TidBITS#875/16-Apr-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/875>
The big news this week is that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard won't make its
appearance until October 2007, so that Apple can focus on the
iPhone. We have details and reactions from prominent Mac users.
Apple also bagged attention by unveiling Final Cut Studio 2, which
includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3,
and a new application for video professionals, Color. Not to be
outdone, Adobe announced that Creative Suite 3 is now shipping and
made beta versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects available. We
also note the AirPort Extreme N Firmware 7.1 Update and the Nisus
Writer Pro public beta, plus look at some possible future
technologies for batteries, displays, and networking. Lastly, can we
have the car keys? TidBITS turns 17 today!
Articles
Leopard Pushed to October 2007
Apple Announces Final Cut Studio 2, Final Cut Server
AirPort Extreme N Firmware 7.1 Update
Adobe Ships Creative Suite 3, Offers Video Betas
Nisus Writer Pro Released to Public Beta
FutureBITS: Sweet Batteries, Faster P2P, Nanofiber Displays
The Mystery of the Leopard Ship Date: Solved
TidBITS Turns 17
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/16-Apr-07
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Leopard Pushed to October 2007
------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8948>
Leopard will remain caged for a few more months. In a statement
released last week, Apple announced that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will
not be released until some time in October 2007. The delay is
attributed to the company's focus on getting the iPhone ready for
its June rollout, which required "borrowing some key software
engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team," according to
the statement. The iPhone reportedly remains on schedule, and those
of us who don't live and die by our cell phones are hoping that it
pays Leopard back with interest.
<http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070412/sfth056.html>
<http://www.apple.com/iphone/>
The statement notes that Apple planned to release Leopard at the
Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. Now, a "near final
version" will be shown at the conference and given to attendees for
last testing before release. It remains to be seen if previously
unannounced features will be added to Leopard in time for WWDC; as
we wrote in "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Previewed at WWDC 2006"
(2006-08-07), "Jobs offered overviews of ten new or improved
features to be found in Leopard, and coyly referred to other 'top
secret' features that weren't going to be shown..." Certainly, the
delay provides Apple additional time to implement and test new
features, along with those already announced.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8632>
For reactions to the news, see "The Mystery of the Leopard Ship
Date: Solved" (2007-04-16) and the thoughtful comments in TidBITS
Talk.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8951>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1241/>
Apple Announces Final Cut Studio 2, Final Cut Server
----------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8953>
Kicking off the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
conference this week, Apple reinvigorated its line of professional
video applications, which will collectively be bundled as Final Cut
Studio 2. The studio includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack
Pro 2, and Compressor 3; DVD Studio Pro 4 is also included, though
it hasn't been updated (perhaps because the high-definition DVD
format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD continues to rage). In
addition, Apple is including a new application, Color, which enables
professional color grading and adjustment.
<http://www.nabshow.com/>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/>
The studio will be available in May 2007 for $1,300; owners of Final
Cut Studio can upgrade for $500, while owners of any version of
Final Cut Pro or Production Suite can get the latest set for $700.
The applications are available only as part of the studio, and are
not sold separately.
Separately, Apple introduced Final Cut Server, a new application
designed to manage the massive amount of video and audio assets a
big project typically requires, and share that material with several
members of a team. Final Cut Server is priced at $1,000 for a
10-seat license or $2,000 for unlimited licenses; although that
sounds pricey, the crowd at NAB reportedly cheered about how
relatively inexpensive that is compared to other video production
costs. The software will be available sometime in the third quarter
("summer" in North America).
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutserver/>
**Final Cut Pro 6** -- The last major update to Final Cut Pro brought
native support for HDV video and multi-camera editing, but that was
two years ago, and editors have been waiting to see what Apple would
do next. (Re-engineering Final Cut Pro for Intel-based Macs accounts
for the two-year gap between versions 5 and 6.) The latest revision,
by contrast, appears to be geared toward making the Final Cut Studio
beefy enough to handle any job. Final Cut Pro 6 now features an open
format Timeline that can accept video in multiple formats and frame
rates. So, for example, you can easily combine 1080i HD, 720p HDV,
SD PAL at 25 frames per second (fps), SD NTSC at 30 fps, and SD NTSC
at 24 fps footage in the same project. A nice touch is a feature
that lets you drag a clip to a new project's Timeline to set the
default format, rather than defining the settings beforehand.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/whatsnew.html>
Final Cut Pro 6 also introduces Apple ProRes 422, a new format that
promises high video quality in small file sizes. During the Apple
announcement, the company demonstrated 1 TB of uncompressed HD video
converted to 170 GB of ProRes 422 video with no noticeable loss of
detail. This format is designed to speed up data transfers using an
Apple Xsan storage network, working with video on a laptop, or
dealing with non-native camera formats.
Other new features include a SmoothCam feature for smoothing out
shaky footage, and support for FxPlug filters and transitions, the
plug-in technology currently used in Motion.
The biggest overall change that will affect most editors is Final
Cut Pro's integration with other applications in the suite. For
example, clips can be sent from Final Cut Pro to Motion, and effects
created in Motion 3 can be edited live in Final Cut Pro, including
drop zones and text fields; changes are made in both applications.
**Color** -- Color is the result of Apple's acquisition of Silicon
Color's Final Touch, a professional tool for making color grade
adjustments to video. An editor can use Color to maintain consistent
color throughout multiple takes, or create a custom look throughout
a project; Apple used the Coen brothers movie "O Brother, Where Art
Thou," which features a rustic, washed out color palette, as an
example of the type of color grading that Color is capable of. (In a
Web interview, Joel and Ethan Coen note that this movie was the
first to be converted to a digital intermediate (DI) and then color
graded on the computer - though not using Color, of course.)
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/color/>
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/action/?movie=coenbrothers>
**Motion 3** -- Apple has added depth to its motion-graphics
application - as in, tools for making three-dimensional effects.
Motion 3's 3D multiplane environment gives designers the freedom to
place a camera anywhere and manipulate objects such as lights,
motion paths, particles, and other elements. Also new is point
tracking and match moving, enabling objects to follow an item in a
video clip; an example on the Motion 3 Web page shows a simulated
computer screen appearing in a car's in-dash GPS display.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/motion/>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/motion/?movie=matchmove>
A new paint tool lets users draw vector lines (such as with a
pressure-sensitive tablet) that can be rendered in a variety of
brush strokes or animated particles. Audio behaviors can trigger
effects based on sound frequencies; for example, a visible
distortion effect could kick in when the soundtrack reaches a
certain volume or pitch.
**Soundtrack Pro 2** -- Soundtrack Pro 2 features a revamped interface
that will be more familiar to editors accustomed to working in Final
Cut Pro, combining the Timeline with the Waveform Editor. It also
adds controls for manipulating 5.1 surround sound (which can be
played back faithfully in Final Cut Pro 6). Other improvements
include a Take Manager for combining different takes (such as from
dialog looping sessions), and a multi-point video HUD to make it
easier to place sound effects and other audio.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/soundtrackpro/>
As one might expect, Final Cut Studio 2 is a suite that will demand
power, especially in terms of graphics cards; check the system
requirements for minimum and recommended configurations.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs.html>
AirPort Extreme N Firmware 7.1 Update
-------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8946>
Just days after we published "Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort
Extreme Network," Apple released an extremely minor firmware upgrade
related to a pair of security issues with the AirPort Extreme Base
Station with 802.11n (Extreme N, as I call it).
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/airport-n.html?14@@!pt=TB875>
**Security Fixes** -- The 7.1 firmware release closes a hole in the
next-generation Internet Protocol technology that's built into the
Extreme N (and, for that matter, into Mac OS X). IPv6, as it's
known, will ultimately replace the well-known "dotted-quad" of the
current IPv4 addressing system. IPv6's 128-bit address space is
several orders of magnitude larger than the 32 bits allotted to
IPv4, and will be coupled with advances like automatic address
forwarding across routers that will provide truly mobile IP,
enabling your laptop to use a static IP address that's assigned and
managed by your home network no matter where you are.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305366>
However, IPv6 is currently in use only on certain corporate,
academic, and backbone networks. Researchers and others have erected
IPv6 tunnels that let you connect to IPv6 end-points over an IPv4
network. The Extreme N supports this feature out of the box - in
fact, too well. The factory configuration of the Extreme N turns on
tunneling. As Ars Technica documented, this would allow remote
connections over SSH and other services to computers on the local
network segment of the base station, even without the user's
knowledge. (A lot of factors are required for that to be true, but
because of tunneling, it's possible.)
<http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/2/14/7063>
Firmware Update 7.1 changes the factory default to block incoming
IPv6 connections. However, the upgrade doesn't change any existing
configurations, only configurations created if you hard reset the
unit to its factory settings.
Apple suggests you use AirPort Utility (Advanced view > IPv6 tab) to
enable Block Incoming IPv6 Connections. You could alternately choose
Link-Local Only from the IPv6 Mode, which limits IPv6 to the local
network, in which case only devices on the local network can route
IPv6 to and from the base station. Either choice prevents other
machines on the Internet from connecting. Make these changes and
click Update for each profile you have created for your Extreme N.
The other fix corrects a shared disk problem. The Extreme N enables
you to use AFP (commonly known as AppleShare) and Samba (technically
called SMB/CIFS) to share partitions of disks connected via USB to
the base station. The flaw Apple has patched would have allowed
volumes shared from an Extreme N using the disk password method of
access control to display their files to users who didn't have the
password.
In other words, if you don't use or plan to use USB disk sharing,
you can just change the IPv6 settings as I or Apple suggest and
avoid this upgrade.
**Updating with AirPort Utility** -- The update is a good chance to
see AirPort Utility 1.0.1's new internal update feature in action,
itself part of the AirPort Base Station Update 2007-001, released
29-Mar-07. With automatic updating, when you launch AirPort Utility
or choose AirPort Utility > Check for Updates, the program checks
Apple's site for new software.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportbasestationupdate2007001formac.html>
If there's an update, a dialog appears that states, "New base
station firmware is available." You can click Show Details for more
information, Cancel to exit (and later update), or Download.
Clicking Download starts an Internet download of any necessary files
with a progress bar explaining the file being retrieved. With
Firmware Update 7.1, that's the only file retrieved. After
retrieval, you click Update to install the software. The dialog
changes to a note that firmware is being installed on a particular
base station. It looks like the software would allow multiple
installations in sequence of any base station that required the new
firmware.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-04/apn_firmware_updates.jpg>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-04/apn_firmware_download.jpg>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-04/apn_firmware_updating.jpg>
Finally, when a base station has received the new firmware, it
restarts. The LED on the front glows a solid orange while the base
station burns the firmware into its rewritable persistent memory,
which took about two to three minutes in my case. Then the Extreme N
starts up normally.
To revert to 7.0 firmware, should you have a problem, you would need
to reinstall your original AirPort Utility software from the CD that
comes with the Extreme N. While Apple maintains a page of firmware
downloads, they haven't yet added the 7.0 or 7.1 release to this
page. I cover installing older firmware releases in "Revert to Older
Firmware" in Appendix C of "Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort
Extreme Network."
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75422>
Adobe Ships Creative Suite 3, Offers Video Betas
------------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8951>
Adobe's recently announced revisions to its flagship design,
Internet, interactivity, video, and page layout software
collectively sold as Creative Suite 3 (CS3) are now shipping (see
"Adobe Announces Creative Suite 3 Plans, Pricing, Dates,"
2007-04-02). The company said "April" for the first four of six
separate editions: Design and Web available in Standard and Pro
releases. The latter two editions, one containing all 13 Creative
Suite 3 programs, and the other focused on video editing and
production, will ship in the third quarter of 2007.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8930>
<http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/>
The revised line-up of programs now available are universal binaries
for Mac OS X, finally exploiting the power of Intel multi-core
processors. In a nice bit of what is perhaps not coincidental
timing, Apple last week announced the availability of eight-core
(two four-core processor) Mac Pro desktops (for details, see "Apple
Introduces Eight-Core Mac Pros," 2007-04-09).
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8941>
**Adobe Previews Video** -- Coinciding with this week's National
Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference, Adobe also released
betas of its forthcoming video editing and effects applications,
Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3 Pro. The former represents a
return to the Mac for Adobe's video editing application, which has
been Windows-only since 2003.
<http://nabshow.com/>
<http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/premierecs3/>
<http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/aftereffectscs3/>
At NAB, Adobe also showed off Adobe Media Player, software that
might be to video, Flash, and Web pages what the Acrobat Portable
Document Format (PDF) and Acrobat Reader have become to the printed
and previewed page. The Adobe Media Player will let designers create
offline media for later playback using formats typically designed to
be embedded in Web pages.
<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200704/041607AMP.html>
Adobe Media Player will allow subscriptions to video feeds, feedback
ratings of viewed videos, and other tools clearly designed for
narrowcasting and broadcasting video content - especially when you
read about the variety of advertising and branding features
available to content producers in the player. The free player will
be available later in 2007 as a beta and will ship before the end of
the year.
**Adobe vs. Microsoft** -- The Wall Street Journal is trying to stir
up a little action about competition between Adobe and Microsoft via
last weekend's article, "Microsoft, Adobe Set a Collision Course."
Of course, it's really Microsoft trying to challenge Adobe's
entrenched position with Flash and its creative applications, and
Adobe trying to counter Windows Media Player by leveraging Flash's
dominance for embedded video playback at YouTube and elsewhere.
<http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1306133125&pt=Y>
The article notes that Microsoft's Silverlight will work much like
Flash, and will work with Mac OS X and multiple browsers. Years of
experience in getting Windows Media Player to play nicely with
others isn't encouraging. Plus, Microsoft's Expression Studio is
hardly a CS3 competitor, lacking critical pieces, including a
Photoshop competitor, and the fact that some components of the suite
have been in beta for years gives one pause too.
<http://www.microsoft.com/expression/expression-studio/overview.aspx>
Microsoft has tried to beat Adobe before in areas that Adobe
dominates. The operating system and business suite giant wanted to
replace PDF with its own readers and interchange documents that
wouldn't require owning a copy of the creating application to view.
Needless to say, attempts made multiple times over several years by
Microsoft have resulted in no change in Acrobat's near-total
ownership of this task.
There are three reasons for this: Adobe has published its PDF
specification, allowing third parties (including Apple) to roll
their own compatible writers and readers; with the help of the
prepress industry, Adobe turned PDF into a final format for prepping
files to go on a printing press, rather than just a method to proof
a job; and Adobe doesn't particularly care what program creates a
PDF file, just that every program can create such files.
We don't see this as a fair fight: Adobe has won the hearts and
minds of graphic designers over more than two decades. Microsoft
doesn't stand a chance unless it delivers superior tools, not just
those that achieve parity in limited areas.
Nisus Writer Pro Released to Public Beta
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8955>
I used to be a huge fan of Nisus Software's Nisus Writer in the
classic Mac OS days. In fact, producing TidBITS each week relied on
a collection of Nisus Writer macros I'd written. But the program
never made the leap to Mac OS X, and when we moved to our new
issue-generation approach last year (see "Behind the TidBITS
Curtain," 2006-09-11), I no longer needed to run Nisus Writer in
Classic mode. Nisus had of course released Nisus Writer Express some
years before, but it was a pale shadow of the original Nisus Writer,
and all that makes me even happier to hear that they've now released
a public beta of Nisus Writer Pro for Mac OS X, the application
that's supposed to replace the original Nisus Writer.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8673>
<http://www.nisus.com/Express/>
<http://www.nisus.com/pro/>
Features new to Nisus Writer Pro from the Express version upon which
it's based include style-based table of contents generation;
indexing; bookmarks to locations within the document; cross
references to bookmarks, footnotes, and list items;
attribute-sensitive search and replace; floating images with text
wrapped around them; customized line numbering; widow and orphan
control; enhancements to the Nisus Macro Language; and greater
flexibility in footnote and endnote styling, along with footnotes
that can span multiple pages.
<http://www.nisus.com/pro/gallery2.php>
With the first release of Nisus Writer Pro, Nisus Software is
focusing on bringing back the much-missed functionality of the
classic Nisus Writer, which means that most of these features are
aimed at increasing the core word processing power of the
application. However, conversations I've had with the company over
the last few years lead me to believe that they're open to adding
features that will set Nisus Writer Pro apart from other current
word processors, such as built-in collaborative editing
capabilities. I'd also like to see Nisus Writer Pro support common
markup languages and be able to act as a front-end to blogs and
other Web publishing systems - it's essential that a modern word
processor be able to "print to the Web" as well as it can lay words
on paper. Similarly, another area Nisus Writer Pro could stand out
would be in generating truly good PDFs, complete with tables of
contents, PDF bookmarks, hot-linked references, and more.
Neither pricing nor release date has been determined, although Nisus
Software is aiming to release in "Spring 2007," which probably means
"before July." The Nisus Writer Pro public beta requires Mac OS
10.3.9 or later, with 10.4 or later required for full right-to-left
text support; it's a 40 MB download. Needless to say, there's no
tech support beyond a discussion forum, and this is beta software,
so you could lose data by using it (although it can auto-save every
minute, making it unlikely that you'd lose much work).
<http://www.nisus.com/pro/beta/>
<http://www.nisus.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=16>
FutureBITS: Sweet Batteries, Faster P2P, Nanofiber Displays
-----------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8947>
Predicting the future is a tricky thing, but as the late Macintosh
writer Cary Lu once noted, all the technology we'll see in products
in the next five years is being worked on in research labs today.
With Cary's remark in mind, I'm going to keep an eye out for news of
research projects that could affect our technological world. No
promises here - if I could identify those projects that will survive
to produce a paradigm-shifting product, I'd be a venture capitalist,
not a writer. But it's always fun to imagine what products could be
like if only they used...
**Sugar-Based Batteries** -- Bothered by batteries? Led by
electrochemist Shelley Minteer, researchers at Saint Louis
University have demonstrated a fuel cell battery that relies on
enzymes that convert sugar to energy, leaving behind water as the
main byproduct. Being the source of energy for most living
organisms, sugar is cheap and widely available, and although the
best source tested so far was normal table sugar (sucrose) dissolved
in water, glucose, flat soda, sweetened drink mixes, and even tree
sap have all been used successfully. Others have developed similar
sugar-based fuel cells, but Minteer claims hers is the most powerful
and longest lasting so far, and since power and longevity are the
key weaknesses of alternative power sources, the question will be if
both can be improved to the point where the sugar-based fuel cell
can power a cell phone, iPod, laptop, or other portable electronic
device. Just think, you could mix up a sugar solution, give half to
your iPod, and put the other half in a hummingbird feeder.
<http://www.slu.edu/x14605.xml>
**Faster P2P Downloading** -- Peer-to-peer file sharing is for more
than just copyright infringement - the technology is interesting for
how it distributes massive bandwidth loads widely among a large
population of users. Bandwidth may be cheap, but it's not free, and
sharing the load helps all users in the system. According to a news
release from Carnegie Mellon University, David G. Andersen of
Carnegie Mellon and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh
have developed a technique called "handprinting" that enables P2P
clients to locate similar, but not identical, chunks of data, and
they've used it in a new system called Similarity-Enhanced Transfer
(SET) that significantly outperforms the popular BitTorrent P2P
approach. Technology such as this could significantly ease Apple's
bandwidth bills for distributing massive software updates, such as
the 300+ MB 10.4.9 combo updater, or HD-quality video from the
iTunes Store. I could even imagine an approach where contributing
your bandwidth to help others download purchased content from the
iTunes Store would give you credits that you could apply toward
future purchases.
<http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/April/april10_set.shtml>
<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/papers/nsdi2007-set/>
**Flexible Nanofiber Displays** -- One of the limitations of modern
electronics is having a rigid, often highly breakable, display. Much
research is going into various ways to create flexible displays, but
the latest promising research comes from an interdisciplinary group
at Cornell University in the form of tiny - really tiny -
"nanolamps," or light-emitting nanofibers. The 200 nanometer-wide
fibers are actually smaller than the wavelength of the light they
emit, enabling extremely localized light sources. Hurdles abound:
getting the nanofibers to emit sufficiently bright light in the
necessary colors, being able to control the light emitting
properties of either individual nanofibers or sufficiently small
clumps to create addressable on-screen pixels, and ensuring that the
nanofibers offer sufficient durability and longevity. Fabrication is
always a concern as well, although the nanofibers were created
relatively simply using a technique called electrospinning. I
suspect Cornell's research is years from being used in a commercial
product, but we can still dream of having large screens attached to
the walls like tapestries, or small displays woven into clothing.
<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April07/electrospun.fibers.aj.html>
The Mystery of the Leopard Ship Date: Solved
--------------------------------------------
by Ace MacKenzie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8952>
[The scene fades in on a dark street. A man is slumped against a
streetlight, its yellow glow illuminating his rumpled suit and
battered fedora. He straightens, and as he walks off down the
sidewalk, subtly taking in his surroundings, he speaks in a low,
rough voice, hardened with frustration.]
Thursday night, and I had failed. I'd been working for a regular
client, a petite redhead who called me every so often. Sometimes
when she needed information. This job sounded easy - find out when
Apple Computer was going to release Leopard, the latest version of
their operating system. But getting sources to sing about Apple was
always hard. They lived scared - scared of losing jobs, contracts,
or more. I didn't blame them, since Apple kept its secrets better
than any company in the city and dealt harshly with anyone who
talked. Or rather, that was the word on the street. No one knew what
really happened to those who were caught squealing - they just went
away.
Apple was good, you had to give them that. Leopard itself wasn't a
secret, everyone knew it was coming, and Apple had even said, "in
the spring." But those in the know were saying it couldn't possibly
be spring, that Leopard just wasn't ready. Timing is everything in
this world, and my client wanted that inside information so she
could be first to market with a stable of books about Leopard. Smart
girl, and I hated to disappoint her. Word had just filtered out that
Apple had delayed Leopard until October, and everyone on the street
knew. I wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to her.
On my way to her office, I stopped for a whiskey at a bar I
frequent. It's near the university, but it's too dark and seedy for
the students. Frat boys sometimes come in loud groups, but they
don't stay long. It's not that sort of bar. I pulled up a barstool
next to a stranger who immediately introduced himself with the
friendly bravado of the Midwesterner. "Bruce Carter, Senior Systems
Engineer at the Center for Creative Computing at the University of
Notre Dame," he said.
<http://creativecomputing.nd.edu/>
"Nice to meet you, Bruce. You've heard about Leopard?" I was
fishing, but perhaps I could take something else back to my client.
"Yup. It doesn't affect us much, since when we were thinking it
would be a June release timeframe for Leopard, we were really on the
extreme far edge of our summer testing and deployment schedule. So
we had strategically decided to stay with Tiger for another year, on
existing equipment, for the studios and public computing areas."
He paused for a long drink of beer, and a regular customer sat down
on my other side. Andrew Laurence is a Systems Analyst at the
University of California, Irvine, and he occasionally helps me out
on jobs. He'd been listening to Bruce too and chimed in.
"Bruce is right. For those of us doing the managed deployments such
as staff desktops and labs, this is probably a relief more than
anything else. Such installations should be plotted out according to
budget schedules and are predicated more by the age of the old
equipment than something as ephemeral as an OS ship date. In these
cases, admins don't like to use the .0 release, but to wait for the
inevitable .n release that puts the ship back on an even keel. These
coordinated refreshes are usually done during summer, so the
procurement process takes place between April and June; you can
nudge it a bit, perhaps to take advantage of a software release, but
then you're committed to that release. A lab refresh might be
spurred by the requirements for a specific application, sometimes at
the faculty's insistence. In this case, that'd probably mean
something like Final Cut or CS3 - so if or when either of those
require Leopard, then a lab will refresh to follow."
I bought them both another beer, and settled back to listen as they
continued to explain. Academic computing guys like to talk.
Andrew continued. "So the delay means that Leopard won't upset the
labs, won't dislodge the desktop refresh plans, and that only the
eager beaver individual users will fall on the .0 sword. Sounds good
to me."
Bruce agreed, "This is actually better for most education calendars.
I doubt that very many, if any, educational customers were planning
to go to Leopard if it had shipped in June, and I equally assume
that there were many sighs of relief that we are not going to see an
equipment change in the middle of the summer that would require a
shift, at least of new machines, to 10.5. We really hate doing split
OS level deployments. We did it once with Tiger when new G5s came
with Tiger, and while doable, we don't like to manage that if we
don't have to. Now when I was using PLATO..."
I cut him off. Once guys like him get started on old computer
systems they've used, they don't stop. Don't get me wrong, I like
listening, and sometimes I even pick up details that help in cases.
But I didn't have that kind of time tonight. "So why's Apple doing
this?" I asked. "I mean, I know the statement said it was because
the iPhone project took resources needed for Leopard, but was that
wise?"
Andrew nodded. "Yes. Given Apple's newfound financial diversity with
the iPod and iTunes, I doubt it'll impact them much." He paused for
a quick drink, and Bruce jumped in.
"There is a lot of ranting about the iPhone getting preferential
treatment at the expense of Leopard, but delaying Leopard would seem
to make sense. Apple already has a solid OS out in Tiger, and
Leopard is likely to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It's
not like the delay is really leaving a void, at least from my
perspective of not knowing Apple's hardware rollout plans, whereas
delaying the iPhone would leave not only a large void, but would be
an even bigger PR crash."
I thanked them for the scuttlebutt and headed for the men's room. As
I was coming out, I bumped into a cheerful developer I know, Ken
Case of The Omni Group. Developers are careful about what they say,
since they know more and worry about Apple's wrath. But I asked him
if Leopard's delay was frustrating anyway.
<http://www.omnigroup.com/>
"Yes and no," he replied. "Leopard has a lot of great features that
we're really looking forward to taking advantage of in our products,
so it's hard to be patient for it to ship, and then, once it does
ship, it will be hard to be patient while our customers upgrade to
it."
I interrupted. "So how will you know when people have upgraded?"
He beamed at me. "We'll be keeping a close eye on
update.omnigroup.com, which tracks what version of Mac OS X our
customers are using among other things. If they choose to tell us,
of course." He looked pleased with himself, and continued. "But as
much as we're looking forward to Leopard, writing good software
takes time, and we're glad that Apple is taking the time to deliver
a quality product rather than rushing it out the door before it's
ready. I'm also glad that we'll get a chance to see a
feature-complete version of Leopard before it ships, so that we can
test our software with it before our customers start using it."
<http://update.omnigroup.com/>
Taking my leave, I headed back out into the night. Everyone I'd
spoken with so far was happy about the delay. I wondered if my
client would be equally happy. Or if she'd call again, given that I
hadn't produced the goods.
Walking toward her office in the business district, well away from
the rougher blocks where I spend most of my time, I passed Tekserve,
one of the few independent Mac stores left in the old part of town.
They were closed, but a dark figure was perched on the steps. I kept
him in the corner of my eye as I walked past. In my line of work,
you can't be too careful.
<http://www.tekserve.com/>
As I passed, the figure spoke my name. I turned quickly, sliding my
finger around the trigger of the warm steel in my pocket. It's not
always good when people identify me on the street. But my hand
relaxed as I recognized his silhouette. David Lerner, Tekserve's
owner. I sat down next to him. "What do you think?" I asked, knowing
that he'd understand instantly.
"I'm personally disappointed, because I was looking forward to Time
Machine." This wasn't surprising from a man who signs his email,
'May You have 1000 Backups and Never Need One.'
"From a business standpoint, the delay may actually be helpful,
because it separates the Adobe CS3 release from the OS update, and
removes the vagueness over when Leopard will ship. The upside is
that people who've been holding off buying new machines will
probably stop waiting, but the downside is that the expected sales
boost from Leopard will come in what's already our busiest time of
year instead of our traditionally slower summer months. It should
also mean that developers will really be ready with updates to their
applications that are fully compatible with Leopard, and even take
advantage of its new features. Like Time Machine."
I grunted agreement. We sat companionably on the step for a few more
minutes, staring at the darkness. "You need better lights out here,"
I said. He grunted back, and I said goodbye.
One more stop before I could go home and drown my sorrows. The light
was still on in my client's office, as I knew it would be. I
knocked, and let myself in. I could see instantly that she knew
everything, but if anything, she looked relaxed. I shrugged, and
told her what I'd learned about the responses from the education
market and from a developer, and how a retailer thought users would
react. She listened intently, her eyes locked on mine as I spoke.
When I finished, I said, "I expect you won't be needing my services
any more," and turned to go.
She stopped me at the door. "Wait. Sure, the cat's out of the bag,
or rather, it's still in the bag until October. And sure, like David
Lerner, I'm a little concerned about the cash flow during the
summer, since we were anticipating strong sales of our Leopard
titles." She paused, and I watched the decision about what to say
next flit across her pretty face.
"But honestly, I'm relieved," she went on. "We've got other projects
in the works, and the delay means I can take a summer vacation. I
haven't had a proper summer vacation in years." She looked up at me.
"Do you ever take vacations?"
I said that I didn't generally make a practice of it, but that I
wasn't opposed to the concept. She swallowed hard, and looking down
at the carpet, said that she might have some more work for me in a
few months.
"In the summer?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, straightening and again looking me in the face. "In
the summer."
TidBITS Turns 17
----------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8949>
Today marks the 17th anniversary of TidBITS, which we've published
continuously since 1990. On previous anniversaries, I've written
about our accomplishments, our goals, lessons we've learned, and
more. I had hoped this year to roll out some flashy new services and
approaches to publishing, but as is so often the case, development
has taken longer than expected, so the public face of TidBITS hasn't
changed much in the last year. As Apple said when delaying Leopard,
"We think it will be well worth the wait."
<http://db.tidbits.com/series/1166>
But like a 17-year-old in his or her senior year of high school,
preparing for graduation and subsequent passage to college, there's
a great deal of upheaval happening beneath the surface. College is
where it becomes possible to reinvent oneself, and we've been doing
a lot of thinking and working behind the scenes to make that
reinvention happen in the next year for TidBITS. We've always tried
to be transparent about what's happening at TidBITS; here's a look
at our current efforts.
**Site Improvements** -- In preparation for a major redesign, we've
been quietly implementing a few new features on our Web site.
* Inline images in articles. For the last few months, articles that
contained image links in the email editions of TidBITS have actually
displayed those images inline on the Web (for an example, see "Add a
DJ to iTunes with SpotDJ," 2007-03-26). That's right, after 16 years
of TidBITS being text-only, graphics have finally crept in.
Cutting-edge, I know, but with tools like Plasq's Skitch on the
horizon for making screenshots even snazzier, we're pretty sure that
mixing graphics and text isn't just a short-lived fad.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8915>
<http://plasq.com/skitch>
* Bookmarks for sharing articles. At the bottom of every article on
our Web site and in the HTML edition of TidBITS in email, you'll now
see a line of links to major social bookmarking sites, including
del.ico.us, digg, reddit, Slashdot, and Yahoo's MyWeb (let us know
if you'd like to see other sites included). If you're unfamiliar
with the idea of social bookmarking, it's a way to recommend an
article to other users of a particular service. The more people who
vote for an article, the more it rises in the rankings and the more
people are likely to go read it. We implemented social bookmarking
links because it became apparent from our recent reader survey that
we have a long-standing, loyal readership. The flip side of that,
however, is that we need to work harder on introducing new readers
to our content, and we're hoping that social bookmarking links will
help. You can help by using them to recommend articles or to vote
for already recommended articles - thanks!
* TidBITS Talk usability redesign. Our TidBITS Talk discussion list
has nearly 1,700 email subscribers, but I'm noticing an increasing
number of people finding discussions via Web searches and asking
questions (sometimes even years later, which feels odd from the
email perspective, but is perfectly understandable from a Web
viewpoint). In an effort to improve the usability of TidBITS Talk,
I've fiddled with the CSS styles to clean up the design, reworded a
lot of the boilerplate text that Web Crossing supplies in order to
improve clarity, and made it possible for registered users to give
usefulness ratings to individual messages.
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/>
* Connecting articles and discussions. We've also started down the
path of connecting articles and their discussions directly, so if
you look at articles from last week that have generated discussion,
the "Discuss This Article" link at the top takes you directly to the
appropriate TidBITS Talk thread. If no discussion has been started,
that link merely creates an email message to TidBITS Talk;
engineering a Web-based solution that's invulnerable to spambots
proved more difficult than we anticipated, so we're still working on
the final approach.
* Mailing list subscription management. I've mentioned this feature
before, but it has been and will continue to be an important part of
our infrastructure moving forward, since it lets everyone manage
their own email subscriptions easily. As an added bonus, when you
log in to manage your email subscriptions, you'll remain logged in
for easy addition and rating of TidBITS Talk messages.
<http://www.tidbits.com/list/>
**TidBITS Editing System** -- A year ago, in "Wanted: Better Document
Collaboration System" (2006-04-03), I discussed what we needed in a
document collaboration system. Although at least one project is in a
very early stage to provide such a system, we needed something that
worked today. Luckily, Bare Bones Software came to the rescue with
BBEdit 8.6, which added word-level diff, so we can compare two
revisions of a document and see exactly which text has changed (most
diff implementations for displaying the differences between two
documents work at the paragraph level, not the word or character
level). Then contributing editor Matt Neuburg set up the Subversion
version control system for us to provide versioning, a centralized
repository, and a transfer mechanism.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8489>
<http://subversion.tigris.org/>
<http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/>
BBEdit can act as a Subversion client, which lets us avoid using the
Subversion client programs available for the Mac, none of which
worked well for those of us who aren't programmers. But even BBEdit
doesn't offer a particularly helpful interface to Subversion. After
putting up with our griping for a while, Matt wrote a utility for us
that significantly improves the Subversion workflow from within
BBEdit by handling locking and unlocking of articles; it also
simplifies status checks, commit messages, and file management.
Now, between Matt's utility and BBEdit's built-in features, I can
easily add a new file to the central repository, making it available
for other staff members to edit. When I want to edit again, I can
check to see if anyone has it locked, and if not, lock it myself to
ensure that no one else will make changes simultaneously. Once I
have the file open, I can check the version history to see who has
made changes, and read any notes made about each version. I can also
compare the current version of the file to the last version I saw
before diving into new edits. When I'm done, it's trivial to write a
commit message describing my changes, unlock the file, and send my
changes back to the master copy in the central repository. The file
is available for editing offline, and can be sent to outside
contributors for edit checks.
There's still room for interface and process improvement, but this
system has made our collaborative writing and editing far faster,
easier, and more confident. The next step for the collaborative
editing system is to integrate it with our other major piece of
infrastructure, the TidBITS Publishing System.
**TidBITS Publishing System** -- It's a testament to the work of
technical editor Glenn Fleishman on the TidBITS Publishing System
that no one has seemingly noticed changes in TidBITS since our
26-Feb-07 issue, when our entire behind-the-scenes publishing
approach changed. For many years, we would manually assemble each
issue in a single file, and then send out that file.
Now we add articles to the TidBITS Publishing System throughout the
week, and if an article is ready for public consumption, we merely
set a status that makes it available on our home page under the
ExtraBITS section. This approach is part of our overall goal to move
away from thinking of TidBITS in issue-centric terms. In the TidBITS
Publishing System, we create articles and combine them to create an
issue, whereas in the past, we created an issue and then broke it
apart into articles for our Web archive.
On Monday, to generate an issue, we simply go through all the
available articles we've published or staged but not previously
included in an issue, set an order for those we want to publish, add
a summary, and push a button. Actually, we still take a number of
publication-day editing passes to improve the quality of the
writing, but the effort to release an issue has dropped tremendously
from just a few months ago.
Largely that decrease in effort is because previously we all tended
to put off writing and editing until the last minute, whereas now
it's easier to get something written and posted to the Web or to a
staged area sooner. Plus, we can all take edit passes whenever it's
convenient, rather than putting off the work until it's necessary.
Since none of us like to see typos creep through even on the Web
version that precedes the issue, it's all the more likely that
articles will get an early edit pass.
**Looking Forward** -- All these efforts lay a foundation upon which
we'll be building in the upcoming year, and we hope you find the
improvements useful. Rest assured that changes to the email editions
of TidBITS will be minimal, since there's no reason to mess with a
successful formula. But as we've been learning from our reader
survey, the ways in which people get their information on the
Internet are changing, and we need to change with the times as well.
That's fine - like a high school student contemplating college,
we're both excited and a little scared by all the possibilities.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/16-Apr-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8956>
**Leopard delayed until October** -- What are people's thoughts about
Apple's delay in getting Leopard out the door? (35 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1241/>
**Google calendar/OSX contextual menu** -- An update to Google's Gmail
Notifier adds a contextual menu item for Google Calendar. How does
one get rid of it, and does Google's quiet inclusion demonstrate
that the company is actually capable of evil? (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1237/>
**Spotlight enhancements** -- You can access Spotlight search queries
via the command line that don't appear in Spotlight's interface;
Matt Neuburg's NotLight utility makes them easier to use. (4
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1238/>
**Google "Driving" Directions** -- Google's maps demonstrate that the
shortest distance between two points is a straight line; don't let
that little ocean dissuade you from driving from New York to Paris.
(10 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1239/>
**Online Backup Options Expand** -- Following Joe Kissell's article on
the current field of online backup services, readers note a few
other services that they like. (5 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1240/>
$$
This is TidBITS, a free weekly technology newsletter providing timely
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Internet communities. Feel free to forward to friends; better still,
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Non-profit, non-commercial publications and Web sites may reprint or
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companies. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
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