TidBITS#921/31-Mar-08
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/921>
Curses! Mac OS X is the first victim in the Pwn2Own hacking contest,
and Rich Mogull explains how a security researcher took home $10,000
and a MacBook Air for exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability
in Safari within 2 minutes. Taking the sting from that insult is
Apple's top ranking in a survey of global brands. Also this week,
Tonya shares her first impressions of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader,
and Adam explains in detail how he more than doubled the throughput
on his network by updating to gigabit Ethernet, providing the
details necessary for you to do the same. New releases that warrant
detailed looks this week include Carbon Copy Cloner 3.1, the new
Outspring Mail email client, Aperture 2.1, and the online photo
editor Photoshop Express. The TidBITS Watchlist offers brief
coverage of SOHO Organizer 7.0, SOHO Notes 7.0, MailTags 2.2,
Moneydance 2008, Freeway 5, and a variety of highly specific (but
potentially essential) updates from Apple.
Articles
Apple Ranked Top Brand Worldwide
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.1 Released
Apple Becomes First Victim in Hacking Contest
Outspring Mail Promises Intelligent Filing
Aperture 2.1 Adds Plug-in Capability to Edit Photos
Photoshop Express Offers Free Photo Editing on the Web
First Kindly Impressions about My Kindle
Switch Your Network to Gigabit Ethernet
TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 31-Mar-08
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/31-Mar-08
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Apple Ranked Top Brand Worldwide
--------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9538>
Talk about riding high. First Fortune Magazine gives Apple the
honors in its corporate survey (see "Apple Tops Fortune's Most
Admired Companies List," 2008-03-05). Now Apple has captured most of
the top spots in a brand opinion survey of nearly 2,000 marketing
professionals published by the branding company Interbrand. Apple
was ranked first in almost all the positive questions, including
"What brand can you not live without?" and "What brand, if sent back
100 years, would have the biggest impact on the course of history?"
One respondent said, "[Apple is] the only one I can think of that I
truly couldn't replace - in work or in entertainment. With any other
brand that I love, there's some other one I can turn to if it
disappeared. But not Apple."
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9488>
<http://brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=415#t21>
Apple also captured the top spot in more personal questions,
including "What brand would you most like to sit next to at a dinner
party?" "Which brand inspires you the most?" and, most tellingly,
"If you were to describe yourself as being a brand, what brand would
you be?" We can't all _be_ Apple, but many respondents like to think
of themselves as being _like_ Apple: "Because I like to come at
things differently. I chose to 'think different.'"
Joining Apple as brands that ranked highly in the positive questions
were Google, Nike, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks. Not all the questions
were positive, however, and Apple took second place to Microsoft in
"Which brand do you want to argue with?" Lots of Apple aficionados
certainly have issues with some of Apple's actions, but such
feelings are useful in that they show that people care. I'd be more
worried if I were in Microsoft's marketing department, since the
world's largest software company placed first in "If you could
rebrand any brand, what brand would it be?" Ouch. The comments were
blunt as well, running along the lines of "[Microsoft has] gone from
innovative and bold to stodgy and a follower. But rebranding is only
one step since it really needs a major shift in how it thinks."
<http://www.brandchannel.com/brandjunkie_results.asp#dinner>
(I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The place where
Microsoft could experiment with rebranding in a useful and
interesting way is with the Macintosh Business Unit, which would
benefit from independence from the overall Microsoft Windows brand,
given the way many Mac users see Windows as the competition.)
Somewhat distressingly, the top vote getter for "What brand do you
think is truly (going) 'green'?" was overwhelmingly "None," with
Toyota, BP, The Body Shop, and Honda taking the next four slots.
Companies may be talking the talk, but they're not walking the walk
sufficiently for environmental awareness to become associated with
their brands.
For more on branding and its importance, particularly related to
Apple, check out our three-part series "Branding Apple," written in
2002 by Simon Spence, then head of research and information
technology at brand consultancy Alexander Dunlop Ltd. It's a bit
dated in places, not surprisingly, but still offers a good overview
of what branding means to Apple.
<http://db.tidbits.com/series/1224>
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.1 Released
-------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9524>
Bombich Software has released Carbon Copy Cloner 3.1 (CCC), a
notable update to the popular disk cloning and backup software. CCC
3.1 implements rsync 3.0 for "greater fidelity" when backing up
using CCC's Copy Selected Items backup method, improves the already
solid interface wording that explains what CCC will do for each
selected action, adds "bootability" checks to see if the backup
volume will be bootable (this doesn't work with duplicates made over
a network, alas), and more. A variety of bugs were also fixed, so
backing up to a remote Mac using a path with a space in it uses the
correct location, invisible flags are maintained in Leopard when
using Copy Everything, scheduled tasks in Leopard now run reliably
after a reboot, and it's now possible to install CCC's
Authentication Credentials package from multiple source Macs onto a
single target machine (previously, manual tweaking of the
authorization credentials was necessary to make this setup work).
<http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html>
<http://www.bombich.com/software/docs/CCCHelp/content/history.html>
For those who haven't used Carbon Copy Cloner, it's a full-featured
cloning, synchronization, and backup program with scheduling and
archiving features. I've started experimenting with Carbon Copy
Cloner to create bootable duplicates of my primary work machines
over the network to disks installed inside my Power Mac G4 file
server. (This is in addition to Time Machine backups of my Leopard
Macs, and Retrospect home folder backups of Macs running Tiger or
Panther, all to the same Power Mac G4.) The capability to create a
bootable duplicate over a network is uncommon, shared only with
EMC's Retrospect (the excellent SuperDuper can create a backup to a
remote disk image over a network, but that's not bootable). Carbon
Copy Cloner's network duplicates work much more quickly than those
in the current version of Retrospect.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-03/Carbon-Copy-Cloner.png>
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher and works
well with Mac OS X 10.5.2. The program is uncrippled shareware,
meaning that all features are available whether or not you've paid,
and no registration is ever required, but Bombich Software
appreciates donations once Carbon Copy Cloner has proven its worth
to you. It's a 2.1 MB download.
Apple Becomes First Victim in Hacking Contest
---------------------------------------------
by Rich Mogull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9529>
On Thursday, March 27th, a MacBook Air became the first victim in
the second annual Pwn2Own hacking contest at the CanSecWest
conference. It took security researcher Charlie Miller only 2
minutes to win the $10,000 cash prize (and the MacBook Air) by
discovering and exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the
Safari Web browser. Miller immediately signed a non-disclosure
agreement with contest sponsor TippingPoint, who promptly reported
the flaw to Apple. No details will be released until Apple patches
the vulnerability.
<http://cansecwest.com/post/2008-03-20.21:33:00.CanSecWest_PWN2OWN_2008>
<http://cansecwest.com/>
Last year, the Pwn2Own contest was limited to two Macs, but contest
organizers opened the field this year by pitting Mac OS X 10.5
Leopard against both Microsoft Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux. The
rules are simple; if a researcher can "pwn" a fully patched laptop
("pwn" is hacker lingo for completely exploiting and taking over a
system), they take home the laptop and a cash prize. The amount of
cash decreases every day as the rules make it easier for an attacker
to control the system. No one claimed the $20,000 prize on the first
day for remotely exploiting any of the systems through a network
attack. On the second day, when the MacBook Air went down, attackers
were allowed to email or direct the Web browser on the system to a
hostile site (known as a client-side attack). On the last day of the
contest the conference organizers installed a variety of common
third-party applications for the attackers, but the prize dropped to
$5,000. By the end of the contest, only the Linux system had not
been compromised.
Although we need to take contests like these with a grain of salt,
we can't dismiss the results. Since it took Charlie Miller only 2
minutes to compromise the MacBook Air, it's clear that he walked in
the door with a complete exploit ready to go. That's far different
from creating one on the spot. Still, it's concerning that Mac OS X
was the first victim to succumb to attack since the contest rules
don't favor any particular platform.
The Windows Vista laptop held out until the last day, finally
succumbing to a vulnerability in the Adobe Flash player. This is
likely an indication that the new anti-exploitation security
features of Vista are effective at making it more secure than
Windows XP, and more secure than it would have been without these
changes. Although Apple added similar features to Mac OS X in
Leopard, such as library randomization, discussions with security
researchers indicate that these defenses are not yet fully
implemented, and thus provide little additional security.
<http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/28/pwn-to-own-final-day-and-wrap-up>
As a Mac enthusiast and security professional, I spend a lot of time
talking and working with the research community. Most feel that Mac
users are relatively safer than Microsoft Windows users, but that
Mac OS X has lost its lead as a secure consumer operating system.
This was, in many ways, by necessity. Windows is under such constant
onslaught that Microsoft had little choice but to increase the
operating system's security significantly or face the risk of losing
customers, especially among their corporate clients. (But I can also
say from experience that Windows Vista suffers from severe usability
issues, most of which are completely unrelated to the new security
features.) Since Macs are much less frequently attacked, Apple isn't
under nearly the same pressure. The researchers I work with, most of
them Mac users themselves, frequently identify Safari and QuickTime
as particularly problematic programs to secure, and none were
surprised by the contest results.
What does this mean to the average Mac user? Not much... yet. We're
no more or less secure today than we were the day before the
contest, and we shouldn't make major decisions based on stunts like
these. Although I'm not ready to reverse my advice and send you all
running to the nearest store for additional security software (see
"Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software?," 2008-03-18), we, as a
community, still can't afford to be complacent. If security is a
priority for us, it will be a priority for Apple. With Leopard, all
the hooks are there for a very secure operating system. We just need
to continue to pressure Apple to finish implementation and make it
far more difficult for our platform of choice to lose next year's
contest.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9511>
Outspring Mail Promises Intelligent Filing
------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9540>
While many long-time Eudora users continue to bemoan Eudora's fate,
the developers of QuickMail, another email client that once boasted
a significant user base, have released an entirely new email
program, called Outspring Mail.
<http://www.outspring.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=64>
Visually, Outspring Mail uses a three-pane interface, and the
program offers all the basics, including support for POP, IMAP,
SMTP, and SSL. From there, though, Outspring Mail provides the first
notable rethinking of what an email client should do since the
appearance of Google's Gmail. Outspring Mail observes the user's
actions and learns from them, suggesting likely destination
mailboxes for messages and even offering to use a previous reply to
answer a frequently asked question. Outspring CEO Jeff Baudin said,
"If I frequently reply to an email message that says, 'How do I get
to your office?' or words to that effect; shouldn't my email program
be smart enough to know I've replied to this same type of message
before? And shouldn't it then offer to use one of these replies for
the current message?"
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-03/Outspring-Mail.png>
Outspring Mail also debuts a "message deferment" feature that
enables the user to defer dealing with a message for a specified
amount of time. Outspring Mail then places the message in a special
folder, and once the time elapses, moves it back to the Inbox with
an indicator that the deferred message has been returned. This
feature could help a user keep the Inbox clean, though it's entirely
likely that all those messages that build up in the Inbox normally
would just end up being deferred repeatedly and indefinitely.
For people who do most of their scheduling via email, Outspring
Mail's data detectors may prove useful. They search for absolute
dates (like 4/15/08) and relative dates (like "next Wednesday") and
convert the text to links that take the user to the associated date
in iCal.
Other useful or unique features include a tabbed interface, the
capability to find similar messages, a Reply with Template command
(similar to Eudora's stationery feature), message preview with an
intelligent summary, the capability to resize and rotate images,
smart mailboxes, built-in spam filtering, display of HTML messages,
Spotlight-based searching, integration with Address Book, Growl
notification for new mail received, colorization of quoted text, and
more.
In my initial usage, Outspring Mail felt a little rough around the
edges, with one crash and an error dialog that looked as though not
all debugging code had been removed. The program did perform basic
actions acceptably, and if the performance wasn't amazing (on a
first generation MacBook), the preferences do warn that the
auto-filing analysis can slow the program down.
Outspring advertises the program as "Intel Native" and "Leopard
Compatible," but does not provide specific system requirements. It
can import mail from Apple Mail and QuickMail, but not other common
Macintosh programs. Outspring Mail costs $95, with $59 upgrades from
QuickMail. A 10-day demo version is available as a 7.1 MB download.
Aperture 2.1 Adds Plug-in Capability to Edit Photos
---------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9536>
Apple made a significant push into Adobe's turf last week with the
release of Aperture 2.1, a free upgrade for owners of version 2.0 of
the company's photo management program. In addition to bug fixes,
Aperture 2.1 introduces a plug-in architecture developers can use to
create utilities that can edit images. One plug-in is included with
the update: Dodge & Burn, which enables you to lighten or darken
areas of an image selectively, rather than apply the adjustment to
the entire image.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/03/28aperture.html>
That level of editing control is one reason photographers use Adobe
Photoshop to fine-tune their images. Making it possible to apply
selective adjustments might convince some people to wean themselves
from the Adobe juggernaut. More likely, however, this change will be
more effective in preventing those not currently invested in
Photoshop to stay within Aperture for their touch-up needs.
Plug-ins appear under the Edit With submenu of the Images menu.
Accessing a plug-in loads a selected image in a new window, where
you can choose brush sizes and effect styles; in addition to dodging
and burning, the included plug-in can saturate, desaturate, sharpen,
blur, apply contrast, or fade areas of the image. Pressing O reveals
the edit as an overlay, which is helpful for seeing where the effect
is applied. Saving the changes creates a new version of that image.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-03/aperture2_plugin.jpg>
To tempt Aperture owners, Apple mentioned in its press release a
number of developers working on Aperture plug-ins - companies whose
products are used by photographers, such as Noise Ninja, Viveza,
Power Stroke, Dfx, dpMatte, and plug-ins from Image Trends. (Charles
Maurer wrote about Noise Ninja in "Editing Photographs for the
Perfectionist, 2007-09-07.)
<http://www.picturecode.com/>
<http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php>
<http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/powerstroke/>
<http://www.tiffen.com/products.html?tablename=dfx>
<http://www.dvgarage.com/prod/prod_dpmatte.php>
<http://www.imagetrendsinc.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7832>
Aperture 2.1 is available via Software Update or as a 48.1 MB
download.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/aperture21update.html>
Photoshop Express Offers Free Photo Editing on the Web
------------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9526>
Adobe has announced Photoshop Express, a new online photo service
that makes it easy to upload, share, and - more importantly - edit
digital photos without running a dedicated program such as iPhoto or
Adobe's own Photoshop Elements. The service is free, currently
includes 2 GB of online storage, and is a public beta. It also
requires Flash 9 to operate. You can tour the service's
functionality by clicking the Test Drive button on the home page.
<http://www.photoshop.com/express/>
It's easy to see the appeal of Photoshop Express as being "Photoshop
on the Web," a way to tap into the long heritage of image editing
established by Adobe Photoshop. But when I saw a preview of the
service last week, my first thought was, "This is more like a really
good online version of iPhoto." It features an easy-to-use
interface and basic capabilities for uploading and organizing images
into photo albums, as well as sharing photos with others (I've made
a couple of galleries available).
<http://jeffcarlson.photoshop.com/>
As you might expect from technology based on Photoshop, the service
shines when it comes to making adjustments to your photos. You won't
find levels or curves adjustments in this consumer-oriented
approach. Making an adjustment such as exposure gives you a strip of
thumbnails with various degrees of the settings applied; click the
one that looks best to you. (A few adjustments, such as White
Balance, also offer sliders for a bit more control over how the
effect is applied.) Making edits is also non-destructive, with a
clear method of reverting to previous edits and toggling the
application of adjustments you've applied.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-03/psexpress_adjustments.jpg>
A few corrections are quite nifty, such as the capability to "pop" a
color and make the rest of the image grayscale. And I'm impressed by
the implementation of the Retouch feature, which gives you more
control over fixing blemishes than just applying spot patches to
them.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-03/psexpress_pop_color.jpg>
Photoshop Express isn't a serious competitor against an established
photo-sharing service such as Flickr, which functions as much as a
social networking site as a way to post photos. Photoshop Express
also lacks the capability to assign tags to images (which makes
finding them easier later) or even a way to rename them, though you
can add and edit captions. However, Adobe clearly understands this,
because you can import and export pictures between other services.
The service currently supports Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa; an
Adobe representative said that they've signed an agreement with
Yahoo to add Flickr access soon.
<http://www.flickr.com/>
<http://www.facebook.com/>
<http://www.photobucket.com/>
<http://www.picasa.com/>
Photoshop Express also isn't the first online photo editor, but does
have the advantage of being Photoshop-derived. Picnik, which Adam
wrote about last year (see "Picnik Duplicates iPhoto on the Web,"
2007-09-07) offers similar features and works with many online
services. In Flickr, for example, clicking the Edit Photo button
that appears above one of your images opens the photo in Picnik.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8887>
The service does have a few drawbacks. Photoshop Express is
currently limited to users in the United States. It's also quite
network-intensive, since the majority of the processing is being
done on Adobe's servers. While working in Photoshop Express on one
computer, I've seen the Internet performance on other computers on
my network slow down. The service is also built entirely in Flash;
I've never been a fan of the technology, which has always struck me
as overly resource-intensive and, frankly, annoying. That said,
Photoshop Express reminds me that Flash doesn't have to be equated
with annoying banner ads or goofy online greeting cards.
Adobe said that this iteration is specifically focused on consumers.
Future revisions are likely to bring improvements such as more
storage (for a fee, I would assume), a way to order prints directly,
built-in support for the service in Adobe's applications, and
probably more robust tagging and sharing options.
At its launch, Photoshop Express also stepped into a legal quandary:
The terms of service (the ones you agree to, usually without
reading) indicate that for any photos uploaded and made available
for publicly sharing, "you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free,
nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable
license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration
from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform
and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to
incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format
or medium now known or later developed." In other words, Adobe can
do whatever it wants with your images.
<https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html>
Later in the day, Adobe responded with a promise to change the
language, writing, "We've heard your concerns about the terms of
service for Photoshop Express beta. We reviewed the terms in context
of your comments - and we agree that it currently implies things we
would never do with the content. Therefore, our legal team is making
it a priority to post revised terms that are more appropriate for
Photoshop Express users. We will alert you once we have posted new
terms."
<http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=74&catid=684&threadid=1349048&enterthread=y>
Photoshop Express won't replace iPhoto or Photoshop Elements, but it
does offer a high degree of near-immediate gratification. If you
want to upload something quicl and make a few corrections (from any
computer, since it's entirely Web based), the hassle factor is
incredibly low. It's also an easy way for non-technical friends and
relatives to make their photos available.
(Disclaimer: I'm currently writing "The Photoshop Express Pocket
Guide" for Peachpit Press. The first chapter is now available as a
free download; subsequent chapters will be posted online as part of
Peachpit's Rough Cuts program for subscribers of Safari Books
Online.)
<http://www.peachpit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=136289>
<http://safari.peachpit.com/roughcuts/>
First Kindly Impressions about My Kindle
----------------------------------------
by Tonya Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9528>
I ordered a Kindle about a month ago, and it finally arrived
yesterday. The Kindle, Amazon.com's new ebook reader, probably won't
set the literary world on fire. However, I ordered one anyway
because as a publisher of electronic books I'm especially curious
about it, because I think it may help beat back the stacks of books
that sometimes overwhelm our living space, and because I'm hoping it
will work well for reading on trips.
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FI73MA/?tag=tidbitselectro00>
My first impressions have been positive. It was easy to figure out
how to start using it, and easy to understand my options. I don't
always understand the highly compressed controls in consumer
electronics quickly; clock radios in particular often baffle me. And
the iPod's controls had me in tears when I first tried to use one.
So, if I can get the Kindle working easily without help, that's
saying something.
However, the Kindle is not without its quirks:
* When the Kindle sleeps, it puts up a literary looking picture and a
little message telling me to press Alt-A to wake. (It's not actually
the A key; it's an A-looking key at the lower right.) It is
ridiculous to press Alt-anything on a modern device aimed at normal
users, but I have forgiven the Kindle this user-interface gaffe
because it told me so clearly what to do. I didn't have to consult
the online manual, ask for help, or search in Google.
* The Kindle has a scroll wheel that you roll to move a cursor up and
down on a scroll bar-like panel that's parallel to the main screen;
you press the scroll wheel to select the menu item or link in the
same line as the cursor. It's weird to operate controls that are
separated from the visual interface elements, but it's simple to
learn and lets you open and operate menus fluidly. The reason for
this oddly decoupled controller is that the screen doesn't redraw
like a normal computer screen, so it's impossible to have a mouse
pointer moving on the screen. This page-by-page redraw is a
byproduct of the Kindle's use of E Ink technology that results in a
readable onscreen display and long battery life.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Ink>
* TidBITS contributing editor Glenn Fleishman used a Kindle briefly
but didn't like the "disconcerting flash" as the screen redrew to
show a new page. Glenn wrote a nice overview of the Kindle's specs,
pros, and cons in "Comparing Amazon's Kindle to the iPhone and Sony
Reader," 2007-11-19 and in a blog post at the Seattle Times. The
flash isn't bothering me, perhaps in part because I was expecting
it, but I'm withholding final judgement until I try reading
immersive fiction on it.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9327>
<http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/archives/2007/11/the_kindle_a_reviewers_first_impressions_1.html>
On the one hand, the Kindle has a strange mix of features and
interface elements, but on the other hand, I find it charming that
it's so easy to figure out how to use it. At the moment, I feel
toward it much as I feel toward my Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner
(see "Roomba: a Robot Underfoot," 2005-07-11). Even though the
Roomba takes time to clean and periodically requires that I call
customer service for a replacement part or ROM upgrade, I still
adore what it does well and put up with the downsides in order to
enjoy the benefits.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8169>
At first, the Kindle couldn't find the Sprint EVDO network that it
uses for its Whispernet delivery service in my house. However, once
it was out in the yard, where it could pick up the signal, it seemed
to have locked on, and now it sees the network even inside. My next
step is to try buying new material from the Kindle Store at Amazon.
The Kindle did come with a preloaded user manual, a dictionary, and
a nice note from Jeff Bezos, but I'm ready for more variety.
Switch Your Network to Gigabit Ethernet
---------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9518>
I hate waiting for network tasks to complete, whether it's copying
large files, saving a big Word document, or watching a backup take
forever. The real problem is that being forced to watch a progress
bar often causes me to jump off to another task, which in turn makes
me lose track of where I am. I wouldn't go back to the System 6 days
before MultiFinder for anything, but there are times when I think
that Mac OS X's multitasking makes me less productive.
One way to reduce the number of times I hop between tasks is to cut
down on the number of unnecessary waits. Last week, I focused on
speeding up my Ethernet network's performance, an effort that proved
both easy and inexpensive, and one that I'd encourage anyone who is
frustrated by network speeds to try.
(One quick clarification - although we all talk about network
"speed," that's a misleading term. Increasing the performance of a
network is more like increasing the diameter of a water hose. If
you're trying to fill a swimming pool, a fire hose will finish the
job much more quickly than a thinner garden hose at the same
distance from the water source. That's what we're doing when we move
from a "slower" network to a "faster" network - we're making the
network pipes bigger, so they can carry more data in the same amount
of time. Ideally, we would always talk about increasing network
"bandwidth" or "throughput" but those terms don't always resonate as
well with normal users.)
**Going to Gigabit** -- Apple has periodically increased the
throughput of their networking support in Macs, starting with
LocalTalk's 230.4 kilobits per second (Kbps). After that came 10
megabits per second (Mbps) Ethernet, followed by 100 Mbps Ethernet
(sometimes called "fast Ethernet") and now 1000 Mbps Ethernet, which
is commonly called "gigabit Ethernet." 10 Gbps Ethernet is used in
some enterprise networks, and development is underway on 40 Gbps and
100 Gbps Ethernet; these faster flavors are used mostly to tie
together gigabit Ethernet networks without hampering overall
performance.
(Terminology abounds in this field. 10, 100, and 1000 Mbps Ethernet
are also sometimes called 10Base-T, 100Base-T, and 1000Base-T, which
refers to underlying cabling standards; the T stands for twisted
pair, referring to the use of simple copper wiring, twisted at
regular intervals to reduce signal interference. There are other
forms of cabling, so 10Base-2 refers to 10 Mbps Ethernet running
over coaxial cable and there are a number of 1000Base-X standards
that carry gigabit Ethernet over fiber optic cables.)
Whenever Apple adopts the latest flavor of Ethernet, there's usually
a lag time before most users follow along. Although Apple can source
the Ethernet controllers sufficiently cheaply to include them in
Macs, it takes a while before other equipment manufacturers can get
the chips cheaply enough to build them into switches, routers, and
other networking devices at prices that most people can afford. And
of course, once someone has a perfectly functional 100 Mbps network,
it takes a few years of buying new Macs and other networking
hardware before enough of the devices on that network are capable of
gigabit Ethernet. (To be painfully clear, you need at least two
computers on a network capable of gigabit Ethernet before it's worth
upgrading your switches!)
Back when we lived in Seattle, we used a 10Base-2 Ethernet network,
with four locations connected by long runs of coaxial cable. This
made sense at the time because 10Base-2 can be daisy-chained, with
each computer connecting to the next; see "Creating a Simple
Ethernet Network," 1998-09-14. In places where we needed to support
10Base-T as well, we added a hub to convert between the two wiring
standards.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/5085>
When we moved to Ithaca, I wired our new house with twisted pair
wiring and used 100 Mbps Ethernet switches from Linksys to connect
the three different parts of the network (our server/laundry room,
my office, and Tonya's office). That setup worked fine for a number
of years, but of late I had been experiencing network problems that
were most easily resolved by power cycling one or more of the three
Ethernet switches. Plus, I realized that three of our four primary
Macs supported gigabit Ethernet internally. It was time to go
gigabit.
(Another brief aside. Hubs retransmit all incoming data to all
ports, which is less efficient than switches, which create a
dedicated path between any two ports, keeping unnecessary data off
the rest of the network. When I first started creating Ethernet
networks, switches cost much more than hubs; processor advances
eliminated any cost advantage quite a few years ago. It's unclear if
hubs even exist for modern flavors of Ethernet; if you run across
one, keep running.)
**Making the Switch** -- The first step was to purchase new gigabit
Ethernet switches to replace the increasingly flaky 100 Mbps Linksys
switches. I took the shortcut of shopping on Amazon.com, where I
compared the user ratings and reviews of similarly priced switches
from D-Link, Netgear, and other manufacturers. It's important to
read such reviews carefully, paying close attention to those that
make points that seem relevant to your intended use. In the end, I
bought three identical 5-port gigabit Ethernet switches from D-Link,
the DGS-2205. At the time they cost only $34.99, and came with $10
rebates.
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FIVDIA/?tag=tidbitselectro00>
(How large a switch should you get? It depends on the number of
devices you plan to attach in any particular location. Five ports is
probably enough for most home and small office networks, because you
likely will have only a few machines close together. To connect
multiple locations, you run a single Ethernet cable to the next
switch. It's generally better to run only one cable between
inexpensive switches in multiple locations than to run multiple
cables across long distances to a single switch. For areas with many
devices, you can buy switches with 8, 12, and 24 ports.)
As a slight bonus, given that they're powered on all the time, these
particular D-Link switches advertised themselves as using less power
by powering down inactive ports, budgeting power for different
Ethernet cable lengths, and using more efficient power adapters. In
my testing, each switch uses about 2.1 watts constantly, which costs
me about 24 cents per month; that's about two-thirds of the power
used by the older Linksys switches. Some older inexpensive gigabit
switches ran very hot and even required cooling fans.
Installing the gigabit Ethernet switches was trivially easy, just a
matter of swapping the Ethernet cables from the old Linksys switches
and plugging in the power adapters. On two of the D-Link switches,
the status lights glowed green to indicate that communications
between my Power Mac G5 and MacBook, and with Tonya's MacBook Pro,
were now taking place at gigabit speeds.
However, the lights on one of the D-Link switches weren't green, but
amber, indicating that communications on those ports were running at
only 100 Mbps. Two of those three didn't surprise me, since the
Power Mac G4 acting as our internal server had an Intel Pro/100
Ethernet card that supported only 100Base-T (see "Adding Ethernet to
a Power Mac," 2004-07-12), and our 802.11g-capable AirPort Extreme
Base Station is also limited to 100Base-T.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7737>
But the third amber light was concerning, since it was associated
with the cable that connected to one of the other switches, and it
should have been green to indicate a 1000Base-T connection.
Initially, I was worried that the problem lay in the outdoor-rated
Ethernet cable I'd laboriously researched and installed to extend my
network from one side of the house to the other, but some quick
cable swapping revealed the problem to be a single cheap patch cable
that lacked sufficient wires to carry 1000Base-T. Exchanging it for
a better cable turned that third light green.
(Time for another interruption. As you've just read, not all twisted
pair Ethernet cables are created equal. Very old ones from the early
1990s may be Category 3, commonly known as Cat3, which is suitable
only for 10Base-T. It was replaced by Cat5 cable, good for up to
100Base-T and possibly functional with gigabit Ethernet. However,
for gigabit Ethernet, you really want to use either Cat5e, which
replaced Cat5, or Cat6 cable, and networking people have told me
that Cat6 is best for full performance over long cable runs.
Hopefully, any cables you have lying around will be labeled on the
cable itself; if you suspect problems, just get new Cat6 cables. All
cable runs must be less than 100 meters, and preferably shorter. If
you're remodeling your house or office, the best approach is to
install conduit and string with which you can pull whatever future
cable you want, along with another string. TidBITS editor Rich
Mogull took that route - and then discovered later that some
subcontractor had pulled the string out of half the runs! Chuck
Goolsbee of Web hosting company digital.forest recommends fish tape
for this exigency.)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_tape>
The next part of the project took some more research. I needed a
PCI-based gigabit Ethernet card for the Power Mac G4 that would work
with drivers already built into Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (whenever
possible, try to avoid Ethernet cards that require their own
drivers, which may not be updated in sync with Mac OS X). When I
last had to buy an Ethernet card for the Power Mac G4 several years
ago, the Accelerate Your Mac site offered a useful page with reader
reports about PCI Ethernet cards. The page is still there, more
useful than ever, and it turned me on to the TRENDnet TEG-PCITXR
card, which works with Apple's built-in Ethernet drivers. Rather
astonishingly, it was widely available for under $20; I bought it
for $15.99 from Newegg.
<http://xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/os_x_network_cards.html>
<http://trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=140_TEG-PCITXR&cat=14>
Once I installed the card in my Power Mac G4 and configured the
Network preference pane to use it, the D-Link switch's associated
light turned green to indicate that my server was now communicating
at gigabit speeds.
That left only the AirPort Extreme Base Station, but all it does is
distribute wireless connectivity in the house and connect to my
cable modem for my main Internet connection, which maxes out at
about 4 Mbps down and 750 Kbps up. So upgrading to a new 802.11n
AirPort Extreme Base that also supports gigabit Ethernet, or a
similarly capable Time Capsule, simply wouldn't make much, if any,
difference.
(One last aside. There is a performance problem that can occur with
gigabit Ethernet networks any time your base station uses NAT to
connect traffic between the local area network (LAN) and wide area
network (WAN). This situation doesn't arise in normal circumstances,
because most people connect a relatively slow broadband Internet
connection to the WAN port. But if the Internet connection is fast -
say, 30 Mbps fiber, which is available in some locations - or if
your base station isn't directly connected to your broadband cable
or DSL modem, performance can suffer. That's because most base
stations have relatively weak processors that can't keep up with
NAT's need to examine and rewrite every packet that crosses between
the LAN and the WAN. TidBITS editor Glenn Fleishman has found that a
number of Wi-Fi base stations (including Apple's) with NAT enabled
unintentionally throttle LAN/WAN traffic to as low as 30 to 70 Mbps,
even on networks that can send traffic at 980 Mbps between LAN
gigabit ports. The solution is to have only one device performing
the role of a NAT gateway, preferably connected directly to the
broadband modem. If you need better performance, you might need to
use a computer with two Ethernet adapters and IPNetRouterX from
Sustainable Softworks.)
<http://www.sustworks.com/site/prod_ipnrx_overview.html>
**The Final Bits** -- To give you a sense of how much of a difference
moving from 100 Mbps Ethernet to 1000 Mbps Ethernet makes, I did a
few simple tests copying a 1.07 GB file back and forth across my
different machines before and after the upgrade. I used basic file
sharing in Mac OS X - Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) and hand-timed the
copies with an iPod touch's stopwatch.
Across 100 Mbps Ethernet, it took between 106 seconds and 113
seconds to copy the 1.07 GB file, or about 81 to 87 Mbps. That's a
pretty decent usage of the pipe, since there's always some network
overhead that prevents you from getting the full bandwidth of the
connection.
When I ran the same test over gigabit Ethernet, the copies took
between 43 and 48 seconds, or 199 to 213 Mbps. That's a significant
improvement in performance, but far from the 1000 Mbps that is
theoretically available. Curious, I did a bit more testing.
The Link Rate test in Sustainable Softworks' IPNetMonitorX produced
an estimate of over 800 Mbps, which is much closer to the
theoretical limit, but achieved in a calculated fashion, rather than
by actually transferring large quantities of data. Testing with FTP
at the command line produced, at best, results similar to the AFP
copies, showing the AFP wasn't being notably slower than Apple's
built-in FTP server and client. Most interesting, though, was that
simply duplicating the same file in the Finder took almost exactly
the same time as transferring over the network on my Power Mac G5
(and about twice as long on the MacBook, which I can't explain),
indicating that I may in fact have been bumping up against hard disk
and filesystem performance limits as well.
<http://www.sustworks.com/site/prod_ipmx_overview.html>
To sum up then, for less than $125, I was able to increase the
effective speed of my network for copying large files by almost 2.5
times. It would have been nice if I'd seen a 10-fold improvement,
but it seems that such performance gains will require faster hard
disks and network protocols as well.
Keep in mind that this network upgrade will almost certainly not
affect my perception of Internet throughput at all, since that's
constrained by my Internet connection and by the remote servers I'm
connecting to. Increasing the local bandwidth simply won't make much
difference, if any, to Internet performance.
But hey, I'm happy with halving the time it takes to shove large
quantities of data around my network, since backups should move more
quickly, copying big video files won't be so painful, screen sharing
should be snappier, and working on hefty Word files on the server
will be less sluggish. That's all good, and well worth the minimal
expense.
TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 31-Mar-08
---------------------------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9527>
* Apple TV 2.0.1 was released last week and... well, Apple doesn't say
what it does. The only way to know it exists is to go to Settings >
General > Update Software on an Apple TV. A new Genres submenu now
appears under My Movies, and we'll assume that bug fixes have been
applied. (Free.)
* Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.3 "fixes several issues to improve the
stability of the Mac Pro (Early 2008)." TidBITS reader Jack Hayes
tells us that the update appears to fix an annoying problem that
would cause a Mac Pro to restart when awakened from sleep. (Free,
1.76 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macproefifirmwareupdate13.html>
* Firmware Restoration CD 1.5 enables users of the Mac Pro (Early
2008) to restore the firmware of the machine after an interrupted or
unsuccessful update. Previous versions of this CD work with other
Mac models. You will have to download this disk image and burn it to
CD to be able to use it. (Free, 2.5 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/firmwarerestorationcd15.html>
* Moneydance 2008 from Reilly Technologies is a major update to the
company's personal finance program, often listed as a primary
competitor to Intuit's Quicken. Notable changes include improved
matching for downloaded transactions, a zoom-able home page graph
for quickly exploring income and expenses, over/under budget
highlighting, a pop-up calendar for choosing dates, and a new
capital gains report, along with numerous bug fixes and minor
enhancements. Moneydance may be the only Macintosh application other
than Quicken that does transaction download and online bill payment
using the standard online banking protocol OFX. ($39.99 new, $19.99
upgrade, 5.2 MB)
<http://moneydance.com/>
* Freeway 5 from Softpress Systems adds numerous significant features
to the company's Web design software, including the capability to
create CSS-based menus, personalized templates for Blogger, a suite
of Google Actions to add Google content to sites, a set of
Scriptaculous Actions for dynamic effects, accessibility options,
sliced background images, background effects, nested HTML lists,
iPhoto import, color labeling, and more. Pro and Express versions
are both available; Softpress provides a comparison document. ($249
Pro/$149 Express new, $99 Pro/$49 Express upgrade)
<http://www.softpress.com/products/>
<http://www.softpress.com/products/differencesbetwe.php>
* AirPort Extreme Update 2008-001 for Tiger improves the reliability
of AirPort connections on Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger. (Free, 1.3 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportextremeupdate2008001fortiger.html>
* Security Update 2008-002 v1.1 replaces Security Update 2008-002 v1.0
and will be installed by Software Update for Mac OS X 10.5.2 users
who have not yet installed v1.0 and for Mac OS X 10.5.2 users who
have Aperture 2.0 and who already installed Security Update 2008-002
v1.0. The new release fixes problems with the Printer Settings
button in Aperture 2.0 under Mac OS X 10.5.2. No other applications
or versions of Mac OS X are affected. (Free, 50 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2008002v11leopard.html>
* Plugin Manager 1.7.3 from Apple fixes unspecified reliability
problems in all of Apple's professional applications, including
Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Express, Aperture, and Logic Express.
(Free, 864K)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/pluginmanager173.html>
* iPod Reset Utility 1.0.3 for Mac from Apple restores the first and
second generation iPod shuffle models to factory settings when
iTunes is unable to do so. (Free, 3.6 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ipodresetutility103formac.html>
* MailTags 2.2 from Indev Software adds Leopard support to this
popular Mail add-on, which enables users to tag messages with
Spotlight-searchable keywords, categories, due dates, and more. The
new version supports all the data types in Mail version 3, including
RSS articles, notes, and to-do items. It also features a new modular
architecture that will allow for future features to be added by way
of drop-in Extras; an Extras SDK for third parties is in the works.
($29.95 new, free upgrade, 4 MB)
<http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html>
* SOHO Organizer 7.0 from Chronos is a major upgrade to the company's
long standing calendaring and contact management application for
individuals and workgroups. New in 7.0 are recurring tasks, display
of tasks in calendar views, date and alphabet bars for quickly
filtering events and contacts, the capability to print calendars
from all calendar views, automatic age calculations for birthdays
and anniversaries, and support for creating and printing CD/DVD
labels. ($99.99 new, $49.99 upgrade, 67 MB)
<http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohoorganizer.html>
* SOHO Notes 7.0 from Chronos adds a number of features to the note
manager for individuals and networked workgroups. Most interesting
among the new features is the capability to attach an unlimited
number of tasks to notes and to embed tasks within notes. Other
improvements include a details sidebar for editing note attributes,
importing of data into forms, the addition of a comments field for
each note, and improved printing. ($39.99 new, $25 upgrade, 32 MB)
<http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohonotes.html>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/31-Mar-08
------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9537>
**Vista Woes Redux** -- Apple's latest online ad campaign makes a
splash by using two ad spots in conjunction: the Mac and PC
characters react to the banner ad at the top of the page. (6
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1918>
**Browser standards** -- Readers discuss Microsoft's attempt to make
Internet Explorer 8 use nonstandard tags (and convince Web
developers to design for them) in an attempt to lock in users. (2
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1919>
**Have naughty posters invaded TidBITS?** An online filter blocks a
TidBITS Talk issue, but what was the objectionable word? (8
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1920>
**devices not syncing calendar (etc) data reliably, any ideas?** Is
data syncing generally unreliable, or is something specific causing
problems? (4 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1921>
**Un-junking TidBITS digests** -- Thunderbird is erroneously marking
TidBITS Talk digests as junk mail, so how does one mark the messages
as legitimate? (6 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1922>
**Software for Slideshow Presentations** -- A reader is looking for
something simple that will play a presentation without user
interaction. (4 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1923>
**Does Carbon Copy Cloner do a Smart Update when cloning?** The latest
update to CCC clarifies what happens during an update, specifically
when making incremental backups. (4 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1924>
**Fusion 1.1 & Time Machine** -- To avoid overwhelming a backup drive,
Fusion 1.1 automatically excludes its virtual machine disk images
from Time Machine backups. (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1925>
**Updated Paste Plain Text AppleScript for Word 2008** -- A reader has
questions about Joe Kissell's script for pasting unformatted text in
Microsoft Word 2008. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1926>
**AirPort Update Extends Time Capsule, Adds AirDisk Support** -- The
surprise inclusion of making Time Machine backups to a drive
attached to an AirPort Extreme base station doesn't seem to work for
one reader. (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1927>
$$
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