TidBITS#914/11-Feb-08
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/914>
News related to the iPhone once again grabbed our attention this
week. For starters, Apple released new iPhone and iPod touch models
with more RAM (and higher prices to match). On the other hand,
iPhone users in the UK can now get more minutes and text messages
for less money, thanks to changes by O2. Meanwhile, Glenn Fleishman
discusses AT&T's recent announcement about their continuing rollout
of a 3G cellular network in the United States that will affect users
of future iPhone models. Back in the Mac world, Guy Kawasaki's
latest venture, Alltop, provides a one-stop listing of recent
headlines from all the major Mac news sites (including TidBITS,
natch). Adam explains how he persuaded iPhoto to format text to his
liking when creating his holiday cards, and speculates as to why the
iTunes Store is still without DRM-free tracks from three of the four
major labels, while Rich Mogull shares his impressions of Macworld
Expo as a first-time attendee. Adam also reviews a book called "Bit
Literacy" and finds it lacking. We also note two software updates
from Apple: QuickTime 7.4.1, which fixes a serious security flaw,
and iPhoto 7.1.2, which improves security and makes several other
minor improvements. Lastly, please welcome our newest junior
staffer, Eliana Wren Carlson!
Articles
16 GB iPhone and 32 GB iPod touch Released
QuickTime 7.4.1 Fixes Zero-Day Vulnerability
iPhoto 7.1.2 Blocks Security Vulnerability
iPhoto Print Products Available in Australia and New Zealand
O2 Tweaks UK Monthly iPhone Plans
Scan Mac News Headlines at Alltop
Please Welcome Eliana Wren Carlson
DealBITS Discount: Save 20% on Sound Studio 3
Tips for Better iPhoto Cards
More Mileposts Along Road to 3G iPhone
Apple Punished for iTunes Success
My First Macworld Expo
Get Bit Literate, with a Buggy Whip
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/11-Feb-08
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16 GB iPhone and 32 GB iPod touch Released
------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9444>
Apple has released new models of the iPhone and iPod touch that
offer twice the memory of the previous largest models, 16 GB for the
iPhone and 32 GB for the iPod touch, both priced at $499 and
available immediately. The current lineup now looks like this:
<http://www.apple.com/iphone/>
<http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/>
8 GB iPhone: $399
16 GB iPhone: $499
8 GB iPod touch: $299
16 GB iPod touch: $399
32 GB iPod touch: $499
Apple made no mention of any other changes, making it likely that
these updates are the equivalent of a Mac's speed bump upgrade where
the only difference between the old and new models is the clock
speed of the CPU.
It's good to see Apple refreshing the iPhone and iPod touch lineups
with the addition of these more-capacious models, but the additional
memory doesn't come for free, as CPU speed bumps usually do. Doing
so after dropping the iPhone price in September 2007 could have
resulted in customer unrest among those who had just purchased an
iPhone or iPod touch during the holiday season (see "Apple
Introduces iPod touch, Wi-Fi iTunes Store, and New iPods,"
2007-09-10).
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9152>
Ironically, just a day before the announcement, a reader asked us
when we expected to see an iPod touch with more memory, and we all
answered that our bets were on June 2008, basing that on a likely
release date for the second-generation iPhone, which will almost
certainly feature 3G cellular data networking and, one hopes, a few
other neat additions that could work their way into the iPod touch
too. However, Ted Landau, while hedging his bets, called it on the
nose, saying, "They could release a 16GB iPhone tomorrow." The proof
is in the screenshot.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-02/ipod-prediction.png>
QuickTime 7.4.1 Fixes Zero-Day Vulnerability
--------------------------------------------
by Rich Mogull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9450>
Apple has released QuickTime 7.4.1, a critical security update all
users should apply immediately. It is available via Software Update
and as a direct download for Leopard, Tiger, Panther, and Windows
systems.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime741forleopard.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime741fortiger.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime741forpanther.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime741forwindows.html>
This update patches a month-old zero-day vulnerability in the
QuickTime streaming protocol (RTSP) that could allow an attacker to
take over your computer if you visit a malicious Web site or receive
an email with a malicious link. In security parlance, we call this
"remote execution of arbitrary code," using a vulnerability for
which no patch exists (the "zero-day" part). This is similar to a
previous vulnerability in RTSP that Apple patched in the QuickTime
7.3.1 update (see "QuickTime 7.3.1 Fixes RTSP Vulnerability,"
2007-12-14).
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9363>
As usual, release notes are a sparse "addresses security issues and
improves compatibility with third-party applications." A separate
security note provides more details, but the security information
isn't even referenced by the release notes on the download page,
although they do appear on the security updates page.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307407>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798>
Since this vulnerability has been in the wild with sample exploits
for nearly a month, it is absolutely critical to apply the patch as
quickly as possible.
iPhoto 7.1.2 Blocks Security Vulnerability
------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9447>
Apple has released iPhoto 7.1.2 (also known as iPhoto '08 7.1.2, to
be clear) via Software Update and as a 14.2 MB standalone download.
The unhelpful release notes say only: "This update addresses issues
when publishing photos to a .Mac Web Gallery, improves overall
stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues." However,
there's also a link to Apple's Security Updates Web page, where a
link explains that iPhoto 7.1.2 also fixes a vulnerability related
to subscribing to a maliciously crafted photocast.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoto712.html>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307398>
iPhoto Print Products Available in Australia and New Zealand
------------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9451>
A mere six years after introducing iPhoto, Apple has finally made
print products available in Australia and New Zealand. Now Mac users
in Australia and New Zealand can purchase iPhoto books, cards,
calendars, and prints in exactly the same way that users in the
United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan can. Pricing includes GST
(Goods and Services Tax) in both countries, making them rather
comparable to the U.S. and Canadian pricing. Previously, iPhoto
users in those countries had to use a U.S. billing and shipping
address, and get a friend to forward things on.
<http://www.apple.com/au/ilife/iphoto/printproducts.html>
<http://www.apple.com/nz/ilife/iphoto/printproducts.html>
For those still using iPhoto 6 or earlier, sorry, but it appears
that you must update to iPhoto '08 7.1.2, the latest version of the
program, to be able to order print products.
I assume, but have been unable to confirm, that Apple relies on
Kodak for all of iPhoto's print products; at least in the United
States, iPhoto claims that prints come from the Kodak Print Service.
Although most other reports have focused on the snazzy hardcover
iPhoto books, I'm personally much fonder of iPhoto's cards and
calendars. We created our holiday cards in iPhoto this year (see
"Tips for Better iPhoto Cards," 2008-01-08), and I'm a big fan of
the calendars as gifts that are guaranteed to be displayed for an
entire year (see "The Trick to Adjusting Dates in iPhoto Calendars,"
2008-12-26). My experience is that the books are looked at a few
times and then put on the shelf.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9383>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9374>
Amusingly, our Australian friend Peter Lewis just asked what paper
we had used for our holiday card, assuming we had printed it
ourselves. I was pleased to tell him that not only had we not
printed it ourselves, but he could now order cards from Apple as
well.
O2 Tweaks UK Monthly iPhone Plans
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9445>
In response to complaints from customers and the media, UK iPhone
carrier O2 announced that it would be upgrading iPhone plans with
more minutes and text messages for less money. Those on the £35 per
month plan will now receive 600 minutes and 500 text messages, up
from 200 minutes and 200 text messages. Those who were paying £45
per month get 1,200 minutes per month and 500 text messages, and
people on the £55 per month plan will simply pay £45. All UK
customers will be switched automatically to the new plans by
mid-March; O2 says it will notify customers by text message when the
switch is complete. There's also a new £75 plan that offers 3,000
minutes and 500 text messages. (For those in the United States, the
exchange rate is currently about $2 to £1, so you can double O2's
prices to see how they compare to AT&T's.)
<http://02.co.uk/iphone/o2tariffsforiphone/existingcustomers>
All plans come with unlimited data, though that's subject to O2's
excessive use policy, which they have now stated explicitly ("iPhone
Launch Set for UK and Germany, with Murky Data Plan," 2007-09-20).
It reads:
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9189>
Your O2 tariff for iPhone allows you unlimited use of O2 UK's EDGE/GPRS
networks and The Cloud's UK Wireless LAN network, for personal internet use,
email and Visual Voicemail (VVM) on your iPhone only.
All usage must be for your private, personal and non-commercial purposes.
You may not use your SIM Card in any other device, or use your SIM Card or
iPhone to allow the continuous streaming of any audio/video content, enable
Voice over Internet (VoIP), P2P or file sharing or use them in such a way that
adversely impacts the service to other customers of O2 or The Cloud.
If O2 reasonably suspect you are not acting in accordance with this policy
O2 reserves the right to impose further charges or disconnect your tariff at
any time, having attempted to contact you first.
O2 is on top of the release of the new 16 GB iPhone, providing
instructions for moving from an older iPhone to a new one and
allowing customers to buy one and use it for the remainder of their
existing contract, rather than requiring a new contract.
<http://02.co.uk/iphone/o2tariffsforiphone/existingcustomers/activatingyournew16gbiphone>
Scan Mac News Headlines at Alltop
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9452>
Guy Kawasaki is at it again, with a new site called Alltop that,
among other topics, provides a single-page, easily scanned
aggregation of the main Macintosh news sites. After helping to
create Truemors, a site that lets people post short 350-character
comments about interesting things, Guy and his team discovered that
a significant percentage of the Truemors traffic was coming from
Popurls, a single-page aggregation site that brings together
headlines from the RSS feeds of news and tech Web sites. That got
them thinking about aggregation of other types of sites, and, with
Guy involved, Macintosh news was of course among the topics they
chose for their launch.
<http://mac.alltop.com/>
<http://truemors.com/>
<http://popurls.com/>
There's nothing particularly new about the concept of headline
aggregation, but Alltop has a spare, elegant interface that shows
the most recent five headlines from each site, displays a pop-up
preview when you mouse over a headline, and lets you click through
to read full articles. So hey, if you're not already using a Mac
news aggregation site, check out the Mac-specific Alltop page, which
will even alert you to the latest articles from TidBITS. And if you
sneak over to another Alltop site to scan headlines about
celebrities, fashion, sports, or science, we won't tell.
<http://alltop.com/>
Please Welcome Eliana Wren Carlson
----------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9454>
The TidBITS staff has grown quite a bit over the last year, with Joe
Kissell and Rich Mogull joining the ranks, and now I'm thrilled to
announce our latest junior staffer: Eliana Wren Carlson, born early
in the morning on 05-Feb-08 in Seattle. Kim and I are incredibly
happy and proud, and after a faster-than-expected labor, I'm
convinced that my wife is an absolute superhero.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-02/elliecarlson.jpg>
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcarlson/2250054314/>
DealBITS Discount: Save 20% on Sound Studio 3
---------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9439>
Congratulations to Donald Schaefer of sisna.com and Keith Olson of
mac.com, whose entries were chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS
drawing and who received a copy of the $79.99 Sound Studio 3, along
with Bruce Hobbs, who referred Keith to DealBITS (this is the second
drawing in a row where a winner was referred by a friend). If you
didn't win, don't fret, because you can save 20 percent on Sound
Studio 3; it's only $63.99 through 20-Feb-08 if you use coupon code
"SS3Bits" when ordering from Freeverse. Thanks to the 942 people who
entered this DealBITS drawing, and we hope you'll continue to
participate in the future!
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9438>
<http://www.freeverse.com/soundstudio>
Tips for Better iPhoto Cards
----------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9383>
While working on our holiday card this year, I became annoyed by the
fact that the body text in the Year In Review theme was centered,
making it ugly and hard to read. I spent a few minutes searching and
found an iPhoto Hot Tips page from Apple that gave me the answer.
<http://www.apple.com/support/iphoto/hottips/>
If you format text in TextEdit (or presumably many other word
processors), you can paste that fully formatted text into the card's
text field in iPhoto and have the card retain all your original
formatting. This is true even of fancier formatting options like
line spacing and text alignment, and you can also set and use tab
stops. So for my card, I simply copied the text out of iPhoto,
pasted it into TextEdit, changed it to left alignment, copied it
again, and pasted back into iPhoto.
The same trick works for text in iPhoto books, so there's no need to
be frustrated by text formatting options there either.
The iPhoto Hot Tips told me something else I didn't know, which is
that you can Option-choose a background color from the Background
pop-up menu to set the color of the inside of a card to be different
from the outside. I don't see myself needing this often, but it
could come in handy.
The rest of the tips on that page, save one, are pretty much obvious
from looking at iPhoto's interface. The one remaining non-obvious
tip is that Apple recommends using the Sharpness slider in the
Adjust panel as the last thing you do, in order to end up with the
best image quality. No explanation is given for why this is the
case; my only caveat is that you want to use the Reduce Noise slider
as nearly the last thing because it's so CPU-intensive that further
edits can become sluggish.
More Mileposts Along Road to 3G iPhone
--------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9448>
AT&T has announced that they will put their flavor of
third-generation (3G) cellular data networking in 80 more cities in
the United States in 2008, for a total of 350 "leading markets."
They're also finishing an upgrade for better upstream speeds that
will be complete this year, and have restated commitment to the path
to 4G, which will offer extremely high broadband speeds, faster than
today's cable networks.
<http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25146>
This clearly moves the timetable for a 3G iPhone further along,
because two constraints kept Apple and AT&T from releasing such a
phone. One was battery life and chip size, problems which are
clearly either solved or on their way to being solved. The other was
service. AT&T's little secret is that compared with competing 3G
networks run by Verizon and Sprint Nextel, they had a smaller
footprint and a lower speed. These upgrades should put them on par
with those two firms. (T-Mobile has no 3G service yet; just EDGE.
They bought additional spectrum at auction that should result in 3G
services starting this year.)
It would be a little embarrassing to deploy a 3G iPhone that could
transfer data at only EDGE speeds in large parts of the United
States, especially since sales of the current 2.5G iPhone show that
the device will spread far and wide, beyond just major cities. The
further AT&T rollout removes that marketing dilemma.
Verizon and Sprint Nextel use CDMA technology for voice and data;
CDMA is used primarily in the United States and in parts of Asia,
although not exclusively in any country. AT&T and T-Mobile chose
GSM, a standard used by a vastly larger population, including
Europe.
The 3G version of CDMA chosen by Verizon and Sprint Nextel is known
as EVDO (Evolution Data Only), and the latest revision - Rev. A -
can provide average speeds of 450 to 800 Kbps downstream and 300 to
400 Kbps upstream. Peak rates are technically 3.1 Mbps downstream
and 1.8 Mbps upstream, but that includes network overhead. It's not
unusual to have a 2 Mbps downstream burst when downloading a large
file, however. A future, planned Rev. B would boost raw rates by 50
percent, and would work even faster if larger swaths of frequency
were devoted to it than are used today.
GSM's path is to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), often called
either HSDPA - D for downlink - or HSUPA - U for uplink. AT&T's
announcement today included the news that they would have HSUPA fuly
rolled out in 2008. This will let them claim 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps
downstream and 500 to 800 Kbps upstream. The raw speed for AT&T's
HSPA is 3.6 Mbps downstream and about 1.5 Mbps upstream. In Europe,
a 7.2 Mbps HSDPA flavor has already started to appear, too, and
future flavors will ramp up to 14 Mbps and higher, although more
frequencies than currently used would be required, as well.
Another interesting part of AT&T's announcement is that they
restated that they are on the path to use Long Term Evolution (LTE)
as the basis of their future 4G network. While LTE is perhaps three
years away from deployment, it's become the standard of choice. In
the United States, AT&T, T-Mobile, _and_ Verizon are committed to
it. That's right - Verizon has decided to opt out of future CDMA
improvements and switch camps. This has something to do with a
minority ownership stake by Vodafone, a European GSM carrier, but
it's also a notable technology choice for them.
Sprint Nextel remains the odd duck out, having chosen WiMax for its
4G network, but being in the interesting position of starting to
roll out WiMax this year, giving them what they hope is a leg up on
speed and network quality.
I'm sure that Apple knows they are one of the engines pushing AT&T's
growth in data use - Wired recently reported that data use in cities
like San Francisco tripled on AT&T's network after the iPhone
appeared - and seeing a completed and ugpraded 3G network must make
them more confident in releasing a new phone.
Apple Punished for iTunes Success
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9449>
A few weeks ago, in "Amazon MP3 Scores DRM-Free Music: What About
Apple, 2008-01-10" I called Apple on Steve Jobs's claim that Apple
expected to see more than half of the songs on iTunes in versions
that were free of all digital rights management (DRM) by the end of
2007. I was hoping that Jobs would pull a DRM-free rabbit out of his
hat during the Macworld Expo keynote address, but that obviously
didn't happen. Other than tracks from EMI, music in the iTunes Store
remains wrapped in Apple's FairPlay DRM.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9394>
Of course, the ability to offer DRM-free downloads from the iTunes
Store isn't something over which Apple has any direct control;
that's up to the major music labels that control the rights to the
music that Apple sells. And therein lies the rub: the labels are
unhappy that the iTunes Store has become the dominant player in the
online music world, and they're desperately trying to help Amazon
MP3 become a viable competitor. To that end, all four major labels
have signed deals with Amazon for DRM-free tracks, whereas Apple
hasn't been able to negotiate similar terms from the Universal Music
Group, Warner Music Group, or Sony BMG.
The problems the recording industry has with the iTunes Store don't
stop with the fact that Apple is the dominant player and showing no
signs of weakness. Jobs's approach with his "Thoughts on Music" open
letter (see "Steve Jobs Blasts DRM," 2007-02-12), while perhaps
effective at outlining Apple's position and drawing a line in the
sand, didn't make him any friends with the major labels. Some of the
iTunes Store policies, such as charging a flat $0.99 price for all
tracks, regardless of popularity, and refusing to sell album-only
albums, have also been ill-received within the industry.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8856>
Is there any wrongdoing going on here? Initially, I wondered if
there might be collusion among the labels, but my buddy Fred von
Lohmann over at the EFF set me straight. Even if there were some
agreement among Universal, Warner, and Sony to keep DRM-free tracks
away from Apple, consumers aren't being harmed because they can
purchase a better (in the sense of DRM-free), lower-priced product
from Amazon MP3. And the fact that EMI has already licensed DRM-free
tracks to Apple suggests there's no general agreement anyway.
So, unfortunately for those who prefer the iTunes user experience,
it seems that what we have here is megacorps playing hardball with
one another. Apple negotiated good terms - from the user perspective
- when it started the iTunes Music Store, and the labels are
regretting aspects of those agreements now that iTunes has become
the leading online music retailer. Arguably, the terms Apple
negotiated back then may have been a significant factor in the
success of the iTunes Store, but the labels see Apple's - and users'
- desire for DRM-free music as a powerful negotiating chip.
The question is what Apple will have to do to get DRM-free tracks:
return a higher percentage of the profits to the labels, abandon
flat-rate pricing, or offer a subscription service. Or perhaps Apple
will come up with another solution along the lines of using movie
rentals in the iTunes Store to make up for disappointing movie sales
and a limited selection - if life hands you lemons, rent a lemonade
stand.
My First Macworld Expo
----------------------
by Rich Mogull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9443>
Never underestimate the power of the Reality Distortion Field. Its
cold tendrils begin slithering across the land from their amorphous
center in Cupertino weeks before Macworld. It hugs the lowlands,
flowing past the hills of California, keeping to crevasses and
shadows as it slips under the doors and through the cracked windows
of the Mac faithful. Always reaching, touching, and waiting. Then,
on the morning of the "Jobsnote" it flashes to life with a bright
energy that captures even the coldest hearts of the media, now
centered in San Francisco. Judgment wanes, inhibitions collapse, and
Macworld begins.
Perhaps I'm taking a little literary license, but as someone who
attends sometimes dozens of technology conferences in a year I can
definitely report that Macworld is unique. It's a strange
combination of enterprise IT conference, serious end user
conference, and enthusiast gathering. Some people attend to catch up
with old friends, others to learn new skills for their personal
platform of choice, some for serious business, and many just to
check out the latest gizmos.
Still others attend to report on the happenings and gather content
for future articles, never expecting they'd walk home with a
distinctly disapproved-of iPhone sitting in their pocket. Thus is
the power of the RDF.
Although I've been writing here at TidBITS for a few months and
consider myself a Mac enthusiast, I'm a relative newcomer to the
Apple scene and far from a zealot. I've always wanted to attend
Macworld and see it for myself, and now that a fraction of my income
derives from writing about Apple it finally seemed justified. A few
months ago I asked Adam if I could reference TidBITS to apply for a
freelance press pass, and instead he offered me a staff position.
It seems the RDF plans ahead.
The heart of Macworld is obviously Steve Jobs's opening keynote on
Tuesday morning. Whatever your beliefs about Apple and Jobs, his
keynotes far exceed the usual drivel from most CEO-driven talks. As
a professional presenter I studied his talks before I even bought my
first Mac, attempting to pick up some extra stage skills. The
morning of the keynote I woke up excited, a rarity even when I'm the
one presenting. After meeting up with Glenn and a few other Mac
notables in the press area, we headed in. I was immediately amused
as the conference Wi-Fi, AT&T service, and Twitter all collapsed
under the load of keynote-inspired traffic.
Although I didn't find the announcements all that exciting, Jobs's
presence and skill were everything I hoped to see. He works the
crowd as well as any stage artist. Rushing from the stage to the
media room to write up the announcements, it's clear that the RDF is
so powerful after the keynote that even jaded media find themselves
being a tad less critical than under normal circumstances. Other
CEOs should learn from Jobs; those first few articles often frame
the rest of the coverage. Apple combines entertainment with
marketing and product announcements not to show off, but to
influence those first critical press pieces.
Joining with the other staff members to simultaneously write up our
coverage in a SubEthaEdit article was the highlight of my week. As
an independent consultant and writer it's not often I get to
experience such real-time teamwork anymore. We divided up coverage
of each major product announcement, and those without a specific
assignment edited in real time. We don't liveblog the keynote here
at TidBITS; rather, we try to publish thoughtful, analytical
articles within two hours of the close of the keynote.
I spent the rest of the week in a blur wandering the Expo floor,
trying to keep up with Adam and Tonya (no easy feat), and attending
various breakfasts, lunches, and evening events. The Expo floor is
an interesting beast in and of itself. One second I found myself
grilling a major enterprise software vendor on their upcoming Mac
support, the next I'm laying out my credit card for a deal on a pair
of earphones. Most technology events are divided into "user" and
"enterprise," but Macworld is one of the few meeting grounds where
casual enthusiasts and serious enterprise users share the floor.
The former analyst in me noticed a few interesting trends. The most
compelling is how Macs are slowly infecting the enterprise. Apple's
products appeal to us as consumers; and it's only natural to want to
use the same tools at work and at home. The traditional enterprise
response is to block non-standard systems (and phones), but it's
clear this is a battle they can't win as more and more knowledge
workers demand to use their own tools. We call this trend "the
consumerization of IT," and Apple is clearly benefiting from the
early waves of technology workers bringing Macs to work - even
against corporate policy. The vendors that support the corporate
environment see opportunities, and we saw some surprising faces with
new and upcoming products to support enterprise Mac users.
It was also interesting to see the growing interest in security
among Mac users. When I first starting talking about security issues
for Macs a few years ago, I was mostly met with blank faces or
accusations that I was a Microsoft spy out to destroy Apple. These
days the response is far more measured. People are interested in
understanding what the issues are and if they are safe. Everyone
seems to have a sense that as the popularity of Macs rises the
security risk will grow, but no one seems to know exactly what that
means. There was no shortage of security vendors on the Expo floor,
but some offered little more than snake oil, while others understood
they will be challenged since the current risk to the average Mac
user is still pretty low. Needless to say, I won't have any shortage
of security material to cover here at TidBITS.
Overall I quite enjoyed my week at Macworld. It was my first chance
to meet many in the Mac community face to face (including Adam,
Tonya, and Glenn), and it gave me a sense of the Mac world and major
trends in a way that's difficult to achieve without physical
interaction. I also learned two valuable lessons. First, whenever
possible leave the laptop in the hotel room, so as not to end up
lugging it around all day, something that's seldom a concern at
security conferences. And second, leave unnecessary credit cards at
home in case Apple ships something you really shouldn't buy without
first waiting for the RDF to dissipate. Not that I don't love my new
location-aware iPhone.
Get Bit Literate, with a Buggy Whip
-----------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9422>
Do you feel as though you're struggling to keep your head above a
fast-rising flood of digital data - email, photos, Web sites,
instant messages - that threatens to inundate you? You're not alone,
and that shared pain has given birth to any number of systems, Web
sites, and books that promise an organized life and enhanced
productivity, along with much more. The latest entry in the
productivity porn genre is Mark Hurst's self-published "Bit
Literacy," which offers a few nuggets of utility. But despite
gushing quotes from luminaries like Richard Saul Wurman, Seth Godin,
David Bodanis, and Craig Newmark, I found the book ultimately
unsatisfying.
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0979368103/?tag=tidbitselectro00>
"Bit Literacy" echoes nothing so much as an earnest educational film
from the 1950s. Hurst is entirely confident that his suggestions for
managing email, photos, media sources, and so on are correct for
everyone, regardless of profession, personality, or preferences.
Plus, underlying the entire book is an almost Luddite-like distrust
of the functionality inherent in special-purpose software and of
computers in general, accompanied by frequent jabs at software
developers for making programs that Hurst feels are designed to lock
in market share at the expense of serving the user. Instead, Hurst
paternalistically entreats the reader to buckle down and behave in
highly specific, almost robotic ways, with the overall goal being to
let bits go as much as possible. "Just follow my simple rules, kids,
and you won't suffer the ill effects of information overload!"
With email, Hurst recommends the "inbox zero" approach, which isn't
inherently problematic. But he encourages exporting individual
messages to text files and filing them in normal folders using a
specific naming scheme (initials-date-topic.extension). That's
because he doesn't trust an email program not to lose mail and
because he wants everything related to a project to be in one folder
(with no or few sub-folders). So rather than rely on a program
that's designed to make common email tasks easy - reading
discussions, filing, searching, replying, and so on - Hurst would
have you fall back on simple, generic tools that require
significantly more manual interaction. He says - deep in an appendix
- that there are no "bit-literate" email programs available, though
he never specifies what features such a program would have.
Similarly, no to-do programs meet Hurst's requirements, except -
surprise! - the one he developed, a Web-based system called Gootodo
that costs $18 per six months (nothing is said about whether Gootodo
locks users into the site like the tools Hurst constantly
criticizes). His criteria for a to-do manager are:
<http://www.gootodo.com/>
* Each to-do is associated with a particular day.
* Users can create new to-dos for any particular day via email.
* Each to-do has a priority ranking within its day.
* Each to-do contains a detail field as well as a summary.
The only interesting point above is the capability to create new
to-dos via email, scheduling them by sending or forwarding them to a
particular address at Gootodo - that is indeed uncommon and likely
useful. But Gootodo, accessible only on the Web (forget about
syncing to an iPod, iPhone, or even iCal) seems overly simple and
clearly won't scale for anyone with more than a handful of to-do
items per day. Hurst dismisses such criticisms by saying that people
with too many to-do items shouldn't expect a to-do manager to help
with that problem. But that's why we're reading your book, Mark!
A footnote in the to-do chapter shows what Hurst thinks of modern
technologies: "Still other requested features [for Gootodo] include
AJAX, RSS, and other faddish acronyms that are only understood by
techies and the journalists who love them." That's inanity - AJAX
can enable far better online interfaces that don't require constant
page reloads, and support for RSS lets people access content in ways
that work well for them. There may be legitimate reasons to avoid
AJAX and RSS, but faddishness is not one of them.
Where Hurst makes the most sense is in talking about managing
incoming media. He recommends limiting the onslaught of published
material by separating media sources to a "lineup" and a set of
"tryouts." Within your lineup, he says you should have a very few
"stars" that you read in their entirety regularly, a number of
"scans" that you dip into mostly for interesting or useful pieces,
and "targets" that you read only for a single targeted use. With
tryouts, you're encouraged to be discerning, know why you're trying
it out and for how long the tryout will last, and realize that any
tryout may have to replace something in your lineup.
This essentially reasonable advice is somewhat undercut by Hurst's
use of the "media diet" terminology. Little is more faddish than
diets, and they're nearly impossible to maintain over any
significant period of time. I'd worry that the same will prove true
of Hurst's advice with regard to media, depending as it does on
constant vigilance and self-denial.
I did find some other bits worthwhile. Along with the suggestion for
a media diet, Hurst makes some excellent points about how to write
email and Web pages for better comprehension and easier scanning. In
particular he points out that it's best to state the most important
idea in a message right off, followed by the information that
supports the main idea. Other suggestions to avoid confusion and
ambiguity include stating the obvious and using absolute dates in
favor of easily misinterpreted relative dates like "today,"
"tomorrow," and "next week."
But the many problems obscure such bright spots. Another short
chapter enables Hurst to explain exactly how he organizes his
photos, though this section is particularly misguided. He would have
you create one iPhoto Library per year and some other set (likely an
album) for each event in each month. He acknowledges that iPhoto
could do this in a single iPhoto Library but dismisses the
possibility because it's possible that photo dates could be
incorrect. That can and does happen infrequently, but incorrect
dates can also be changed easily. There are good reasons to create
and switch among multiple iPhoto Libraries, but having more than a
year's worth of photos in an iPhoto Library is not one of them. All
it will do is make searching more cumbersome, as you try to remember
which iPhoto Library to look through.
Other aspects of "Bit Literacy" that bothered me include:
* Hurst believes that sent mail somehow causes significant stress and
should thus be deleted every week or so, with important pieces of
sent mail BCC'd back to you and saved - outside your email program -
as a text file. There's no reason sent mail can't be nicely out of
sight and out of mind... until such time that you want to refer to
it, something I've found valuable on many occasions.
* Instant messaging is treated in only a paragraph or two, with no
acknowledgment that it serves an entirely different communication
purpose than email and may contain content worth archiving.
* For backup, Hurst recommends (very briefly) manual copying of
important files and folders every week or two. This advice borders
on the criminally negligent, since most people have no idea of
exactly where all their important data actually resides on a modern
computer. Being forced to restore from Hurst's backup strategy would
result in potentially massive data loss and huge amounts of wasted
time.
* Hurst would have us name all files using an
initials-date-topic.extension approach. He admits the author
initials are pointless for personal files, but defends putting the
date in the file name on the grounds that he doesn't trust the
filesystem not to mess up date metadata. This obscures the real name
of the file - the topic - at the end of the file and ensures that
different versions don't sort together. In contrast, when we at
TidBITS work on versioned files with multiple people, our naming
scheme is topic-version-initials.extension to force different
versions of a given file to sort together, in sequential order.
In general, little acknowledgment is made of the very real issue
that people use computers in wildly different ways today. Advice
that makes sense for an engineering professor collaborating on
research projects with colleagues around the world may have nothing
of utility for an in-house graphic designer at a large manufacturing
company or a freelance marketing consultant working with numerous
clients in a small city.
Also, I found myself constantly bothered by Hurst's exhortations to
let go of bits at all times. Yes, we're all accumulating increasing
amounts of data, whether in the form of photos, email, or iChat
transcripts. But attempting to eliminate those bits, whether by
deleting photos, trashing email, or refusing to use iChat, will both
require more immediate effort and result in future frustration from
lost information. The popularity of services like Google shows that
what people really want are tools to manage and sort through all
that data automatically. The price of disk space drops all the time,
and Moore's law ensures that we have ample CPU power; what we need
are more and better tools to extract meaningful results quickly from
our oceans of information.
Lastly, despite occasional references to modern tools like Google
Docs, nearly everything in "Bit Literacy" could have been written 10
years ago when Hurst started his professional career. That in itself
is not a criticism, but because of this outdated mindset, it feels
as though Hurst has never revisited any of his thinking to determine
whether new tools could in fact make any of these tasks easier.
Whether it's with file names or photo organization, the scripted
behaviors he recommends are exactly the kinds of repetitive tasks
that computers were supposed to handle for us. Computers are the
reason we're so inundated with digital data; to focus on approaches
that require us to act more like machines seems to be heading in the
wrong direction.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/11-Feb-08
------------------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9453>
**For Want of a File, an Operating System Was Lost** -- A reader
comments on Glenn's article about a problematic Setup Assistant
file. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1821>
**Linksys Router Problem** -- A new Linksys router seems to work but
requires a manual reset every few hours. Is there a solution? (1
message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1822>
**Lin/Win text editors** -- BBEdit may be the gold standard for GUI
text editors on the Mac, but what's the nearest alternative if
you're forced to run Windows or Linux? (14 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1823>
**3 Net cables broken by coincidence** -- Undersea network cables
break, disrupting Internet access in several Middle East countries.
Coincidence or conspiracy? (11 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1824>
**PC equivalent to iWeb** -- Is there an easy-to-use HTML editor for
Windows comparable to iWeb on the Mac? (6 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1825>
**Fonts increasing in size with each reply Entourage 2008** -- If
you're encountering this annoying bug in Entourage, there's a way to
report it directly to the developer. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1826>
**WD My Book Pro Question** -- Readers weigh in on the reliability and
compatibility of Western Digital MyBook hard drives. (6 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1827>
**Quick Fix for a Mac Typing in the Wrong Language** -- Readers
discuss the odd problem of Apple assigning the same keyboard
shortcut to two entirely different functions. (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1828>
**Shutting down on UPS power** -- What exactly happens with modal
alerts on your Mac when a UPS decides it needs to shut the computer
down? (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1829>
**2 Days with the Air** -- A reader reports impressions of a new
MacBook Air and asks for advice on squeezing everything onto its
small SSD drive. (5 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1830>
**Citrix on the Mac in a PC network** -- How easy is it to transfer
files between Windows PCs and Macs using the Mac version of Citrix?
(3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1831>
**Remote file access and transfer for Xserve? Help!** -- Remote GUI
access to an Xserve is not always as simple as it appears. What are
the best options for a MacBook Air user on the go? (4 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1832>
**AirPort Extreme administration** -- How do you change the indicator
light setting on an AirPort Extreme after the initial run of the
setup assistant? (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1833>
**AirPort Express to Sound Amplifier** -- A reader asks for help
solving a problem with a malfunctioning AirPort Express. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1834>
$$
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