TidBITS#843/21-Aug-06
=====================
Now that we've had a chance to absorb the preview of Mac OS X 10.5
Leopard, we can move on to other topics. Glenn Fleishman examines
two secure file-transfer services that cleverly implement
peer-to-peer technology. Matt Neuburg reflects on the quality of
this year's Worldwide Developer Conference with suggestions on how
Apple could improve the experience. Then we note that the IMAP email
client Mulberry is now free, that Dell is recalling 4.1 million
laptop batteries (and how that may affect Mac users), and that the
print-on-demand version of "Take Control of Syncing in Tiger" is now
available. On the Apple update front, we cover two that provide
important fixes for for the MacBook and MacBook Pro, along with
updates for Logic Pro 7.2.2, Logic Express 7.2.2, and Boot Camp 1.1
beta.
Articles
MacBook and MacBook Pro Updates Available
Logic Pro 7.2.2 and Logic Express 7.2.2 Updates Released
Apple Updates Boot Camp Beta
Dell Recalls 4.1 Million Batteries
Last Tango Round the Mulberry Bush
DealBITS Drawing: lynda.com's Online Training Library Winner
The Decline of WWDC
Secure Transfer Using Civil Netizen and Pando
Take Control News/21-Aug-06
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/21-Aug-06
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MacBook and MacBook Pro Updates Available
-----------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Is your new Mac laptop making barnyard noises or suffering from
insomnia? Apple has released a pair of updates to address two
specific, annoying issues that have cropped up with the MacBook and
MacBook Pro.
The MacBook SMC Firmware Update[1] adjusts the fan behavior of the
entry-level notebook to calm its inner cow. The update apparently
gets rid of the "moo" sound caused by the MacBook's fan repeatedly
spinning up and powering down as it regulates the processor
temperature. As this is a firmware update, make sure the
installation process isn't interrupted. The installer is a 420K
download, requires Mac OS X 10.4.7, and works only on the MacBook.
[1]<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbooksmcfirmwareupdate.html>
MacBook Pro owners can install ExpressCard Update 1.0[2], a 492K
download that fixes a problem where the laptop would fail to go to
sleep if some cards are left in the ExpressCard slot.
[2]<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/expresscardupdate10.html>
Logic Pro 7.2.2 and Logic Express 7.2.2 Updates Released
--------------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Musicians with their eyes on Apple's new Mac Pro should update their
copies of Logic Pro or Logic Express to version 7.2.2, which provide
compatibility with the Intel Xeon-powered desktop computer. The
updates also increase performance through the Mac Pro's architecture
and improve support for the built-in audio ports. Logic Pro Update
7.2.2[3] is a 24 MB download; Logic Express Update 7.2.2[4] is a 14
MB download. Both updaters require the 7.2.1 version of the
respective programs and Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later.
[3]<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/logicproupdate722.html>
[4]<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/logicexpressupdate722.html>
Apple Updates Boot Camp Beta
----------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Much of the recent talk of running non-Macintosh operating systems
on Apple's new breed of Intel-based Macs has focused on
virtualization solutions like Parallels Desktop (see "Parallels
Desktop: The Switch is Complete"[5]) and VMware's as-yet-unreleased
product (see "More, Less, and No Information on Running Windows on a
Mac"[6], but let's not forget the product announcement that started
the ball rolling officially: Apple Computer's Boot Camp (see "Apple
Opens Boot Camp for Windows Users"[7], which enables Intel-based
Macs to restart running Windows XP and is scheduled to be included
in some way with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
[5]<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8567>
[6]<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8627>
[7]<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8494>
Apple last week released version 1.1 of its public beta of Boot
Camp[8], adding support for Apple's brand-new Xeon-based Mac Pro and
Xserve systems, adding partition presets which make installing
Windows XP simpler for many users, providing the capability to
install Windows XP on any internal disk, and building in support for
Apple's iSight camera and built-in microphones. The new beta
improves support for Apple keyboards (enabling Delete, Print Screen,
NumLock, and ScrollLock keys under Windows) and, for folks using
single-button pointing devices, enables right-clicking by pressing
the rightmost Command key on Apple keyboards. Boot Camp beta 1.1
also rolls in a number of small fixes, including turning off
internal speakers when the headphone jack is in use, support for
date and time synchronization under Windows when logged in as an
administrator, and more.
[8]<http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/>
The new beta weighs in at 202 MB; complete instructions for updating
are available on Apple's Web site. As always with beta software, we
strongly recommend you back up your data early and often, and think
carefully before trusting truly important data or processes to Boot
Camp.
Dell Recalls 4.1 Million Batteries
----------------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In what may turn out to be one of the largest consumer electronics
product recalls in history, computer maker Dell is voluntarily
recalling some 4.1 million batteries sold with a wide range of its
notebook systems over a more-than-two-year period ranging from
01-Apr-04 through 18-Jul-06. Dell is offering free replacement
batteries to affected consumers via a Battery Return Program Web
site[9].
[9]<https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/>
According to Dell, the recalled batteries can overheat under rare
conditions, presenting a risk of fire, property damage, and/or
injury: the company has received six reports of the batteries
overheating and causing damage to furniture and personal belongings.
The company has received no reports of injuries caused by the
recalled batteries. Dell says customers should _not_ use recalled
batteries, but power notebooks from their AC adapters until
replacement batteries arrive.
Why are we noting a Dell battery recall here? First, many Mac owners
also use "those other" computers and may be directly affected by
Dell's recall. Second, the recalled batteries were manufactured for
Dell by Sony, and Sony also manufactures batteries for
Hewlett-Packard and Apple. HP has already said none of its products
are impacted by the issues forcing Dell to recall batteries; so far,
Apple is still investigating whether any of its products might be
impacted. Apple instituted a recall of MacBook Pro batteries at the
end of July 2006 due to performance issues, not overheating problem
(see "Apple Recalls Underperforming MacBook Pro Batteries"[10]).
[10]<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8617>
Last Tango Round the Mulberry Bush
----------------------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
IMAP is a sophisticated protocol for remote and shared storage of
email, and Mulberry is an IMAP client renowned for implementing its
side of that protocol fully and with careful adherence to standards.
In addition to IMAP features and extensions such as subscribed
mailboxes, sorting, threading, access control, quotas, and
namespaces, Mulberry also supports either online or disconnected
mode, POP3, remote storage of address books and preferences, LDAP,
and remote calendaring and scheduling. Mulberry was distributed as a
commercial application, first from Cyrusoft International, then from
ISAMET, both of which went bankrupt[11] late last year (and both of
whose Web sites have closed down). In an astonishing turn of events,
however, Mulberry has now been re-released as freeware[12] by its
original developer, Cyrus Daboo.
[11]<http://www.emailaddresses.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=38389>
[12]<http://www.mulberrymail.com/about.shtml>
TidBITS has mentioned Mulberry in the past, but we've never done a
full-fledged review, and I'm not about to do one now. (Important
disclosure: in late 1996-97 I had a brief but rather central
association with the Cyrusoft startup process, but I soon elected to
have nothing to do with the project.) Personally, I find just about
the whole of Mulberry's interface pretty annoying, but since I'm not
an IMAP user, I don't need the features and complexity that Mulberry
provides, making me a poor judge of the program. Those who do need a
good IMAP client might find Mulberry well worth investigating.
Mulberry is available for Mac OS X 10.3 or later, Windows, and
Linux. It is a 12.1 MB download[13]. Development has officially
ceased, so I would not expect Mulberry ever to become a universal
binary. But you never know...
[13]<http://www.mulberrymail.com/download.shtml>
DealBITS Drawing: lynda.com's Online Training Library Winner
------------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Congratulations to Douglas Hoffman of wcnet.org, whose entry was
chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS drawing[14] and who received
a one-year premium subscription to lynda.com's Online Training
Library[15], worth $375. But don't fret too much if you didn't win,
since lynda.com is offering all TidBITS readers an exclusive $125
discount off a one-year premium subscription to the Online Training
Library, dropping the price from $375 to $250. To take advantage of
this offer, which is good through 30-Aug-06, use coupon code TDBTS06
when signing up[16]. Thanks again for entering this DealBITS
drawing, and we hope you'll continue to participate in the future.
Thanks to the 1,000 people who entered, and keep an eye out for
future DealBITS drawings!
[14]<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8636>
[15]<http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/>
[16]<https://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/usersignup.asp?PID=2>
The Decline of WWDC
-------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Who is Apple's most important customer? If your answer is "Me!"
consider this. Without software (applications, preference panes,
utilities of all sorts), your Mac would be nothing but a very
expensive doorstop. And software doesn't grow on trees; human beings
write it. Those human beings are the software developers. So, sure,
end-users are important, but without software developers, there
would be nothing to use.
And make no mistake: Apple software developers are Apple customers.
They all need at least one Mac. They all need to keep up with
changes in the operating system. The tools for writing applications
are now free (a tremendous revolution that started when Steve Jobs
returned to Apple and Mac OS X emerged), but many developers
subscribe to some paying level of the Apple Developer
Connection[17]. And Apple developers are constantly focused on
Apple. They hit the developer Web site[18] dozens of times per day.
They download examples, they ask questions, they hang out on the
mailing lists[19], they submit bug reports[20]. And a few thousand
really hard-core developers, those who have the money and who need
the personal touch, show up for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers
Conference[21] (WWDC).
[17]<http://developer.apple.com/membership/>
[18]<http://developer.apple.com/>
[19]<http://lists.apple.com/>
[20]<http://bugreport.apple.com/>
[21]<http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/>
WWDC is Apple's most important way of communicating directly with
its developer base. Every year, the actual Apple employees who
maintain the operating system and the programming interface that
software developers use to write applications spend several days
standing in front of crowds of those developers. They explain (under
non-disclosure agreement) Apple's future plans and directions,
lecture extensively and in detail on how to program the Mac
effectively, and listen meekly to trenchant suggestions and
criticisms. Plus, developers get to bring their code to a room full
of computers and receive real-time, line-by-line advice on specific
problems and tasks they're facing. It's an intense experience; a
developer can easily spend ten straight hours in lectures and labs,
without time to leave the building, on three successive days. (WWDC
is currently three-and-a-half days, preceded by a day of keynotes.)
It's distressing, therefore, to see how WWDC has become more and
more unpleasant for the attendees each year. Each year we say to
each other, "Wow, it's really gone downhill, but at least it
couldn't possibly get any worse," and each year it gets worse. I'm
not talking here about the value and relevance of the content, which
is usually top-notch, though, to be sure, it can vary in quality,
depending partly upon internal aspects of Apple's mental health and
firmness of direction, and partly upon accidents of timing. (The
1996 WWDC, for example, was a complete waste of time and money,
because Apple under Gil Amelio had no idea what it was doing or
where it was going, so everything it said that year was outrageously
false. On a far milder scale, this year's WWDC was slightly less
useful than last year's because the next release of the operating
system is further off, so more of what Apple had to say about
upcoming features was inchoate or guesswork.) No, I'm talking about
more mundane considerations - freebies, food, and logistics.
The zenith in recent years was the 2003 WWDC. Apple had moved the
venue from the isolated, unpleasant San Jose McEnery Convention
Center[22] to the west wing of the Moscone Center[23] in wonderful
downtown San Francisco. Attendees were given a superb portfolio bag
that I still use, a copy of the currently shipping operating system,
and a major piece of hardware (an iSight!). The food was terrific
(excellent hot breakfasts and lunches), and between talks we were
plied with free juices and fruit, and of course plenty of
high-quality coffee.
[22]<http://www.sjcc.com/>
[23]<http://www.moscone.com/attendees/faq/>
This year, on the other hand, the freebies were the cheapest
portfolio bag I've ever seen (flimsy, no padding, few compartments,
bad zippers, strap attached in a silly place), a crummy travel mug,
and a t-shirt with incorrect Latin on it. (OK, so I spent many years
teaching Latin; they could have asked me.) No hardware, no currently
shipping software. Lunches were plastic salad and plastic sandwiches
in plastic containers; breakfast was nearly non-existent. Snacks
between talks were dried-up pastry. One evening there was something
that pretended to be pizza; it was so bad that people were literally
gasping in disbelief. There were free Odwalla juices, but none of
them were the good Odwalla juices: they were all sugar-added
concoctions that no one ever buys. And attendees were herded into
lecture rooms by uniformed characters we came to call "seat Nazis,"
yelling at us to move forward and inward rather than sitting where
we preferred.
The overall trouble here is that WWDC done in this way feels like a
rip-off. It's expensive to attend (including airfare and hotel
costs, of course), while the experience itself feels cheap and
oppressive. And there's no need for it to feel that way. This year
WWDC had over 4,200 attendees - the largest WWDC ever. So Apple is
hardly short on cash flow for the conference itself. Prices vary,
but the nominal fee is $1,600 per person (with a discount for early
registration). Is it really possible that renting the Moscone Center
and paying for the equipment and logistics for presenting and
recording the lectures is so expensive that Apple can't afford to
give back more of those fees in the form of gifts and better food?
(At these quantities, a really good portfolio bag, for example, is
less than $20 a unit.)
To complain of this may seem to be whining about a very small thing;
and so it is. But it's a small thing that, in the aggregate, makes
the difference between WWDC being a pleasant experience and an
unpleasant one; and three and a half days of unpleasant experience
quickly starts to feel very unpleasant indeed. There is also the
question of what this deterioration in WWDC's surface quality
implies about Apple's attitude towards its developers. Apple used to
honor its developers, as being the creators of the front line of
Macintosh usability; now it feeds them like rats and herds them like
cattle. Is that really the message Apple wants to send?
Secure Transfer Using Civil Netizen and Pando
---------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Transferring files between two people can be an extraordinarily
painful process. Email seems perfectly reasonable, but is subject to
message file attachment limits for both parties. Using file sharing
technology like FTP could require setting up a dropbox or an
account. If you want to use your own computer as a server (running
AppleShare, for instance), you need a reachable IP address, not
always a readily available commodity.
Two new services, Civil Netizen and Pando, hope to make file
transfer easier by employing peer-to-peer (P2P) techniques to push
data securely over the Internet. Both are in beta testing; the
former turns a computer, briefly, into a peer-to-peer surfer for
individual connections, and the latter acts as a time-limited
central repository with distributed P2P properties for files up to 1
GB in size (during testing).
Both services are currently free, and their developers currently
have no plans to charge in the future, although Pando may use some
sponsorship advertising to fund bandwidth, and plans to license its
technology to other firms. Civil Netizen is an open-source project
with no fees.
**Civil Netizen** -- The phrase "peer-to-peer file sharing" has taken
a beating. In common use, it almost always implies illegal transfer
of copyrighted materials or the implication of that act. But people
using ordinary computers to transfer files are peers, and Civil
Engines Research recognizes that in the choice of the name Civil
Netizen[24] for its project.
[24]<http://www.civilnetizen.com/>
When you install Civil Netizen, you're not setting up a server.
Rather, you're creating a specific P2P engine that is active only at
certain times and in response to the right queries.
Civil Netizen lets you take one or more files or folders and create
a "parcel." The parcel has an associated pickup slip, which is a
sequence of obscured data. Instead of transferring the parcel
directly, the program lets you use your default email application to
send just the pickup slip (you can also copy the pickup slip
information to the clipboard for pasting into a program like iChat,
or you can save it to a file on your Desktop).
As long as the parcel remains available within Civil Netizen (which
must be running), that pickup slip enables any recipient to retrieve
the file; the retrieval is logged for reference. Civil Netizen
doesn't allow generic file retrieval - other Civil Netizen users can
retrieve only parcels, and only those for which they have the
associated pickup slips.
Whenever a recipient attempts to retrieve a parcel by loading the
pickup slip details you sent them into their copy of Civil Netizen,
their software creates a connection to your computer, retrieves the
parcel, and stores it locally. Civil Engines Research uses a
centralized storage system for the pickup slips, but that's the only
portion of the connection that's stored in a non-P2P fashion. You
can send the pickup slip to multiple recipients, and as long as you
keep the parcel available within your copy of Civil Netizen, others
can download it. However, there's no confirmation that someone with
the pickup slip is a legitimate recipient.
Civil Netizen uses a fairly robust method of encrypting data in
transit, employing 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption System) session
keys, which are considered quite strong. The keys are negotiated
using a Diffie-Hellman key exchange[25], which prevents
interception. However, the developers don't use a validation step
that confirms there's no man in the middle[26] intercepting both
sides of a conversation.
[25]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie-Hellman>
[26]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle>
However unlikely interception is for most users, the lack of a
validation step prevents Diffie-Hellman from being considered
reliable. In correspondence with one of the developers, he said the
company expects to offer user registration that would then allow an
out-of-band method to provide necessary validation. I call that the
"evil dictator" problem, in that without validation, you're well
protected, but not against those intent upon intercepting traffic at
a governmental level. Validation wouldn't prevent knowledge of
parties transferring data, but would - by today's standards -
provide extremely high security for the contents of packages.
Civil Netizen is at beta 4 for Mac and Windows, and the company
plans a Linux client. As an open-source project, clients for other
platforms or other versions of the client for Mac or Windows could
appear.
**Pando** -- Pando[27], from Pando Networks, takes an entirely
different approach with regard to where files are stored, using what
initially appears to be a hub-and-spoke system and a centralized
repository, but turns out to have a P2P twist.
[27]<http://www.pando.com/>
Once you've downloaded the Mac software, you can create a new
package composed of one or more files or folders, and then enter
recipients' email addresses. The Pando client packages your files,
uploads them to Pando Networks's servers, and notifies recipients
via email. Recipients then open the attached .pando file in their
copy of the Pando application to download the packaged files.
Here's where Pando's approach gets interesting. Rather than simply
being a file server, Pando uses P2P technology much like BitTorrent
to speed the download by having the recipient's Pando client pull
data from the Pando servers (which they call supernodes); from your
computer, which acts as a P2P node for the file; and from other
recipients of the file who have already downloaded it (or pieces of
it) and have Pando running and haven't moved the file.
The software is straightforward and easy-to-use. The company stores
files on its own supernodes for up to 14 days after the file is
posted and recipients informed. Packages can be up to 1 GB in size
during the beta period. (The implication is that limit will be
raised when the beta period is over, but the company hasn't promised
that.) After that 14-day period, packages are still retrievable from
any Pando clients that are running and have the file still
available.
This is an interesting twist, because you could send out a large
file - say, a video you'd created - to hundreds of recipients, all
of whom would benefit from the initial high-speed availability on
Pando's servers and the swarming effect of many downloaders with
Pando's client. However, after 14 days, not only would Pando drop
the file and thus reduce some large potential bandwidth costs, but
for most downloads of this sort, most of the other recipients would
have moved on and probably stopped participating in the swarm, too.
Pando's encryption model is slightly more robust than Civil
Netizen's. The developers have chosen to use the 256-bit version of
AES, the company said via email, although its FAQ states that Pando
uses 128-bit encryption. All other communication between the Pando
client and the company's servers are conducted using
certificate-authority validated SSL/TLS, which prevents tampering.
However, the .pando file is sent unencrypted and contains the
security key necessary to decipher the retrieved file. Anyone with
the .pando file would then be able to retrieve the same data with no
additional validation or authentication.
**Changing the World of Email Attachments** -- Where both Civil
Netizen and Pando could shine is in bypassing the ugly world of
one-off file transfers that currently use email attachments. While
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) has long made it
relatively simple to send attachments reliably among varied email
servers and clients, many companies that provide email services
impose attachment size limits.
Many free email services allow you to send and receive total
attachments per message of 2 MB to 10 MB. Some also have monthly,
daily, or even hourly limits on attachments. Higher-end services
have increased attachment limits over time to tens of megabytes, but
even still, that's a limit you must be aware of and track.
Plus, email servers aren't designed well to handle large files. Some
choke even when the attachment size is within limits. Retrieving a
large file often takes substantially longer from a mail server than
from a commensurate file server (even file server software running
on the same hardware as the mail server software).
Pando has taken one step in that direction by planning a Microsoft
Outlook 2003 plug-in[28] that would enable Pando to be used as a
substitute for large email attachments. Given the nature of both
products, I would hope that plug-ins could be created for popular
Macintosh email clients and other Windows email clients, too.
[28]<http://www.pando.com/beta/outlook>
I'd also like to see designated recipients, so that when I need to
transfer a file to, say, Adam Engst, I would drag a set of files
onto an Adam icon on the Desktop or within the program. If Adam had
pre-approved me, perhaps his copy of either package would
automatically download the files I transmitted without further ado
and alert him. This kind of trust could be made possible through
these programs and the systems that support them, and would
eliminate a lot of the fuss that file transfer places upon ordinary
users.
All that said, when I wrote "Take Control of Sharing Files in
Panther"[29] and later "Take Control of Sharing Files in Tiger"[30],
I found that the devil is in the details when it comes to making
file sharing work. Whenever you have a group of people who need a
common repository of files, file services like AppleShare, Samba,
WebDAV, and FTP are still warranted. In these cases, you want a
persistent set of consistently available, updated files found in the
same place.
[29]<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/sharing.html?14!pt=TB843>
[30]<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-sharing.html?14!pt=TB843>
And for software companies or other organizations that need to
distribute large amounts of files or a few large files, FTP and HTTP
downloads still make the most sense, because there's little chance
except during new releases of having the right threshold of users
downloading and retaining a file to get the benefit of the swarm
behavior of P2P that Pando can leverage.
However, there's a great place for this new method of bypassing all
current forms of repositories and P2P, and, in the process,
increasing the efficiency of retrieving files and reducing
associated frustration.
Take Control News/21-Aug-06
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**"Take Control of Syncing in Tiger" Now Available in Print** -- If
you've been waiting for a print version of Michael E. Cohen's "Take
Control of Syncing in Tiger"[31], your wait is over. Our final test
copies came back successfully from QOOP and look great, so you can
now place an order. Because pricing is based on page count, this
135-page book costs $12 for black-and-white or $33 for color. As
before, to access the print-on-demand ordering link, click the Check
for Updates button in your copy of the ebook. You can learn more and
see pictures[32] of what the print-on-demand copies look like. Let
us know what you think!
[31]<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-syncing.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0040-TB843-TCNEWS>
[32]<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/print-on-demand.html?14@@!pt=TRK-TB843-TCNEWS>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/21-Aug-06
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Visual Basic a Casualty of Processor War** -- Matt Neuburg's article
about the demise of Microsoft's Visual Basic on the Mac spurs
discussion of the utility of Visual Basic and Virtual PC. 32
messages[33]
[33]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/918/>
**Leopard wish list** -- Did Apple's preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
fulfill your wishes for the next version of the operating system?
TidBITS readers share and debate their own ideas. 43 messages[34]
[34]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/919/>
**iTunes Server** -- It's one thing to share a common set of music
files from one computer using iTunes, but what if each person
accessing it wants their own playlists and song ratings? 4
messages[35]
[35]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/920/>
**Retrospect to DVD - what write speed do you get?** The type of DVD
media you use for backups can affect the write performance in
Retrospect. 8 messages[36]
[36]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/921/>
**Recovering audio from aging CD-Rs** -- Remember all those audio CDs
you burned several years ago? They might not be holding up well over
time. How do you get the audio off of them? 5 messages[37]
[37]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/922/>
**AOL Drops Fees, Offers 5 GB Free Storage** -- Glenn Fleishman's
article on AOL's new pricing prompts some ruminating on online video
and video iPod sales. 2 messages[38]
[38]<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/915/>
$$
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