 800,000 downloads in its first week. Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media in the U.S., said Apple's iTunes, in conjunction with its iPod MP3 player, now defines legal downloading for many consumers. "ITunes and the iPod have lived up to the hype," said Mr. Leigh, noting Apple controls more than 70% of the digital downloading market in the U.S. An Apple representative has met with Canada's four major recording labels in order to secure songs for the service, sources say. The sources added the launch could be delayed until February if Apple can't get its promotional material prepared in time for next month. Apple's Canadian officials said yesterday they do not comment on rumour. Apple skipped Canada earlier because it could not reach an agreement on royalties with the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd., an organization seeking a tariff on digital music sales. But it is now believed Apple will go ahead with its Canadian plans despite the uncertainty over the copyright issue. Mr. Leigh said Apple will likely unleash a marketing blitz to promote an iTunes launch in Canada. "It makes sense for them to be really aggressive in promoting iTunes because it also promotes iPod sales," he said. Alistair Mitchell, co-chief executive of Puretracks.com, the first legal downloading service in Canada (it launched last year) said he has heard rumours of an iTunes launch and has noted an increase in advertising in Canada for the iPod. However, he believes increased interest in digital downloading should be beneficial for Puretracks, which already has partnership arrangements with Bell Canada and Telus Corp. "I think they'll have a great impact on the space because of the money and marketing they bring to the area," Mr. Mitchell said. Mr. Mitchell would not disclose how many downloads Puretracks has had to date. Puretracks.com is owned by Moontaxi Media Inc., Records on Wheels, Key Publishers, Universal Music Canada and EMI Music Canada. Mr. Mitchell said downloads on Puretracks.com are of a higher quality than what iTunes is offering in the United States, a factor he expects consumers will notice. Mr. Mitchell would not say how Puretracks.com plans to respond to the launch of iTunes. "I'll leave that as an element of surprise," he said. "But it'll all be about promoting our quality."

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INTEREST: Security "deperimeterization", Security's disorderly mess
by billing 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

Turning IT security on its head Robert Vamosi Senior Editor, Reviews Friday, October 1 For years, corporate IT departments have been told to protect the perimeter of corporate networks with layered defenses, including firewalls. But new technologies such as instant messaging and virtual private networks have poked holes in the perimeter. So, perhaps this thinking is outmoded; maybe we no longer need perimeter security. Speaking at this year's Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas, Paul Simmonds, Global Information Security Director (CISO) for Jericho Forum/ICI, declared that deperimeterization is the decade's next security challenge, if not the next security buzzword. I happen to think he's onto something, though the changes might not work as he proposes. Are we protecting the data? For example, Simmonds talked about the money-hauling industry (think Brinks armored trucks). What are they trying to secure? Money. How do they do it? They purchase armored trucks, true, but they also design security into the containers used for conveying the money: the containers explode if the money is stolen. In businesses today, we want to secure the data, yet we're locking down entire companies instead. Given that the nature of business has changed in the last few years, this model is outdated. The workforce now includes more temporary employees. We have more services designed to work around the traditional hardened perimeter, such as VoIP, IM, and VPN. And let's not forget that the hard-shell, soft-nugget strategy of corporate IT security has been successfully violated. Living in a post-MSBlast world In recent years, companies have spent millions on their perimeter security and very little on individual desktop security. Last year's MSBlast successfully exploited this flaw, requiring just one infected laptop to cripple entire companies. Yet, companies had to let that one infected laptop into the network because workers are increasingly mobile, working on the road or from home. Companies also allow port 25 e-mail traffic, so there's still the risk of e-mail infections through that chink. And companies have to allow port 80 Internet traffic as well, laying them open to the threat of infected Web pages. ...complete article at: http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-7297_16-5534252-1.html?tag=nl.e540-2 ================================ ...from: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-5305167.html Security's disorderly mess By Jon Oltsik Special to ZDNet August 11, 2004, 5:02 AM PT [...] Imagine a security perimeter composed of a Cisco PIX firewall, McAfee antivirus software, Websense content filtering, a Blue Coat Systems proxy server and an Internet Security Systems intrusion detection system--along with the accompanying 5 different servers, associated costs and sundry operational challenges. Since failure on any one of these boxes can halt network traffic, security systems often get purchased and configured in redundant pairs. The whole security ensemble is often accompanied by load-balancing switches from Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and F5 Networks that divvy up the work across all of the security systems to ensure maximum performance. See what I mean about complexity? One security professional summed up his frustration this way: "Our perimeter security is difficult to manage, expensive to run and impossible to troubleshoot!" As if security costs and operations weren't bad enough, today's perimeter mess results in a few other big problems. Ironically, security complexity actually introduces security issues. With so many boxes to manage, the chances of a vulnerable or incorrectly configured system dramatically increase the potential for security holes. Finally, security complications restrict business flexibility. Firms want to open up their networks to customers, business partners and suppliers to increase revenue opportunities and productivity. I'd hate to be the security guy who has to tell the CEO that the company can't accommodate the new business initiative because of some security configuration issue. Security just can't be about boxes; it has to be regarded as a business service. [...]

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INTEREST: Kodak Rules in Java Patent Dispute
by billing 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

...from: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1666237,00.asp Jury Rules for Kodak in Java Patent Dispute By Darryl K. Taft October 4, 2004 Eastman Kodak Co. won the first round of a Java lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. that could impact Sun's bottom line and possibly threaten Microsoft's .Net platform. A Rochester, N.Y., jury found Friday that Sun infringed on Kodak's patents when it created Java and released the technology in 1995. Kodak is based in Rochester and is the city's largest employer. At issue are three patents that Kodak inherited when it acquired Wang Laboratories Inc. in 1997. Kodak claims that Java infringes on parts of the three patents. "Kodak has made and continues to make substantial technology investments to ensure high-quality products," said James Blamphin, a spokesman for the company. "We are pleased that the court has validated our intellectual property rights protecting these valuable innovations for the benefit of our customers and shareholders." One of the patents at issue indicates a means by which "two processes that are to cooperate in a data-interchange operation identify each other, and to identify data formats they have in common." And some observers say that, taken broadly, the same patents might be used to claim infringement by Microsoft's .Net platform. Sun denied that it infringed on the Kodak patents during a three-week trial, and it will likely appeal the judgment. But this week, the trial will enter the penalties phase, where both sides will argue over what penalty should be imposed on Sun. Kodak is seeking more than $1 billion in damages. Sun intends to vigorously defend its intellectual property, company spokeswoman May Petry said in a statement. "We are disappointed with the federal jury's decision and are examining our options as we prepare for the liability phase of a two-phase jury trial," the statement said. "We intend to put on a vigorous defense and hope to reach a decision that will be in the best interest of shareholders, customers and Sun. We will also continue to vigorously protect and defend our IP when appropriate." Rick Ross, president of Javalobby.org, said the case is far from over. "I was surprised that it was litigated so quickly, but maybe the real battle will happen in the court of appeals," said Ross, who testified for Sun in its antitrust suit against Microsoft that was settled earlier this year. "And if Kodak prevails, then Kodak could possibly become the new Unisys, who held the entire Internet potentially liable for its patents on the LZW [Lempel-Ziv-Welch] compression that was used in the GIF image format." Added Ross: "This could also get a public response similar to the Eolas patent case against Microsoft, because now the public has tuned in to the ominously broad scope of the Kodak claims, and we may see a general effort to demonstrate prior art and attack the validity of the Kodak patents in question." Sources said both sides of the suit have been meeting with the judge to determine how the next phase will play out. Kodak said it placed the value of its damages at more than $1 billion because that represents half of Sun's operating profit from systems sold between 1998 and 2001. The company is not seeking any kind of ownership claims regarding Java. "We use Java and we will continue to use Java," Blamphin said. ===================================

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FYI: 15-inch PowerBook G4 Display Repair program
by billing 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

...from the FAQ at: http://www.apple.com/support/powerbook/displayprogram/ September 24, 2004 What is the 15-inch PowerBook G4 Display Repair Extension Program? A limited number of 15-inch PowerBook G4 computers exhibit a display issue which may cause faint white spots to appear on the screen over time. The 15-inch PowerBook G4 Repair Extension Program is a worldwide program covering replacement of LCDs that exhibit these white spots. Your PowerBook G4 serial number must fall between one of two serial number ranges: ▪ V7334xxxxxx to V7345xxxxxx ▪ QT331xxxxxx to QT339xxxxxx NOTE: this repair may apply to factory refurbished machines whose serial numbers do not fall into the above range but if you call Apple's support number (as listed on the above web page) and have the white spots issue they should be able to correlate the refurbished serial number to the original serial number. Factory-refurbished PowerBooks are eligible for this program. These computers were manufactured from July 2003 through November 2003. PowerBooks with the serial numbers listed above may be referred to as: ▪ PowerBook G4 15-inch Aluminum (1GHz G4 or 1.25GHz G4) ▪ PowerBook G4 Titanium (867MHz G4 or 1GHz G4) How can I tell if my computer exhibits “white spots”? To determine whether your 15-inch PowerBook G4 exhibits “white spots”, follow the instructions on the above web page.

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FYI: US-CERT Vulnerability in Microsoft Image Processing Component
by billing 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

NOTE: the end of this message an additional list of environments/applications that could be affected by this vulnerability: --------------------------------------------------------------- From: alerts(a)us-cert.gov Subject: US-CERT Cyber Security Alert SA04-258A -- Vulnerability in Microsoft Image Processing Component Date: September 14, 2004 6:18:58 PM GMT-05:00 To: alerts(a)us-cert.gov -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Cyber Security Alert SA04-258A Vulnerability in Microsoft Image Processing Component Original release date: September 14, 2004 Last revised: -- Source: US-CERT Systems Affected * Applications that process JPEG images on Microsoft Windows, including but not limited to * Internet Explorer * Microsoft Office * Microsoft Visual Studio * Picture It! * Applications from other vendors besides Microsoft Overview An attacker may be able to gain control of your computer by taking advantage of the way some programs process the JPEG image format. Solution Apply a patch Microsoft has issued updates to address the problem. Obtain the appropriate update from Windows Update and from Office Update. Note: You may need to install multiple patches depending what software you have on your computer. Use caution with email attachments Never open unexpected email attachments. Before opening an attachment, save it to a disk and scan it with anti-virus software. Make sure to turn off the option to automatically download attachments. View email messages in plain text Email programs like Outlook and Outlook Express interpret HTML code the same way that Internet Explorer does. Attackers may be able to take advantage of that by sending malicious HTML-formatted email messages. Maintain updated anti-virus software It is important that you use anti-virus software and keep it up to date. Most anti-virus software vendors frequently release updated information, tools, or virus databases to help detect and recover from virus infections. Many anti-virus packages support automatic updates of virus definitions. US-CERT recommends using these automatic updates when possible. Description Microsoft Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI+) is used to display information on screens and printers, including JPEG image files. An attacker could execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system if the user opens a malicious JPEG file via applications such as a web browser, email program, internet chat program, or via email attachment. Any application that uses GDI+ to process JPEG image files is vulnerable to this type of attack. This vulnerability also affects products from companies other than Microsoft. References * September 2004 Security Update for JPEG Processing (GDI+) - <http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/200409_jpeg.mspx> * US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#297462 - <http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/297462> _________________________________________________________________ Author: Mindi McDowell. Feedback can be directed to US-CERT, at "US-CERT Security Alerts" at <mailto:cert@cert.org>. Please include the Subject line "SA04-258A Feedback VU#297462". _________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2004 Carnegie Mellon University. Terms of use: <http://www.us-cert.gov/legal.html> This document is available from <http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA04-258A.html> Revision History September 14, 2004: Initial release -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBR3B1XlvNRxAkFWARAtRbAJ9FRO0XqiiEMNjjwGoTBpox2wJqWgCg1YzJ 8JEt8xDHp6Gm5LXjI8y0uOU= =ehyf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- MS04-028 - Buffer Overrun in JPEG Processing (GDI+) Could Allow Code Execution (833987) - Affected Software: - Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 1 - Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Service Pack 1 - Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003 - Windows Server 2003 - Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Edition - Office 2003 - Office XP Service Pack 3 - Visio 2003 (All versions) - Visio 2002 Service Pack 2 (All versions) - Project 2003 (All versions) - Project 2002 Service Pack 1 (All versions) - Review bulletin MS04-O28 for information about these affected operating systems and applications: - Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Service Pack 6a - Windows NT Server 4.0 Service Pack 6a - Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 6 - Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 - Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 - Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 - The Microsoft .NET Framework, version 1.0 - The Microsoft .NET Framework, version 1.1 - Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 - Picture It! 2002 (All versions) - Greetings 2002 - Picture It! version 7.0 (All versions) - Digital Image Pro version 7.0 - Picture It! version 9 (All versions) Including Picture It! Library) - Digital Image Pro version 9 - Digital Image Suite version 9 - Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint (All versions) - Visual Studio 2003 .NET - Visual Basic .NET Standard 2003 - Visual C# .NET Standard 2003 - Visual C++ .NET Standard 2003 - Visual J# .NET Standard 2003 - Visual Studio 2002 .NET - Visual Basic .NET Standard 2002 - Visual C# .NET Standard 2002 - Visual C++ .NET Standard 2002 - The Microsoft .NET Framework, version 1.0 SDK - Platform SDK Redistributable: GDI+ - Review the FAQ section of bulletin MS04-O28 for information about these operating systems: - Microsoft Windows 98 - Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) - Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (ME) - Impact: Remote Code Execution - Version Number: 1.0 Important Security Bulletins ============================ MS04-027 - Vulnerability in WordPerfect Converter Could Allow Code Execution (884933) - Affected Software: - Office 2003 - Office XP Service Pack 3 - Office 2000 Service Pack 3 - Works Suite (All versions) - Impact: Remote Code Execution - Version Number: 1.0

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