TidBITS#869/05-Mar-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/869>
Does your mouse not behave as you'd expect? It's probably not the
mouse itself, but Mac OS X's acceleration curve, which Apple changed
from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X - Parrish Knight explains what's going on
and how to retrain your mouse to track your movements more
appropriately. Also this week, Adam shares some surprising findings
about Internet surveys and looks at Picnik, a Web site that provides
most of iPhoto's image-editing features; Glen McAllister finds local
music performances using iConcertCal; and Glenn Fleishman celebrates
the expunging of the court case against security researcher Randal
Schwartz. We also note the release of Parallels Desktop Build 3186
(essentially, version 2.0), a security update for QuickTime, the
availability of Macworld Expo session videos and audio files, and a
new estimate of the number of Mac OS X users (22 million!).
Articles
ExtraBITS Transitions to TidBITS Publishing System
QuickTime 7.1.5 Patches Panther, Tiger, XP, Vista Exploits
Parallels Desktop 2.0 Ships
New Interviews with Adam and Joe
22 Million Mac OS X Users
Macworld Expo Sessions Available for Download
DealBITS Winners: Panergy's docXConverter Premium
Security Hacker Returned to Life
Lessons on Internet Surveys
iConcertCal: Your Gig-Going Pal
Picnik Duplicates iPhoto on the Web
Mac OS X's Mouse Acceleration Problem
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/05-Mar-07
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ExtraBITS Transitions to TidBITS Publishing System
--------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8895>
Those of you who read our breaking news items in ExtraBITS may have
noticed some changes this week. As part of the major overhaul to our
back-end, something we're calling the TidBITS Publishing System, we
can now make articles in our database available on our home page
(and in searches) before they appear in a TidBITS issue. In the
recent past, we did this by posting articles to a separate blog that
wasn't connected to our searchable article database. But until we
published the issue containing those articles, they wouldn't show up
in searches, and after we published them, they appeared twice on our
home page (once in the issue, once in ExtraBITS). It was functional,
but inelegant.
<http://www.tidbits.com/>
We're also working on a major redesign to our Web site, but until
that's complete, headlines to articles that haven't yet been mailed
out in a TidBITS issue will still appear on our home page in the
ExtraBITS space. I've also redirected the ExtraBITS RSS feed to our
main RSS feed, which now shows articles as they appear throughout
the week, rather than only after being mailed out. If you're
checking the main ExtraBITS Web page regularly or receiving its
articles via email, this will be its last post, and I'll eventually
redirect it back to the TidBITS home page.
<http://www.tidbits.com/channels/tidbits.rss>
QuickTime 7.1.5 Patches Panther, Tiger, XP, Vista Exploits
----------------------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8899>
Apple has released an update to QuickTime for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and
later, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. QuickTime 7.1.5 fixes numerous
bugs, along with a flaw that could enable a maliciously crafted file
to crash a program employing QuickTime or to allow arbitrary code
execution - a phrase that often means there's a potential for an
attacker to gain control of a computer or, at least, install
malware.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305149>
Affected file types are broad: 3GP videos, MIDI files, native
QuickTime movies, images in the venerable PICT file format, and QTIF
files. Apple's notes indicate that a user need only open a
maliciously crafted file, which means that Web sites could be used
to launch attacks by embedding QuickTime documents in the right
format.
There have been no reports of this flaw being exploited in the wild.
A previous QuickTime flaw related to handling of JavaScript was
exploited, notably on MySpace. Apple claims to have provided a
temporary fix to MySpace, but it's unclear if that fix has made it
into QuickTime 7.1.5.
<http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/375>
<http://news.com.com/MySpace+to+Apple+Fix+that+worm/2100-7349_3-6141031.html>
Parallels Desktop 2.0 Ships
---------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8891>
Parallels has now released the official update to the Parallels
Desktop virtualization software that began public beta testing at
the beginning of December 2006. Confusingly, the company doesn't use
normal version numbers (like "2.0," which this would be in
conventional terms), but the now-available Build 3186 is the first
version since Build 3036 three months ago that the company considers
a full, non-beta release. (Parallels advertises the build number on
the download page.)
<http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/>
Parallels hasn't added any major new features since we last reported
on the beta version (see "Parallels Desktop Ups the Ante,"
2006-12-04), but the company has enhanced and debugged the features
that were added then. One of the new features I'd mentioned as being
problematic in December was support for running a copy of Windows
installed on a Boot Camp partition directly within Parallels;
switching back and forth between the two modes of running Windows
previously prompted repeated requests to reactivate Windows. Now the
reactivation request should occur, at most, once.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8769>
Among the numerous other new features is Coherence, a mode in which
windows from Windows applications can intermingle with those from
Mac applications, and even get individual icons in the Dock;
Transporter, a tool for migrating an existing installation of
Windows on a PC to Parallels; USB 2.0 support; an easy-to-use
Installation Assistant; and the capability to copy files and folders
between Windows and Mac OS X via drag-and-drop. Graphics performance
is improved, but Parallels does not yet offer 3D graphics support,
meaning that for now, users must still reboot using Boot Camp to
play graphics-intensive games, or use the beta version of Fusion,
VMware's competing virtualization environment, which has preliminary
3D support.
<http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/ga/features/>
<http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/>
The new version of Parallels Desktop is a free update for registered
users, who can obtain it either using the application's Help > Check
for Updates command or by downloading it manually. The installer
weighs in at 58 MB and can function as a 15-day free trial for those
who have not yet purchased the program. Parallels Desktop sells for
$80, but readers of "Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac"
receive a coupon for $10 off. The current version of that book
already covers the new features in Parallels, since it was released
after beta testing began.
<http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/windows-on-mac.html?14@@!pt=TB869>
New Interviews with Adam and Joe
--------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8898>
Tune in to the latest podcast interviews with TidBITS editors! At
Macworld Expo, Adam talked about the show announcements with host
Harris Fogel of Mac Edition Radio, and more recently, Joe spoke with
Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl Live (he's in the final third
of the 01-Mar-07 show).
<http://maceditionradio.com/index.php?module=Pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=3&pid=89>
<http://www.techbroadcasting.com/>
<http://techbroadcasting.com/podcasts/nightowl_070301.mp3>
22 Million Mac OS X Users
-------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8892>
We often wonder how many of us there are. While Apple occasionally
shares the number of active Mac OS X users, it has been a while
since the last update. Eight months ago in August 2006 at Apple's
Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs said there were 19
million active Mac OS X users. Keith Bachman, an analyst at Bank of
America Securities, now quotes a higher number in an AppleInsider
article: 22 million users of all versions of Mac OS X. Bank of
America Securities estimates an increase of 6 million Mac users
since the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in June 2005. It's also
highly likely that there are uncounted millions of users still using
Mac OS 9 and earlier.
<http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/07/live-from-wwdc-2006-steve-jobs-keynote/>
<http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2541>
Macworld Expo Sessions Available for Download
---------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8889>
At Macworld Expo in January, I delivered a session called "Graduate
from iMovie to Final Cut Pro" as part of the Users Conference track.
I thought it went pretty well, especially since public speaking
doesn't come naturally to me (but I'm working on it).
As I was leaving, one man asked if the presentation would be made
available online (and I'm sorry I didn't get your name, so I hope
you're reading this). My plan was to take my Keynote file, export it
as a movie, dump it into GarageBand, and re-do the session as a
voiceover that could be downloaded. Unfortunately, I haven't had
time to do that, but now I don't have to.
The folks at IDG have started a new service called Macworld Encore,
where you can download individual sessions as iPod-compatible
QuickTime video or audio files. The sessions aren't free, but
they're pretty reasonable: the Users Conference sessions (mine
included) each cost $5; the all-day Power Tools Conferences cost
$30; Mac IT tracks cost $7 apiece; Market Symposiums cost $15; and
the Hands-on Mac Labs cost $10. (A DVD-ROM containing everything is
also available for $300.)
<http://www.macworldencore.com/>
My session includes the audio (and it seems as if they tempered the
initial audio feedback we dealt with right at the beginning) plus
everything that was shown onscreen.
<https://www.macworldencore.com/online/menu.asp?event=1030&session=&disc=Disc%201&pid=US945&id=1642&year=All&sortChoice=4&stype=asc>
If you attended one of the paid conferences and weren't able to sit
in on a session you wanted to catch, this is an inexpensive way of
getting it; and if you weren't able to make it to Macworld Expo at
all, a few individual downloads are much cheaper than a trip to San
Francisco would have been.
DealBITS Winners: Panergy's docXConverter Premium
-------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8890>
Congratulations to Paul Schreiber of paulschreiber.com and Derrick
Yamaura of axionet.com, whose entries were chosen randomly in last
week's DealBITS drawing and who received a copy of Panergy's
docXConverter Premium, worth $29.95. All entrants received a 20
percent discount on docXConverter. Thanks to the 488 people who
entered this DealBITS drawing, and we hope you'll continue to
participate in the future!
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8876>
<http://www.panergy-software.com/products/docxconverter/index.html>
Security Hacker Returned to Life
--------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8886>
Randal Schwartz was too curious for his own good. As a contractor at
Intel in Oregon in the early 1990s, he poked and prodded a bit too
much, especially in the area of demonstrating how poorly chosen -
how weak - many account passwords were in the groups he worked for.
Schwartz is best known as an expert in the programming language Perl
that is widely used for Web applications alongside later arrival
PHP. (In fact, big hunks of TidBITS are now powered by Perl.)
Most system administrators view testing passwords for strength as
one of many tests to ensure that a network and its associated
computers are resistant against infiltration and compromise.
However, disputes in the manner by which Schwartz ran his
password-cracking tests and the permission he had to do so led to
him being released from Intel, charged with a computer crime under
Oregon law, and convicted of three felonies. He also had to pay
restitution to Intel and a large pile of legal costs - hundreds of
thousands of dollars in all.
Those convictions have now been expunged, and I'm happy to spread
the word. On 01-Feb-07, a court ordered that due to "the
circumstances and behavior of the defendant since the date of
conviction" and his completion of all provisions required of him,
his conviction and arrest are to be removed from the record. In the
words of the order, "the defendant...shall be deemed not to have
been previously convicted or arrested."
The conviction was a travesty of justice, one that I'm not convinced
would have been upheld by Oregon's Supreme Court or higher courts.
The judge noted in one part of the trial that the law appeared to
characterize changing the background color of a computer's operating
system display as a crime. (An appeal in 2001 resulted in a mixed
bag of results.) And I don't believe anyone has been prosecuted
since in Oregon in a remotely similar manner.
The PDF of the expungement order can be found at the Friends of
Randal Schwartz site, which has extensive archives of public
statements on the matter by those involved, which make it pretty
clear that Intel was running the prosecution, and that Schwartz was
convicted partly on the basis of police recollection of one
conversation while his home was being searched.
<http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/>
Schwartz never said he acted intelligently in the matter. He was
read his rights by the police during a quasi-raid of his premises,
and he spoke without a lawyer present. He had been asked multiple
times to not run cracking software and to turn off software that
allowed him remote access for various purposes. And he held off
reporting the flaws he found for so long that it looked like he was
hiding something.
But I have long maintained the prosecution was pretty much a farce.
Schwartz had no criminal intent and the "restitution" he paid Intel
was for them to fix problems that existed before he demonstrated
them. In fact, Intel would have paid a huge price had criminal
crackers gained access to their systems; they probably should have
paid Schwartz a bonus rather than trying to get him put in the
pokey.
Schwartz never served jail time. In fact, the judge in the case was
remarkably sympathetic to him but had to follow existing law. But he
was, until a few weeks ago, a felon, and that's a cross to bear in
the post-9/11 world. As an internationally recognized
program-language expert, Schwartz's ability to work on certain
government and corporate contracts was restricted, and traveling
outside the United States was quite difficult.
I met Schwartz through Geek Cruises's first Mac Mania cruise, a
great week spent with lots of Mac writers I had long known or wanted
to meet, and a fantastic set of attendees. Schwartz has been on
every Geek Cruise, a sort of vocational hobby of his now, a fact I
accidentally confirmed at Macworld Expo with CEO and "Captain" Neil
Bauman, who runs the conference series.
<http://www.geekcruises.com/>
<http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/Pictures/Trips/2002/02-05-MacMania/>
On the last day of the cruise, as we waited to get called to
disembark, Schwartz sat in the lounge from which we had Wi-Fi access
to a slow Internet connection explaining to people how they were
sending their passwords in the clear over the Wi-Fi connection - and
he would tell them a snippet of their password to prove it. It was a
startling wake-up call to those present, and an ironic callback to
what led to his difficulties in the first place.
A few years ago, Schwartz asked me if I, along with a number of
other people, would write a letter to the then-outgoing governor of
Oregon asking for a pardon. In it, I described Schwartz's consistent
white-hat behavior, his generosity with his time, and his strict
adherence to the terms set at his sentencing. The governor declined
to issue a pardon, but as I wrote at the time, Schwartz demonstrably
never had any intent to cause harm, only to improve security, and
erred only in violating company policies. There was never any proof
- nor any needed under Oregon law, unfortunately - that Schwartz
obtained any information he wasn't intended to have, either.
I'm delighted that Schwartz has been rendered unconvicted. And I
wrote this article in part to spread the word, in part to note how
easy it could be to be charged and convicted of a computer crime for
actions that may not seem problematic at the time, and in part to
file this brief with Google - so that Schwartz's name is associated
more with the absence of a conviction than the presence of one.
Lessons on Internet Surveys
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8894>
We've been watching the results of our reader survey roll in, with
over 2,800 responses so far. You can still vote, but I can likely
predict how you'll vote, based on current responses. In fact, the
percentages of certain answers have been stable since the first few
hours of the survey.
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/?displaySurvey@@.3c8dc29b>
This fact - that not much data is necessary to draw accurate
conclusions - goes against the strongly held belief among many
survey professionals that a high response rate is necessary. In
fact, for a proposed survey to win a federally funded grant, one of
the most important criteria is a predicted high response rate, and
media pollsters performing quick surveys seldom report their
response rates because they're so low. But according to Dr. Jon
Krosnick of Stanford University, that belief turns out to be wrong,
something that researchers are just coming to realize.
<http://communication.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick.html>
Dr. Krosnick spoke last week as part of a speaker series organized
by the Cornell University Survey Research Institute, and although
Tonya and I felt somewhat out of place in a room of academics, we
were pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Krosnick's talk engaging and
accessible even to those of us who have no formal training in
surveying or statistics. If you're extremely interested in the
topic, I encourage you to listen to the talk (26.6 MB MP3); for the
rest of us, I thought I'd offer a quick summary of the non-intuitive
lessons Dr. Krosnick imparted and a few other facts of interest to
anyone who has been asked to complete a survey in person, over the
telephone, or on the Internet.
<http://www.sri.cornell.edu/>
<http://www.sri.cornell.edu/sri/files/Krosnick_Lecture.mp3>
1. Telephone interviews are not good substitutes for face-to-face
interviews. They've become commonplace because their lower cost -
between $1.50 and $6 per minute per respondent, compared with up to
$1,000 for an hour-long face-to-face interview, once you factor in
hiring and training interviewers, travel time, and so on. However,
when examined on a number of scales, telephone interviews turn out
to be significantly less accurate than face-to-face interviews.
2. As much as telephone interviews aren't great, mailed paper
questionnaires suffer from even worse accuracy. The thought is that
people tend to whip through questionnaires too quickly, thus
reducing their accuracy (in one telephone versus questionnaire
survey comparison that asked pilots about dangerous experiences,
those pilots who completed the paper survey rated their answers as
less accurate than those who were interviewed on the phone, and
remembered fewer dangerous incidents). The attraction of paper
surveys is that they're cheap, but it turns out that once "the
Dillman method" of sending reminders and multiple copies is
employed, the cost savings over telephone interviews are minimal.
3. I've already noted the third lesson - that low response rates
aren't nearly as much of a problem as previously thought. That's a
good thing, because Dr. Krosnick noted that telephone survey
response rates are dropping precipitously; one ongoing survey that
has traditionally had high response rates is seeing them drop by a
half of a percent per month.
4. Computer-based surveys turn out to be significantly more accurate
than telephone surveys, perhaps because people subconsciously
consider computers to be more human than a stranger on the phone.
Plus, with computer-based surveys, if questions are asked one at a
time, respondents can think about their answers without having the
social awkwardness of telephone silence. There's also some thought
that people are more honest when not speaking directly to another
person. The lesson here is that computer-based surveying over the
Internet is big business already, and will only get bigger as it
takes over for telephone and questionnaire surveys.
5. The problem faced by most Internet surveys is that they seldom
rely on a random sampling of respondents. Most Internet survey firms
recruit users in a way that can easily lead to non-random groups
providing results that are less accurate than those from a truly
random sample. Apparently, there's only one Internet surveying firm
employing true random sampling - a company called Knowledge
Networks, and in a test of a number of Internet survey firms and a
well-regarded telephone survey firm, Knowledge Networks's results
were overall more accurate than any others. In fact, Knowledge
Networks goes so far as to provide panelists with an MSN TV Web
browser and Internet connection if necessary. In contrast, many
other firms rely on people who want to earn money taking surveys,
and as with so many other things on the Internet, it's easy for
these people to misrepresent themselves in order to participate in
more lucrative surveys. Unfortunately, properly done Internet
surveys end up being roughly comparable in cost to telephone
surveys, though it would seem that costs could drop.
<http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/>
**A Novice's Conclusion** -- We found Dr. Krosnick's talk utterly
fascinating, and although we didn't have time to chat with him
beyond the Q&A session at the end, it would seem that some
conclusions could be drawn from his lessons about the kind of
Internet polls and surveys we see so frequently.
First, although there is absolutely no disagreement that a random
sample is ideal, the difference in accuracy was not huge. When
applied to a question that is likely to have relatively divergent
answers (such as the age of TidBITS readers), useful conclusions can
easily be drawn without worrying that a self-selected sample would
be horribly biased in one direction. Attempting to distinguish
between answers separated only by a percentage point or two wouldn't
be possible, though.
Second, even if the response rate isn't huge, that wouldn't seem to
make much of a difference. We might end up with a response rate of
less than 10 percent in our survey, but the added accuracy gained by
a larger response rate certainly wouldn't be worth harassing you all
multiple times to answer our questions. Just how small that rate can
be isn't entirely clear, but single digits don't appear to be a
major problem.
Third and finally, unlike a survey gauging national voting plans,
most Internet polls don't attempt to use the results to predict the
future, nor are the results likely to affect the future actions of
other people. I can't quite put in words why this seems like a
relevant difference, but it's related to the goal of the survey. If
I learn what percentage of TidBITS readers regularly play computer
games (28 percent), I can use that information when considering what
articles to write, but I can't see the publication of this fact
causing people either to start or stop playing games. However,
compare that to surveys that ask who you plan to vote for in the
next election; your answer has the power to help sway the opinions
of other voters.
And in that thought is where I think the answer to decreasing
response rates lies. Surveys can be intrusive and badly timed, but
if it's reasonable to complete them, they should be seen as a way of
spreading your opinions to the rest of the world. It's the same
reason I don't mind using grocery store shopper cards; I know
they're tracking my purchases, and I want the fact that I'm buying
more organic and less processed food to be recorded prominently. So
the next time you're polled, consider it a chance not just to be
counted, but also perhaps to nudge the world in the direction you
want.
iConcertCal: Your Gig-Going Pal
-------------------------------
by Glen McAllister <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8888>
Until recently, I haven't been a regular visitor to Apple's Mac OS X
Downloads page, but after coming across their latest featured
download, I may make a point of checking more often. The program in
question was a nifty iTunes plug-in called iConcertCal, which
generates a personalized calendar of concert dates based on artists
in your iTunes music library and your location.
<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/>
<http://www.iconcertcal.com/>
After installing the plug-in and (re-)launching iTunes, iConcertCal
appears as an alternative to the normal iTunes visualizer. Choose
View > Visualizer > iConcertCal, and then activate the Visualizer by
choosing View > Turn on Visualizer (or press Command-T). Enter your
city, state (or country for those outside the United States), and a
radius (in miles) from that city (it's not inherently obvious that
you can type in those fields, but you can).
Once it knows your location, iConcertCal generates - within the
iTunes window itself - an iCal-like calendar of concerts in venues
within the area. What's truly neat is that it displays only concerts
from artists already in your iTunes library. The calendar is
generated by feeds from live music sites such as JamBase and is
updated weekly. Clicking a concert link in the side list of upcoming
shows or in the calendar itself takes you to the show's entry on
JamBase. Pressing Command-T returns iTunes back to the normal view.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-03/iConcertCal.jpg>
<http://www.jambase.com/>
If you're interested in concerts by artists whose music you don't
already own, you can tell iConcertCal to expand its search by
putting those missing artists' names in a text file called
"iConcertCalOtherBands.txt" in ~/Library/iTunes/iConcertCal (one
artist per line). It's more likely that you'll have songs from
artists who you'd never want to see live (imagine the free weekly
downloads from the iTunes Music Store; you might like a song well
enough to keep it, but not well enough to attend a concert by that
artist). To restrict iConcertCal's searches, create a playlist - it
can even be a smart playlist - called "iConcertCal" that contains
just those artists you want to see.
iConcertCal is only as good as its data source, which sometimes
disappoints. It failed to report a scheduled concert I'm keen on
attending - The National at London's Astoria on 22-May-07, which is
by no means a low-profile show. However, you can join JamBase and
add both artists and shows and, if accepted, they will show up next
time your (and everyone else's) calendar is updated for that
location. Then you will have the pleasure of making an already cool
thing even cooler for everyone.
<http://www.americanmary.com/>
[While editing Glen's article, I decided to see if adding an artist
to JamBase was onerous, and I'm pleased to say that it wasn't. So
hopefully JamBase will start reporting shows by my current favorite
jazz group, the New York City-based Dave's True Story. -Adam]
<http://www.davestruestory.com/>
iConcertCal is a universal binary requiring Mac OS X 10.3 or later
in conjunction with the (encouraged) latest version of iTunes. There
is also a Windows version. You can download the 340K installer from
Mac OS X Downloads or the product's own page. It is freeware, but
you can make PayPal donations on the iConcertCal site. I've already
done so!
[Glen McAllister is a licensed busker on the London Underground and
freelance IT consultant.]
<http://www.myspace.com/iamgam>
<http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/arts/busking/>
Picnik Duplicates iPhoto on the Web
-----------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8887>
For an impressive example of what can be done in a Web application
these days, check out Picnik, an online photo site that provides -
almost exactly - the same set of editing features as Apple's iPhoto,
and some of iPhoto's sharing capabilities. Picnik offers, in its
Edit tab, tools to auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, adjust exposure,
tweak colors, sharpen images, and remove red-eye. There's also a
Creative Tools tab that provides special effects such as making a
photo black-and-white or sepia, boosting color, softening the image,
and applying either a matte or vignette effect. The controls are
obvious and easy to use, and Picnik provides unlimited undo. You
don't even have to feel constrained to the browser window; click the
Picnik name in the upper left of the window to make the Picnik
window full screen.
<http://www.picnik.com/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-02/picnik-interface.jpg>
Photos can be brought in from your account on the online photo
sharing site Flickr, from your computer, from any Web site, from
Yahoo or Flickr searches, and even from a webcam. And when you're
done editing, you can save photos to Flickr, send it to someone via
email, save it to your Mac, email it to a Web site (useful for
sharing to Ceiva picture frames; see "Ceiva and the Mac,"
2005-02-14, for more on that), or print the photo on your own
printer. I don't see any options for ordering prints from a service
yet, but perhaps the assumption is that you'd do that via Flickr and
their printing partner QOOP for now.
<http://www.flickr.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7985>
(To get Picnik working with an iSight camera, Control-click or
right-click in the Picnik window, choose Settings, click the little
video camera on the right side of the bottom icons, and choose
either USB Video Class Video for internal iSight cameras or IIDC
FireWire Video for external iSights from the pop-up menu; you may
have to try choosing it several times.)
The most amusing part of Picnik? Cute little messages, like
"Painting sky" or "Buttering sandwiches," appear when certain more
lengthy operations are taking place. It's a nice touch.
Picnik's performance was extremely sprightly, and I didn't feel as
though using Picnik within OmniWeb was problematic. It did crash
OmniWeb once, but it is still in beta. Picnik recommends Mac OS X
running on a Mac with a 1 GHz or faster processor; a relatively
recent Web browser and Adobe Flash 9 are also required.
During its beta phase, Picnik is free, and they promise the basic
editing capabilities will remain free after launch, when there will
be a for-fee premium version with advanced editing, more tools, and
additional features. For now, I suspect most Mac users will think
iPhoto is easier and more powerful than Picnik, given that iPhoto is
a full-fledged application integrated into Mac OS X. But Picnik's
tight integration with Flickr may cause it to be more interesting to
those who use Flickr heavily, and it's possible that being a
Web-based application may enable Picnik to evolve much more quickly
than iPhoto, which Apple updates approximately once per year.
Mac OS X's Mouse Acceleration Problem
-------------------------------------
by Parrish S. Knight <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8893>
As wonderful as Mac OS X is, it has a grave defect that can have an
immediate adverse impact on the computer's usability: the way it
translates mouse motion into pointer movement. For many users,
moving the mouse feels unnatural because of the peculiar way that
Mac OS X performs that translation. In industry parlance, the
translation is called the "mouse acceleration curve." What is a
mouse acceleration curve, and how is its implementation problematic
under Mac OS X?
**Speedy Gonzales** -- Mouse movement cannot be translated into
pointer movement at a simple one-to-one ratio. If it were, you'd
need to move the mouse 17 inches (43 cm) across your desk to move
the pointer across the diagonal of a 17-inch monitor. That would be
highly impractical because you'd need a tremendous amount of space
to move the mouse around, and your arm would tire quickly. (Either
that, or you'd have to constantly pick the mouse up and put it back
down, which would also be both tedious and wearisome, though
possibly amusing to watch.)
Can you compensate by increasing the ratio so that, say, the pointer
moves three inches for every inch the mouse moves? That simply
trades one problem for another one. For example, on most displays,
even at lower resolutions, the centers of the close and minimize
buttons at the top of a standard window are typically about .25
inches (6.4 mm) apart (at higher resolutions, it's even less than
that). With a three-to-one pointer-to-mouse movement ratio, then,
you'd have to move your mouse about .125 inches (3.2 mm), no more,
no less, to move from the center of the close button to get to the
center of the minimize button. That's roughly the thickness of three
credit cards. Moving a mouse with such precision is difficult for
most people, and if it were regularly required, it would make the
computer cumbersome to use. So a simple "X-to-one" acceleration
ratio won't work because if the value of X were too low, you'd still
need lots of space to move the mouse around, but if the value of X
were too high, precise pointer movement would be impossible.
The solution is for the operating system to use both concepts: a
higher X-to-one ratio for faster mouse movement, enabling the user
to move the pointer across the screen quickly with little use of
desk space, and a lower X-to-one ratio for slower mouse movement,
enabling the user to move the pointer precisely without needing to
be fantastically precise in moving the mouse.
With this solution in place, users get the best of both worlds. If a
user is moving the mouse very slowly - say, doing detailed work
touching up a photo - the mouse-to-pointer ratio might be one-to-one
(or even less than one-to-one), enabling precision movement with
ease. Conversely, if the user then starts to move the mouse more
quickly, wanting to jump to the other side of the screen, the
X-to-one ratio changes dynamically, increasing as the user continues
to increase the mouse's speed, until it reaches the other end of the
X-to-one ratio, which might be as much as nine- or ten-to-one.
Finally, as the user instinctively starts to slow the mouse down as
the pointer nears the desired target, the operating system reverses
the process, gradually decreasing the ratio once more and enabling
the user to place the pointer precisely at the desired spot. (The
math behind all of this is quite complicated. You may never look at
your mouse the same way again.) The whole process makes it possible
for the user to move the pointer from the photo he's touching up in
the lower left of the screen to an icon in the upper right of the
screen by moving the mouse only a short distance.
If you were to take a sheet of graph paper and create a standard X-Y
coordinate system - remember high school algebra? - with X
representing the speed of the pointer and Y representing the speed
of the mouse, and then map the ratio conversion process onto that
graph, you'd end up with a sloping line, moving upward at first, and
then flattening out with greater values of X. This line is called
the "mouse acceleration curve."
**Sharp Curves Ahead** -- So what's wrong with Mac OS X's mouse
acceleration curve? Simply put, it's the wrong shape. For mouse
motion to feel natural (at least for most people), the curve has to
start by moving upward fairly moderately, then gradually flattening
out as the value of X increases. Mac OS X's, curve, however, starts
off by being too steep, staying too steep for too long, and then
flattening out too abruptly. In practical terms this means that,
frequently, as a user tries to use the mouse to move the pointer
from point A to point B, the pointer motion feels sluggish. The user
then tries to compensate for the sluggishness by moving the mouse
faster, and the pointer suddenly goes flying across the screen and
overshoots point B. A comfortable and useful curve is actually
shaped like a curve. Mac OS X's curve, however, is shaped more like
a cliff.
It wasn't always this way. Under Mac OS 9 and earlier, the curve was
different and provided more natural mouse behavior. Then, for some
reason, Apple apparently decided to fix something that wasn't broken
and changed the curve. They made no announcement of the change and,
to the best of my knowledge, it does not appear anywhere in their
technical documentation. (Microsoft, conversely, explains how the
Windows XP mouse acceleration curve works on a publicly accessible
Web page.) For this reason, most people don't know about the change
and are wondering "why the mouse feels funny" because they don't
understand the esoteric details of the mouse acceleration curve.
(And who can blame them? It's anything but simple arithmetic!)
I was one such person myself for quite some time, experimenting with
different mice and a variety of mouse pads and other surfaces,
trying to figure out how I could get the mouse to "work right
again." It was only after many months of Googling on a variety of
search terms that I finally found out about acceleration curves and
learned that Apple had quietly changed theirs. I was fortunate in
that I had several years of experience with the Classic Mac OS that
told me there actually was something that needed to be fixed. People
who have only started using the Mac in more recent years have no
such advantage.
The unnatural motion of the new curve is troublesome for many users.
User "Sludge" on the MacSlash Web site, for example, complains, "I
can't believe how horrible mice feel on OS X compared to XP and
Linux/XFree86." Scott Moschella of PlasticBugs.com opines, "[T]he
mouse acceleration...makes OS X's mouse tracking feel like you're
mousing through mud," referring to how the low end of the curve is
too steep for too long.
Of course, not all users have this complaint. Some say they actually
prefer the new pointer behavior, and some even claim they don't
notice any difference. For those who do have trouble with the new
curve, though, it's highly problematic - often in ways beyond just
the difficulty in getting the pointer to move to the desired
location.
When mouse movement feels unnatural, the user may subconsciously try
to use hand and wrist muscles to compensate. At best, that's
uncomfortable. At worst, it can be painful. In my own case, my wrist
starts to cramp after only a moment or two. After about 20 minutes,
most of my forearm is in extreme pain, and I have to stop using the
mouse altogether.
Over time, users with this type of difficulty using the mouse can
suffer from the permanent damage known as an RSI (repetitive stress
injury). I am one such sufferer. An anonymous user on MacSlash rails
about "the RSI-inducing unpredictable madness that is the Mac mouse
acceleration curve." And on LifeHacker.com, user "PhotoHobo"
complains, "One of my biggest annoyances with OS X is the horrible
mouse acceleration. As someone who is constantly battling RSI, I
find this intolerable." Web searches find a number of other users
voicing similar opinions and having similar difficulties.
**Realigning Your Curves** -- So the problem is certainly real and
immediate - at least for some of us - but can anything actually be
done about it? There is no setting in Mac OS X itself to modify the
acceleration curve. Sometimes, well-meaning users suggest modifying
the Tracking Speed setting in the Keyboard & Mouse pane in System
Preferences, but that doesn't provide a complete solution. The
problem isn't speed, per se, but the acceleration curve. Changing
the tracking speed does not change the shape of that curve. It just
makes the whole curve smaller or larger, rather like using a
telephoto lens (or a wide angle lens) to take a photograph of the
same cliff from the same location.
Apple has left a void, then, in Mac OS X's settings. Fortunately,
many third parties have tried to fill that void, and most do the job
quite admirably. For example, several mouse manufacturers, such as
Kensington, include their own mouse drivers and software that can be
configured to override Mac OS X's mouse acceleration curve. The only
drawback is that the software is usually specific to the hardware.
For those who already have mice that they don't wish to replace,
there are other solutions, each with advantages over the others.
MouseFix (freeware) is a simple program that changes some of the
numbers used in Mac OS X's mouse driver in an attempt to make the
curve more natural. However, it can be difficult to install for the
non-technically inclined, and its presets are not customizable.
<http://www.knockknock.org.uk/mac/>
USB Overdrive ($20) is shareware with no trial period, and it offers
an extensive variety of options for configuring mouse behavior, as
well as the behavior of other USB devices. You can even configure it
so that the mouse will behave differently depending on which
application you're using. Its chief drawback, as the name implies,
is that it supports only USB devices - if you use a Bluetooth mouse,
you're out of luck. (The author, Alessandro Levi Montalcini, says
that Bluetooth support is coming, but offers no time frame.)
<http://www.usboverdrive.com/>
SteerMouse ($20) is also shareware that offers a wide variety of
customization options for mouse behavior, and unlike USB Overdrive,
SteerMouse supports Bluetooth mice. Its main disadvantage is that it
was designed with Apple's Mighty Mouse in mind - it does work with
other mice, but support may be more limited. Also, the trial period
is only 15 days, which may not be long enough to fully explore the
software, because finding the most comfortable settings can take a
while. I ultimately chose USB Overdrive over SteerMouse for this
reason. SteerMouse expired before I became comfortable with it,
whereas USB Overdrive, having no expiration date, afforded me ample
opportunity to find the mouse settings that worked best for me.
<http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/>
Hopefully, Apple will realize that changing the mouse acceleration
curve was a mistake and revert to the old one. Better yet would be
to add a setting to the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane to enable
the user to configure the acceleration curve as well as the speed.
The likelihood of that is anyone's guess, but in the meantime, we
can save our hands, our wrists, and our sanity by having a clear
understanding of what the problem is and working around it with
third-party solutions.
Mac OS X, as we all know, is the Ferrari of operating systems.
Unfortunately, the steering has a design defect, but with a little
mechanical effort, we can modify it while we're waiting and hoping
for the engineers to recognize the problem and fix it.
[Parrish S. Knight is a systems administrator for an IT consulting
firm in the greater DC area. His interests include politics, film,
fantasy, and science fiction. In addition to getting the word out
about Mac OS X's mouse problems, his causes include activism in
autistic advocacy and civil liberties.]
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/05-Mar-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8897>
**Safari RSS problem** -- Here's a tip if Safari's RSS feeds don't
seem to be updating regularly. (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1158/>
**Encrypted e-mail question** -- A question leads to a great summary
of how encrypted email works. (8 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1159/>
**Frequent Tech Questions (Was: How much to quote?)** -- Technical
questions come up all the time, but it's expected that people should
do a little searching for answers on their own, first. But what do
you do when an answer isn't easy to find? Readers discuss creating
different resources. (11 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1160/>
**Unofficial Daylight Saving Time Workaround for Entourage X** --
Microsoft Office X isn't being updated for this year's changed
Daylight Saving Time date, but here's a workaround for users of
Entourage X. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1161/>
**iPhone "Hello"** -- Apple's first television commercial for the
iPhone (which doesn't include the word "iPhone") was broadcast
during the Oscars. Was it successful? (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1163/>
$$
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