TidBITS#740/02-Aug-04
=====================
RealNetworks may be poking a hornet's nest with its Harmony
software, which enables customers to play music from the
RealPlayer Music Store on iPods. Needless to say, Apple is
not amused. Also in this issue, Joe Kissell shares advice
on making attachments stick when using Apple's Mail software
(and announces his new "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail"
ebook), TidBITS rolls into the blogosphere with a new weblog,
and we wish Steve Jobs a thorough and speedy recovery following
cancer surgery this past weekend.
Topics:
MailBITS/02-Aug-04
Apple Refuses to Sing with Real's Harmony
Extra! Extra! Blog All About It!
Working with Outgoing Attachments in Apple Mail
Take Control Pricing Thoughts
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-740.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2004/TidBITS#740_02-Aug-04.etx>
Copyright 2004 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/02-Aug-04
------------------
**Steve Jobs Undergoes Cancer Surgery** -- In an email message to
Apple employees 01-Aug-04, Apple CEO Steve Jobs disclosed he had
successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas,
and will be taking the month of August off to recuperate. In the
meantime, Tim Cook - Apple's current head of worldwide sales and
operations - will run Apple. Jobs identified his cancer as an
islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, a rare condition which can be
treated by surgical removal. He said his tumor was diagnosed
early, and that he would require no radiation treatment or
chemotherapy. Jobs did not have adenocarcinoma, the far more
common (and more serious) form of pancreatic cancer. We wish
him a speedy and complete recovery. [GD]
<http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/08/01/apple.jobs.ap/>
Apple Refuses to Sing with Real's Harmony
-----------------------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Last week a public shouting match erupted between Apple Computer
and RealNetworks over what material can be played using Apple's
iPod portable music players. RealNetworks develops the RealPlayer
digital media player software, which competes with both QuickTime
and Microsoft's Windows Media technologies. RealNetworks also
operates the RealPlayer Music Store (a competitor to Apple's
iTunes Music Store) and the Rhapsody subscription music service.
<http://www.rhapsody.com/>
<http://www.real.com/>
**Duelling Divas** -- The current brouhaha has some history. On
09-Apr-04, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser proposed a "tactical
alliance" between RealNetworks and Apple, in which Apple would
license the FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology
used by the iTunes Music Store to RealNetworks. This would allow
content purchased from Rhapsody and the RealPlayer Music Store to
play on the iPod, which - then as now - commands the lion's share
of the market for portable digital music players. In return,
RealNetworks would make the iPod its "primary device" for its
music services and player software. Glaser also waved a stick,
hinting RealNetworks might convert over to Microsoft's Windows
Media or approach other hardware vendors if a deal couldn't be
reached with Apple.
<http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3340801>
Apple quickly declined RealNetworks' proposal. Apple already had
the most popular portable player and the most popular online music
service, and apparently felt staying on its current track was more
beneficial than diverting effort into striking deals with smaller
partners. Apple may also have felt RealNetworks' adoption of
Windows Media was unlikely, given the rancorous legal history
between RealNetworks and Microsoft.
**Shouting Match** -- On 26-Jul-04, the public silence between
RealNetworks and Apple was broken when RealNetworks announced
a new technology initiative dubbed Harmony. Among other things,
Harmony purports to make material protected using non-Apple DRM
technologies playable on the iPod. Harmony could be an important
market advantage for RealNetworks. Currently, iPods can play
back either unprotected files (e.g., ordinary MP3s) or content
protected using Apple's FairPlay DRM system (like songs purchased
from the iTunes Music Store). RealPlayer Music Store and the
Rhapsody music service would have a competitive edge if they
could claim their material works with Apple's iPod as well as a
multitude of other devices from Sony, Rio, PalmOne, Gateway, Dell,
and others. RealNetworks' DRM-enabled content would work on more
than 70 portable devices, whereas protected material from iTunes
Music Store would work on just one. RealNetworks' reasoning for
Harmony is appealing: when people buy music online, they should
be able to listen to that music on the portable player of their
choice without worrying about file formats or copy protection.
It should just work.
<http://www.real.com/harmony/>
<http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releases/2004/harmony.html>
I'm not fully versed in the technical details of Harmony, but it's
apparent RealNetworks did not create Harmony in conjunction with
Apple. Instead, RealNetworks proceeded on its own, taking
authorized material protected using non-Apple DRM schemes and
wrapping it with Apple's FairPlay DRM for use on the iPod. Thus,
when the iPod sees content a user purchased from RealNetworks, it
plays transparently. This method works for material available via
Rhapsody and RealPlayer Music Store because those services use the
same AAC audio format as content from the iTunes Music Store
(albeit at a higher bitrate: 192 Kbps rather than 128 Kbps). iPods
have built-in support for AAC; Harmony does not alter the iPod
software or give it the capability to handle new media formats.
Apple fired back sharply at RealNetworks on 28-Jul-04, saying it
was "stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics
of a hacker" to enable its content on Apple's iPod, and warning
that Harmony was unlikely to work with current and future iPods
once Apple released new iPod software. In other words, Apple was
angry, and would attempt to hamstring Harmony on the iPod as
soon as possible. Apple also indicated it was investigating
legal action, including possible violations of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). RealNetworks responded
29-Jul-04, re-affirming its commitment to Harmony and asserting
the technology was both fully legal and developed independently.
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&ncid=528&e=12
&u=/ap/20040729/ap_on_hi_te/apple_realnetworks>
<http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releases/2004/
harmony_statement.html>
**Loud and Off-Key** -- This dispute between Apple and
RealNetworks touches on many nerves in the worlds of online music
and digital rights management. Some people resent that Apple's
iPod currently supports only a closed, proprietary DRM system,
and many people would welcome the idea of playing music purchased
from any source they like on the iPod, regardless of whether it
comes from the iTunes Music Store or another service. Support
for additional DRM systems might make the iPod even more popular,
and - given the iPod's high margins - that would mean even more
money for Apple. After all, Apple isn't yet earning much (if any)
money from selling music via the iTunes Music Store: why would
Apple care if people bought songs from another service, so long
as they're played back on a profitable iPod?
On the other hand, part of the reason for the iPod's success is
its tight integration with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store.
By controlling the user's online music experience from browsing
and purchase to synchronization and playback, Apple has created
a best-of-breed solution. Supporting other DRM systems on the
iPod - or licensing FairPlay to other online music services -
means Apple would surrender both iTunes and the iTunes Music
Store, two key components in Apple's digital music strategy.
If another online music service (like Rhapsody) or another jukebox
application (like RealPlayer) didn't support the iPod very well,
that would diminish the market's perception of the iPod.
However, if Apple remains set against Harmony, it's not yet clear
whether Apple has any practical recourse but to try pulling the
rug out from under it via software updates, since Apple's claim
that RealNetworks potentially violated the DMCA seems tenuous.
First, RealNetworks has been in enough tooth-and-nail fights
with Microsoft over the years to be able to afford quality legal
advice - it's a safe bet a reasonable amount of homework was done
before RealNetworks made a public statement. Second, RealNetworks'
Harmony does not appear to be violating copyright of protected
content, since it is not disabling DRM - protected content is
still protected once it's transferred to the iPod. Third, Apple
may have difficulty claiming its own copyrights were violated,
since Harmony does not alter iTunes or the iPod's built-in
software, and the DMCA contains specific exemptions for reverse
engineering solutions for the purpose of interoperability.
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html>
**No Fat Ladies Singing Yet** -- Harmony may simply represent an
escalation in RealNetworks' efforts to get its content onto the
iPod and expand the utility of its Windows-only Rhapsody music
service. The dispute also highlights the fact that Apple's current
market-leading position in digital music distribution means the
company will be forced to protect its business from competitors
and dilution; in doing so, will undoubtedly take on tones and
behaviors long-time Apple aficionados will find jarring. In fact,
those tones and behaviors might be more reminiscent of a company
which has long-dominated the operating system market: Microsoft.
Extra! Extra! Blog All About It!
--------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Blogging is all the rage these days, with bloggers even receiving
press credentials from the Democratic and Republican National
Conventions. But until recently, I'd never quite seen the point
in having a weblog, given that I have a full-fledged publication
in TidBITS, and a moderated mailing list in TidBITS Talk. What
could I want to say that I couldn't say in one of those two
places? Quite a lot, it turns out.
A brief aside. Last week, those of you who receive the HTML
edition of TidBITS know that our server initially sent you a blank
email message instead of the issue, and later you received the
text edition instead of the HTML edition. Geoff discovered the
blank message problem around 10:30 PM for me (7:30 PM for him),
and we spent the next two-and-a-half hours on the phone trying to
figure out what had gone wrong and rectify it. Around midnight my
time, after a few attempts at reconfiguration and resending the
HTML edition failed, we tried sending the text edition (with an
explanatory note to help defuse all the well-intentioned mail
from readers telling us of the problem we already knew about),
and that approach succeeded. Unfortunately, our efforts this
week to determine why the trouble occurred and to fix it were
unsuccessful; we couldn't see any reason the problem should have
reared its ugly head. The entire process is highly automated,
the automation has worked perfectly for years, and short of the
particular words used in last week's issue (which shouldn't be
a concern - the message format itself was structurally sound),
nothing has changed in those systems. In short, we have to watch
the sending process in person again this week to make sure the
problem doesn't crop up again.
How is this related to blogging? Although we're not shy about
documenting our systems here in TidBITS, we usually draw the line
about telling you all about troubles we have with the servers or
other things that go on unless there's a larger context (like this
article!) into which to weave the report. We intentionally limit
the length of TidBITS issues (to avoid overloading readers), and
there's only so much room for infrastructure stories about how we
valiantly protected our list server from a nefarious dictionary
attack by a spammer, particularly when no readers were affected
and when few people use the same aged hardware and software as we
do (making it hard to draw broad technical lessons). At the same
time, when a problem does occur, as with the delivery of the HTML
edition last week, we don't have a good way of providing what is
essentially a status report. And with the number of readers we
have, answering email from everyone who writes in to alert us
to a known problem (even with Eudora's boilerplate text feature)
is time-consuming.
But status report-type postings aren't the primary reason we've
become more interested in starting a weblog. Over the years, the
TidBITS formula has gradually evolved into a couple of short bits
about events of the week or particularly interesting product
releases, anchored by two or three longer and more detailed
articles. These articles generally require some time to write,
and every one of them is edited by at least two of us before
publication. That's great for ensuring accuracy and eliminating
the last few typos, but it makes the entire process top-heavy,
the end result being that we shy away from shorter, more informal
bits that would feel awkward without additional context in an
issue (brief opinion pieces in particular), that are amusingly
unimportant, or that we simply lack the time or enthusiasm to
flesh out sufficiently for an article. Ironically, given that
blogging is considered to be a relatively recent development,
that sort of writing is exactly what TidBITS started with
fourteen years ago.
It is for these reasons that we've started ExtraBITS, in which
TidBITS editors will wax blogosophic about the kinds of subjects
you enjoy reading in TidBITS. The pieces will be shorter,
breezier, and yes, less complete and exhaustively researched.
They should be, in their own size and context, no less useful
or enjoyable than our regular weekly content, just different.
I anticipate them being more like the letters sent home (for
publication in the local paper) from foreign climes by the
correspondent of yesteryear. It's possible that a few of these
ExtraBITS postings will grow into full-fledged articles that
will later appear in TidBITS, but I suspect that will apply
only to a small minority. I more see ExtraBITS as occupying
a currently empty space between the formal publication approach
of TidBITS and the discussion-driven TidBITS Talk.
Of course, there are other reasons I'm setting up ExtraBITS now
as well. From the technical standpoint, although I'm sure there
are many blogging packages to choose from, I'm using the Weblog
plug-in for Web Crossing, which took me about five minutes to
set up and integrates with everything else I'm doing in Web
Crossing. It provides all sorts of niceties, such as support
for RSS readers (even to the category level), the option to
subscribe so you receive postings in email, and spell checking
when posting. More important, it's the next step for me in
becoming familiar with Web Crossing's low-level capabilities
in preparation for the design of our content management system.
Who knows, perhaps we'll even appropriate some of the now-commonly
understood weblog interface elements in our final design.
For instance, one thing I want to look into for our content
management system is the integration of article-specific comments
with a mailing list, thus enabling people to post comments about
an article and automatically have those comments both end up in
mailing list threads and remain attached to the root article.
That's roughly what we have working now with articles in our
database and threads in the TidBITS Talk archive, but making the
link between a thread and article requires the manual inclusion
of an appropriate URL (usually by me, during moderation), making
it an error-prone process.
Another potential benefit of ExtraBITS from my perspective, once
it gets going, is increased traffic to our Web site overall, and
particularly throughout the week (most of our Web traffic comes on
Tuesday and Wednesday, decreasing throughout the week). Most of
our current readers consider TidBITS an email publication, and
while that won't be changing, it's difficult in these spam-ridden
days to increase the readership of an email publication. By making
our Web site more of a frequent destination, particularly in the
weblog medium that has become so popular and heavily used, we hope
to introduce more people to TidBITS as well.
Adding up all the benefits - a place for pieces that would
otherwise go unwritten, a chance to learn more with Web Crossing's
capabilities, experience with a slightly different publishing
medium, and increased traffic to a more regularly updated Web
site - I think ExtraBITS will be a winning combination. Check it
out, complete with posts from the last week, at:
<http://www.tidbits.com/ExtraBITS/>
Working with Outgoing Attachments in Apple Mail
-----------------------------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I once worked for a company where a lot of the senior management
(and, more importantly, their secretaries) still thought that
internal communication revolved around printed memos. I often
received email messages whose entire content was: "See enclosed
memo." So I dutifully opened the attached documents in Word,
where I invariably found a paragraph or two of text in the
company's standard memo template that could just as easily
have been typed (or pasted) directly into the email message.
This backward approach to communication annoyed me mightily,
because the senders' failure to use email properly forced
everyone else to jump through hoops to read a simple message.
Enlightened email users (such as, I'm sure, most TidBITS readers)
use attachments only when they add something one can't convey
in the body of a message. But even our best efforts to use
attachments wisely can be undone by uncooperative email programs.
Apple Mail, despite its general ease of use, sometimes handles
outgoing attachments in unexpected ways. You can make sure the
vast majority of your attachments arrive intact for the vast
majority of your recipients by following some simple guidelines,
which I've excerpted from my latest ebook, "Take Control of Email
with Apple Mail."
**Always Include File Extensions** -- Filename extensions never
hurt, and they often help (even when your recipient is a Mac
user). To make sure an individual file has an extension, select
it in the Finder, choose File > Get Info, and look in the Name &
Extension section. As far as Mail is concerned, it doesn't matter
if a particular file has the Hide Extension option checked; as
long as the extension exists, it comes through on the recipient's
end. To save yourself the bother of checking each file (at the
expense of slightly less beautiful file names), choose Finder >
Preferences, click the Advanced button in the toolbar, and select
the Show All File Extensions checkbox. That way you'll always know
at a glance whether a file has an extension.
**Always Use Windows-Friendly Attachments** -- Sending attachments
in "Windows friendly" format usually makes them friendlier for
Macs too. The Windows Friendly Attachments feature has nothing
to do with extensions and does not add them for you. So, what
does it do?
By default, Mail assumes your recipient is also a Mac user and
therefore includes the resource forks (if any) of attached files.
Normally a Mac user sees such attachments as a single file,
whereas a Windows user sees two individual files - one containing
the data fork of the file and the other containing the resource
fork.
When you choose "Windows Friendly" attachments, Mail strips the
resource fork so that Windows users receive just one file, not two
(one of which would be unusable anyway). In most cases - at least
for files created with modern applications - all the crucial parts
of files are in the data fork; as long as the filename has the
correct extension and they have an appropriate application,
Windows users can open the file.
The term "Windows Friendly" seems to imply that using this option
makes your attachments "Mac Unfriendly." Mail's documentation
reinforces this worry by stating that Mac users may be unable to
open files correctly if the Windows Friendly option is used. But
in practice, just the opposite is frequently true. The Mac version
of Eudora, for example, sometimes cannot decode perfectly ordinary
Mac files, such as Word documents, if they were sent without using
the Windows Friendly setting. In other words, a wiser design might
have been to make "Windows Friendly" the default behavior, with an
option to make attachments "Mac Friendly" on those rare occasions
when you truly must.
To tell Mail to use Windows Friendly encoding for all new
messages, choose Edit > Attachments > Always Send Windows Friendly
Attachments. (Although this command appears on a menu, it's
actually saved as a preference.) Oddly, this command is disabled
when composing a new message.
You can also toggle Windows friendliness for individual messages:
When you attach a file using the Attach button on the toolbar
or by choosing File > Attach File (Command-Shift-A), notice the
checkbox at the bottom, Use Windows Friendly Attachments. If it's
selected, all the attachments for this particular message are
sent in Windows Friendly format. Unfortunately, Mail offers no
convenient way to toggle Windows friendliness for attachments
added to your message by drag & drop or copy & paste.
**When a Problem Comes Along, You Must Zip It** -- If file
extensions and Windows friendliness still result in attachments
the recipient can't read, try compressing them (the files, not the
recipients). Zipping covers a multitude of sins by wrapping up one
or more files - including resource forks, if any - in a compact,
cross-platform-compatible package. Under Panther, you can compress
a file or folder in the Finder (in Windows-friendly Zip format)
by selecting it and choosing File > Create Archive of <filename>.
Of course, StuffIt Deluxe and StuffIt Standard Edition can also
create the protective Zip or StuffIt archives as well.
<http://www.stuffit.com/mac/>
**Sending Graphical Attachments** -- When you attach a graphical
image to your message, the recipient of your message sees the
image inline (that is, in the body of the message) if her email
client supports inline display. ("Take Control of Email with Apple
Mail" contains a table listing the capabilities of popular Mac and
PC email clients.) If a client does not support inline display (or
the recipient has turned off the inline display option), the file
appears as an attachment that must be opened in a separate
program.
On the one hand, an inline image is easier for the recipient to
see - all she has to do is look at it. On the other hand, inline
images can be frustrating to scroll through. If you do not wish to
send a graphical image inline, you must compress the file before
attaching it - Mail, sadly, lacks a built-in compression option,
though fortunately for Panther users, the Finder offers Zip
compression without requiring a separate application.
Note that when you compose a new message, Mail always shows
attachments in the body of your message. You can manually drag
them somewhere else, but many email clients display all
attachments in a separate list, regardless of where you place
them in the message body.
If you paste an image into a message or drag & drop an image from
another window (say, a Web browser), Mail converts the raw image
data to an attachment in TIFF format. On the other hand, if you
drag & drop the icon of an image file (or use the Attach button
to locate the file using the file browser), Mail leaves the
attached image in its original format. This difference is
significant, because although most email clients can display
JPEG images just fine, support for TIFF - especially in non-Mac
email clients - is less common. If possible, I suggest attaching
image files as opposed to pasting or dragging in raw image data.
**Take Control of Email with Apple Mail** -- As much as I like
Mail, it has quite a few other quirks and frustrations - ranging
from misleading error messages to seemingly missing features.
After experiencing many of these problems myself and reading
literally thousands of reports of others struggling with the same
things, I set out to determine what's really going on behind the
scenes. In my 89-page "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail"
ebook, I explain why Mail works (or doesn't work) the way it does
and how you can solve many of the most common Mail problems. Even
if Mail is working perfectly well for you, you'll learn how to use
it more effectively. "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail" costs
$10, or you can purchase it along with "Take Control of Spam with
Apple Mail" (ordinarily $5) for a total of $12.50. As with all
Take Control ebooks, purchasers are entitled to receive all minor
updates for free.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/email-Apple-Mail.html>
[Joe Kissell is a San Francisco-based writer, consultant, and
Mac developer who kicked off the Take Control series with the
best-selling "Take Control of Upgrading to Panther." When not
solving Mac problems, he gives guided tours of the rest of the
world on his Interesting Thing of the Day Web site.]
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/panther/upgrading.html>
<http://itotd.com/>
Take Control Pricing Thoughts
-----------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
With Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail," you'll
notice that we set the price at $10 - as we had done for Glenn
Fleishman's "Take Control of Sharing Files in Panther" - instead
of the introductory $5 price point we have used for most of our
other ebooks. We had a number of reasons for the change,
including:
* Size: There's a rule of thumb in the publishing industry of
setting price points at roughly 10 cents per page. Since our
ebook pages are almost exactly equivalent in content to paper
book pages, we felt the higher price was warranted given the
89-page length of "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail."
* Effort: At over 24,000 words in its initial release, "Take
Control of Email with Apple Mail" was a significant effort on
Joe's part to research and write, and on Tonya's part to edit
(compare that with a magazine article that might run 1,500 to
3,000 words at most). Although we don't have any materials costs
to take into account when pricing our ebooks, we do have to make
sure the likely proceeds will offer a fair compensation to the
many days our authors and editors spend working on Take Control
ebooks and their updates.
* Free updates: Our free updates have been tremendously popular,
and for good reason: the Macintosh industry changes quickly, and
up-to-date information is essential to all of us. But as much as
we like being able to publish free updates, they do take effort.
We'll never charge for minor updates, but since we anticipate that
Joe will put in a lot more work keeping "Take Control of Email
with Apple Mail" updated over the lifespan of the book, with that
$10, you're essentially buying Joe's expertise over time. To cycle
back to the size issue, we also anticipate the book growing toward
and past 100 pages in future updates, making the price-to-page
ratio even better over time.
* Flexibility: By setting the price at $10, we have a lot more
room to offer discounts to loyal customers. As an example,
consider the $2.50 discount off "Take Control of Email with Apple
Mail" when purchased with "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail"
through the end of August. All existing customers of "Take Control
of Spam with Apple Mail" are also entitled to a $2.50 discount;
if you didn't get the mail we sent out about that, just click
your Check for Updates button. We also hope to start working
with other companies to resell all our ebooks, and the $5 price
point (particularly after transaction fees) doesn't leave much
after the reseller takes a cut.
* Value: Although we've learned from our PayBITS experiment that
value is a tenuous concept, when interpreted as "the amount of
your time that reading this book will save," we are comfortable
that "Take Control of Email with Apple Mail" would still provide
more than $10 of value. If it helps you recover important mail in
a damaged mailbox, get an attachment through to a Windows user on
the first try, or send mail through a recalcitrant SMTP server
when travelling, it will have paid for itself instantly.
As I noted when I first wrote about the Take Control project,
we intended $5 as an introductory price, and one that we would
reevaluate once we had learned more about the business side of the
venture. It's still too early to make any categorical statements
about pricing, but $10 seems appropriate for books that are
closing in on the 100-page mark and that we anticipate growing
even more with free updates.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07405>
Note that we've made it trivially easy for anyone concerned with
price to save 10 percent on their next order, simply by clicking
the Help a Friend button on the cover of the current version
of any ebook and recommending that ebook to a friend (who also
saves 10 percent). Oddly, even though thousands of people have
presumably seen that button, only 11 have taken advantage of the
discount. (If there's a problem with the Web pages that handle the
referral, let me know, since it was the first programming I ever
did in Web Crossing.) Also, all user group members are entitled
to 10 percent off any Take Control order; nearly 150 user groups
currently receive the discount and free review copies of our
ebooks.
We're in this for the long run, and we have a number of new ebooks
and other projects in the works that we think you're going to
like a lot. But as with all businesses, we have to make sure
that we can earn sufficient income to afford to carry out those
plans. Thanks for all the support you've given us so far, and
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