And yet another reason to keep your PC clean! - AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn -- by a PC virus

AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn -- by a PC virus

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/11/09/ap_impact_framed_for_child_porn____by_a_pc_virus?mode=PF

Droid Syncing with Standalone Outlook - FAIL

Please note that correct to today, Nov 3rd 2009, the new Droid phone from Verizon will NOT naively sync with standalone Outlook (IOW w/o exchange)

I am searching for a 3rd party tool that will do this but the only ones i can find are for syncing with the "googleplex" or with MS Exchange.

TY for the offer but I do not want to share my private data with the "cloud."

Palm and BB have done syncing for years....amazing Droid FAIL!

Morotolla/Verizon please please fix this if you want me to buy this product!

Smartphone Showdown: iPhone 3GS vs Motorola Droid

Smartphone Showdown: iPhone 3GS vs Motorola Droid

Verizon Launches Motorola's Droid Phone

This may be the smartphone i have been waiting for! More to follow I am sure :)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354855,00.asp

All excited about Windows 7? Wait a minute!

Windows 7 is, in fact, the spiffiest version of Windows yet.  But besides the catches you've already heard about (like not being able to upgrade XP or 2000 directly to 7), there's a couple more.

First of all, if you were running the betas or the RC, you were likely using Windows 7 in the Ultimate incarnation.  So now you've gone out and gotten your hands on Home Premium or Professional - well, just like with Vista, you can't downgrade once you upgrade.  This was something I bumped into while trying to upgrade to the release version of 7 Professional on my EEE 901 netbook.  An upgrade involving changing editions?  Nuke & pave.

The other scenario is if you want to go from x32 to x64.  In the Apple world, the base OS is capable of both modes of operation (in fact, 64-bit apps run fine even when the kernel is in 32-bit mode) but in Windows 7 you'll need to pick an edition right away.  And the bad news?  You can't upgrade from x32 to x64.  It's a clean installation.  In my case, I wanted to go from Vista Ultimate x32 to 7 Ultimate x64 on a fairly high-spec PC - no such luck.  Another clean install required.  Boo hiss.

All this said, Windows 7 is worth it if you have the hardware, and if you run Vista today.  Compatibility has been good in my experience with the RC version, and most of the things that made Vista infuriating have been cleaned up effectively.  If you use Vista now, upgrade.  Just do it.  You won't regret it.  If you use XP, hold tight for the time being - I expect third parties to quickly make the migration easier for you (since upgrading requires a clean install).  If you can't wait, make sure you have all your software installation discs handy - or think about getting yourself a Mac instead.

Mozilla Raindrop: Is the Intelligent Inbox Coming?

Another interesting project coming from Mozilla:

http://mashable.com/2009/10/22/mozilla-raindrop/

Raindrop UX Design and Demo
http://tinyurl.com/ygkz89s

Upgrade Your New PC to Windows 7 for "Free"

Article on how to qualify for a "free" upgrade to Win 7 if you purchased a PC within the past 6 months.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354554,00.asp

Free Wallpaper Site - Cool!

http://interfacelift.com/

Audacity - The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor

Audacity is a free open-source audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 files, and more. Use it to edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo), mix tracks together, or apply effects to your recordings. "

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Online VMX creation tool - VMWare

Do you need a tool to create VMX files for use with VMPlayer?

If so check out:

http://www.easyvmx.com/

Copy full file location into Copy/Paste Buffer - Vista

Did you ever wish you could copy the full file location into the copy/paste buffer?

Well in Vista you can! - Win7(TDB)

Hold the left shift key down while you right click on the file and then select the "copy as path" option. You can then use your applications paste function to retrieve from the buffer the full file location including the name of the file.

Cloud Computing for SMB's

Excerpt from an article I just wrote on the Benefits and Risks of Cloud Computing for Small and Medium Size Businesses:

"At our BNUG meeting last night we had a very interesting mini discussion on Cloud Computing (CC) and below are my thoughts on the Benefits and Risks of using Cloud Computing.

First let me define what I understand the term “Cloud Computing” to mean...

Please click here to continue reading the full article.

Free SFTP and FTP GUI client for Windows - WinSCP

What is WinSCP?

"WinSCP is an open source SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager functionality. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol."

http://winscp.net/

Turn any PC into a NAS - Open Source Project

Turn any server into a NAS!

http://www.freenas.org/

Disk Imageing for Apple OS X - Donationware

Carbon Copy Cloner - Donationware

http://www.bombich.com/index.html

Windows XP/Win7 time issues under virtualization

Here is a hidden jewel that I just discovered if you are running mixed virtualized guests (Linux & Windows)

The norm is to set the host server to UTC and let the guest OS handle the timezone offsets. The problem is that Windows XP normally takes the RTC (real time clock) time as the system time and does not compensate for the offset from UTC. So what to do?

Do I need to say this? Backup your registry FIRST!!

Go to this registry key:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\

and add a new string value, type REG_SZ.

Name the string value "RealTimeIsUniversal" and set value to "1" for Universal Time.

Reboot and your virtualized guest OS should now show the correct local time.

This worked for me on a virtualized Windows XP and Win 7, YMMV on other windows versions!

I would also suggest setting up the internet time sync to use:

north-america.pool.ntp.org

for those of you in North America.

Open Source Wireless Network Scanner -inSSIDer

"inSSIDer is an award-winning free Wi-Fi network scanner for Windows Vista and Windows XP. Because NetStumbler doesn't work well with Vista and 64-bit XP, we built an open-source Wi-Fi network scanner designed for the current generation of Windows operating systems."

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider

Microsoft announces unpatched IE vulnerability

Microsoft announces unpatched IE vulnerability

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/07/06/microsoft_warns_of_serious_computer_security_hole/

Link to Windows 7 Feature Comp Chart @ PCWorld

Link to Windows 7 Feature Comp Chart @ PCWorld

http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=167444&page=1&zoomIdx=1

Yet another reason Linux won't make it

As mentioned a ways back in this blog, I bought an Asus EEE 901 last year when I decided to experiment more with netbooks. The 901 is a nice, well-engineered piece of hardware. The only places where I've deviated from the standard installation is in upgrading the RAM to 2GB (pretty much essential if you want to run without a pagefile in Windows) and in upgrading the secondary SSD to 16GB from the 8 provided. I've run various flavors of Windows on it mainly - Vista and Windows 7 have been on here as experiments (mainly, I travel with my Mac so I'm not generally too worried about having this all usable).

This week I downloaded Windows 7 RC. I installed it already in a Parallels VM, but I decided that before I upgraded to the RC on my 901, I'd try and run it off Linux for a while. So I downloaded Ubuntu (currently that's pretty much the standard desktop Linux distro) 9.04 - the netbook version. Bad sign #1 was when I looked up the compatibility notes for my 901. Not a good beginning. So it's great except the buttons don't work and you can't put it to sleep. I did it anyways, though.

Installation was pretty easy - I did the flash drive installation using a spare SD card I had. That part worked pretty well, and the installation was much easier than most Linux distros I've done in the past. Chalk one up for Canonical. The tough part came afterwards.

(before I go any further - let me remind the reader that I know Linux from ample past usage, I know how to find and install apps, and I'm even comfortable on the command line. This is trying to replicate the OOBE for a new user - so my standards are a little diferent for this project)

So post-installation, much like with Windows, there were a ton of updates that had been released since the image was built. Which was no big deal - I was plugged in to my Ethernet jack so I downloaded them all in a flash.

That is point number 1: I had to use my Ethernet jack because the wireless adapter wasn't even recognized! Not good. I did look at the wireless connection tool, though, and it would (assuming the wireless card was up) let me type in the name of any wireless network I wanted to join and the key for it.

What it would not do, though, is give me a simple tool to enumerate the wireless networks I saw and then pick one to connect to. You know - like Windows and Macs do. Now I'm sure I could have found a way to do it buried within, or downloaded a .deb with a better wireless app, but this is OOBE we're talking about again. And that part of the OOBE sucked.

So then I noticed that sound didn't work either. And that the installation repositories still seem to give me a listing of so much crap to sort through in order to find the one or two apps I might actually be interested in that it was nearly useless (this isn't just Ubuntu - Linux distros have been doing this since day 1. More does not equal better).

Honestly, I never got to the point of using the built-in productivity apps and such. Nor did I make too many further notes on the GUI. I do like Ubuntu's practice of requiring authorization to do most admin-level activities.

So my next task was to plug in my USB DVD drive and boot my DVD of Windows 7 RC. Half an hour later it was working, with all hardware functional. As much as I like to complain about Windows, it worked out of the box and Ubuntu did not. Needed a couple of extra drivers from Asus for optimization, but it all worked.

And this is why Linux just doesn't get it done as a system for everyone. There are millins of people without any real technical qualifications running Unix on their desktop - unfortunately for Linux advocates it's Mac OS X that they are running. Everyone else runs Windows and only the truly devoted run Linux. I've been using Linux and building Linux systems for 15+ years now (my personal site was built off the original Slackware release on a homemade server), and the biggest improvement I can see in that time is that now Xwindows is much better at detecting and auto-installing. Nowhere near enough community effort is going to the end-user experience - and that is what will have to be overcome before Linux is ever going to be a viable option for The Rest Of Us.

Free (as in Beer) Data Recovery Utilities - YMMV

As always **at your own risk** but here are some free data recovery utilities for (Windows/Mac/Linux)!

TestDisk
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

PhotoRec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

It's me, Apple fanboi again...

No good Apple talk in a while on this blog (or, for that matter, on my personal one either), so I figured I'd share a little talk about the current laptop fleet they're shipping. In one form or another, I either own or use (or have set up) at least one of each, so I've got a good grounds for comparison.

First up: the $999 white MacBook. Except for the plastic case and the 120GB hard drive, this is basically identical to the $1300 aluminum model. And it still has FireWire 400 available on it - the last Mac, in fact, with a "classic" FireWire 400 connector (the Air and unibody MacBooks have no FireWire at all, and the other Pro and desktop systems have FireWire 800). A very good value, as it's based on the same chipset as the entire rest of the portable series, supports 4GB of RAM, and if you want a better hard drive it's very easy to upgrade. When my wife's 4-year-old iBook started to lose the ability to hold a charge a couple of months ago this is what I got her to replace it.

The next step up is the "Unibody" MacBooks. First of all, these cases are rock-solid, and there is no inherent performance penalty to these compared to a MacBook Pro - unlike previous generation models. The nVidia graphics performance is good, and the screens are nice and bright. Battery life on the MacBook models is generally very good. The more expensive model ($1599) offers a faster CPU, a larger HD, and, most notably, the backlit keyboard that was only available before on the premium laptops.

The MacBook Air is a perfect machine for those who need it. Unfortunately, that's a pretty small market. The Air is resonably fast with the new chipset, has a Pro-level screen (sitting with an Air and a MacBook side-by-side you can really see the difference - the MacBook looks really nice until you put the Air next to it). The weight is outstanging, and it's the most solid-feeling ultraportable I've ever handled. But it has definite drawbacks. The battery life is only "OK" (I'd expect 6 hours out of a device like the Air, especially when you can't swap batteries). It has only one USB port - which is a huge drawback if you need to use a wired network, because there is no Ethernet port. Only a $29 dongle for 10/100 Ethernet. The other major Air flaw (a little better in the current version) is heat. The thing cooks - almost literally! Compared to a 2.4 GHz MacBook the 1.86 GHz Air I've used measures almost 8 degrees C hotter at the back edge. It also is limited in storage - but that's not as much of a flaw as it is a side effect of using 1.8" drives. On the plus side, the 128GB SSD drive available for it is amazingly fast, especially for read operations (it warm-boots in about 9 seconds).

Then we turn to the Pro series, a 15" model (in two speeds) and a 17" model. I have the most experience so far with the 15" (the 17" only recently began shipping), and it's a solid, if slightly pricey system. The major features of the Pro series compared to the MacBook line are these additions:

- Better screens
- Discrete GPU
- ExpressCard/34
- FireWire 800
- Official support (in the 17") for 8GB RAM

Interestingly, the Pro systems all let you toggle between the built-in chipset graphics and the GPU. This is managed through the Energy Saver system preference, and at least at this point requires either a reboot or logging out and back in to your account to switch. Performance is significantly higher for graphics apps when the GPU is live, at the expense of battery life. However, even the built-in graphics are much better than the previous generation of Mac (and Windows) laptops that used the Intel chipsets with their integrated graphics.

The only major performance note I'd sound about the Pro line (which is kind of a given on the MacBook) is that when running rendering software using virtualized Windows (via Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion) redraw performance is poor. This is common in most virtualization environments, and the vendors are working to improve this. I have a client where a couple of their users do almost everything on Macs except run Solidworks, and this is an issue there. Though not enough to make them use Bootcamp to reboot under Windows natively!

The 17" MacBook Pro basically gives you two things that the 15" doesn't. One, of course, is a massive screen. The other is a sealed-in battery that's big enough to provide 5+ hours of usage. For real. If the Air was only so lucky!

So to sum up, Apple's current laptop line has a pretty good continuum of models/price points covering a range from consumer to pro. The only real holes are in places they choose (thus far) not to compete in. The major gap in their line is at the bottom - Apple has no "bargain basement" laptop to compete with the $599 Dells that they advertise in Sunday newspaper inserts and they also are not currently a player in the netbook field. I'd say that is a reasonably OK compromise for now - though it wouldn't surprise me to see a device this year that is designed to bridge the netbook/laptop gap to some degree from them.

Sure, Apple says they aren't interested in the netbook market. On the other hand, they once said that about cell phones, too. And look how that worked out.

Not sure if Exchange is working?

Thanks to folks in the MS labs, we now have the marvelous tool:

https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/

It does just as advertised - and it can help figure out the sticky ActiveSync problems that happen more than I'd like to admit!

Convert PDF Document to Word

Very Cool on-line tool to convert a PDF document into a word document.


convertpdftoword.net

Acer "Aspire One" Netbook

I finally couldn't resist any longer when I held one of the Acer "Aspire One" notebook computers in my hands at a display in Costco. For $349 (same price as MicroCenter's store in Cambridge) you get a 2-lb. metallic-blue color hard plastic cased machine running Windows XP on a 1.6GHz Intel "Atom" CPU, a 120GB internal hard disk, 1GB of memory, built-in WiFi, RJ-45 jack for 10base100 ethernet, three USB ports, a mini-SD card reader slot, built-in web cam and microphone, 3.5mm jacks for headset and for external audio input, a 15-pin jack for an external monitor or projector, a 3-cell LIoN battery and a 120/240vac charger/power supply. Also included is a faux-leather fitted carrying pouch.

MicroCenter (not Costco) also has the slightly more expensive ($399) model which has a larger 160GB drive, a 6-cell LIoN battery, and black color case. It's likely that both versions can be found online for slightly less (and slightly more), but the small savings were insufficient to offset the instant gratification of carrying it home from the store and of knowing there would be no DOA return risk and no shipping charges.

The Aspire One has a keyboard which is slightly smaller than a standard keyboard but still large enough to type on conventionally. The 8.9-inch diagonal screen is comfortable for personal use and the machine is small enough to hand to someone if you have to show someone something on the screen.

The machine is only about 9.25 inches in width and could be covered easily by a standard sheet of 8-1/2 x 11 paper. This means that it's ideal to fit into a briefcase and leave enough room for other items and printed documents. It's also small enough to leave behind on a restaurant table -- something I learned on the second day I owned it when a honest and diligent waiter came chasing me into the parking lot of a Thai restaurant in Chelmsford.

The Aspire One has no optical disk drive, so you need to use an external drive connected through one of the USB ports. Not really a big issue unless you like to watch DVDs while traveling on airplanes. And, I suppose, you could copy your DVD to a mini-SD or mini-SDHC card and put it in the built-in card reader.

Like the 3.5-inch floppy drive, the RS-232 COM1 serial port and PCMCIA card slot which are no longer found on laptops, the v.34 modem and RJ-11 telephone jack are nowhere to be found on this machine. So if you plan to stay at ultra-budget motels where there is no WiFi, you'll have to find an outboard modem that connects to a USB port. (Is there such a thing?)

A note on the battery configuration: the 3-cell LIoN battery appears to power the machine for about two to two-and-a-half hours, depending upon the amount of disk I/O and screen use. The 6-cell LIoN battery should double that run time but is physically larger and projects an inch or so beyond the rear edge of the case.

I have not yet researched a 12-volt DC automobile power cord but I would assume that either Acer or an after-market vendor makes such a thing.

Finally, the printed user manual makes reference to a built-in restore utility that restores the machine to its factory defaults without the use of a CD. I don't know if this reloads the XP operating system or exactly what it does. (The printed manual runs a total of 12 pages -- a far cry from the Encyclopedia Britainica documentation which used to ship with personal computers.)

I've had this machine now for about a week and I am very impressed. It's size, weight and features should make it my regular machine for travel and a good companion for the kitchen table and to take to BNUG meetings. Ah, the wonders of technology!

Netbooks - chiming in

In my IT services practice, I need to be up-to-date on technology trends.  So, with that in mind (plus I like to travel light on the rare occasions I fly), I've been really curious about the Netbook trend.  Back in the winter, I picked up an original Asus eee PC 8g model to mess with and evaluate.  I used the base Linux OS provided, which was a useful version of Xandros, and carried it around for a couple of weeks.  The biggest flaws I found in the first-generation devices were:

- The 700 series (what I had) and its initial competitors all used mobile Celeron processors that were relatively high-power and high-heat, even running at underclocked speeds.

- The 7" screens weren't terribly usable.

- Battery life was fairly poor, at only about 3 hours.

That said, it was obvious that it was a device with enormous potential - the ability to package and take just the essentials on the road and make it easy to use is a game-changer in the mobile space.  Even my six-year-old wants one (I told him to learn to read first).

So a few months later, the next generation of them has already emerged.  This time I am working with a eee 901, running Windows XP instead of Linux (a Linux version is also available at the same price, but it's constrained in the market since it uses a higher-density SSD).  The simple verdict:  This category has become viable.  Period.  Here's what the 901 brings to the table that goes beyond what we could do just a few months ago:

- CPU is now an Intel Atom at 1.6 GHz.  It uses far less power and is consistently faster in all conditions I've used it in.

- The screen is an 8.9" screen - in the extra space they now give you 1024x600 resolution - enough to be useful.

- Battery life is now almost six hours without any special power-saving measures.  It can potentially go even longer.  Which means I can take it out for the day and not worry about taking my power cord with me.

- The smallest 901 has 12GB of SSD now (4GB on-board and 8GB in a slot).  It's available with 20.  The previous model had 4 on-board and 4 in a slot.

- The touchpad now is larger, and supports multi-touch.  You need (in Windows) to go get the Elantech driver, though, to really take advantage of it.

- The wireless card now supports B/G/N, and Bluetooth is built-in as well.

All this comes at a list price just south of $600 (notebook territory), but I expect this offering to be at a price point under $500 before much longer.  $500 is the magic number for a consumer electronics device (in my opinion) where a netbook becomes a no-brainer alternative to a notebook computer.

The major manufacturers are also beginning to validate the space as well - HP is already selling their 1st-generation 2133 system and both Dell and Lenovo will be shipping systems within the next month or so.  All that remains is for Apple to release a netbook of their own and convince the world that they invented the category!

Will "netbook" computers catch on?

The concept of "internet appliances" never really took off. But it's back in the guise of "Netbooks" and sounds more attuned to how the network is being used today by many users both at home and at work. If the trend catches on, it will mean more emphasis on application and storage servers -- and an even more prominent role for WAN and LAN technology in the personal computing arena.

Here's a story which appeared in the local newspaper a few days ago:

Smaller PCs create jitters in industry

SAN FRANCISCO - (NYT 21 Jul 08) - The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices.

But, in a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because their low price could threaten PC makers' already thin profit margins.

The new computers, often called netbooks, have scant onboard memory. They use energy-sipping computer chips. They are intended largely for surfing Web sites and checking e-mail. The price is small too, with some selling for as little as $300.

The companies that pioneered the category were small too, like Asus and Everex, both of Taiwan.

Despite their wariness of these slim machines, Dell and Acer, two of the biggest PC manufacturers, are not about to let the upstarts have this market to themselves. Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest PC maker, recently sidled into the market with a hybrid of a notebook and netbook that it calls the Mini-Note.

A Silicon Valley start-up called CherryPal says it will it plans to introduce a $300 desktop PC today that is the size of a paperback and uses 2 watts of power compared with the 100 watts of some desktops. It wants to take advantage of the trend toward "cloud computing," in which data is managed and stored in distant servers, not on the actual machine.

Industry analysts say that the emergence of this new class of low-cost, Internet-centric machines could threaten titans like Microsoft and Intel because the giants have built their companies on the notion that consumers want more power and functions built into their next computer.

##

Vista - Detect Wireless Networks

To find out all sorts of interesting information: SSID, Signal strength, broadcast channel, etc, on detected wireless networks:

1) open a command window

2) Enter "netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid"

Finally, a new post

And finally, a new OS to write about. But it's Leopard - Mac OS 10.5.

I purchased it a week ago, and after installing it on two systems thus far (a "Santa Rosa" MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM, and a Core 2 Duo iMac with 2GB RAM) I have discovered some things about it. Most of this is pasted from my personal blog, but I've made more discoveries since then.

- Battery life is about the same overall, but the mete is now more accurate. Initially, it's a power hog, because Spotlight needs to fully reindex post-install.

- It had to recreate my .Mac iDisk. Leopard now stores your content in a .sparseimage DMG file, which grows to match what you are actually using. Previously a image file would be created equal to your storage allocation, regardless of how much you were using.

- The new, informative AirPort menu is spiffy. So is the new Network system preference. However, for people like me who connect to multiple VPNs, there is a glitch. The old Internet Connect application used to manage VPN access, but no longer exists. A new process controls it, and Keychain Access doesn't recognize it, so even though your password is saved you still will have to type it in each time until you recreate the connection. No big deal for one - huge pain for 23 of them.

- The translucent menubar and menu is very visually bleh. It really needs more opacity. Definite 3rd party opportunity!

- Quick View is a nice feature. The live icon previews are a little tough to get used to, but handy.

- The new folder icon look is not good. Very industrial, and not as useful as the old ones (the icons are more difficult to discern the "special" symbols on them for system folders). The small renditions of the icons are particularly bad.

- Mail is spiffy. iCal is fast. No server experience yet for another week or so, so I can't tell you if the iCal server's any good. I just got my copy of Server sent over yesterday.

- Bonus feature: My MS Wireless Laser Mouse 800 now works fine - no hoops necessary. The Mac just pairs with it. Before, I had to repeatedly power-cycle the mouse to get it to work, and go through a weird procedure with BT File Transfer to get it to work at all (it's not Mac-compatible in theory without the special MS dongle, but I'm stubborn and I liked it's ergonomics). I turned the mouse on and it saw it, filled in the info properly and just started working.

- No noticed incompatibilities so far. Office 2004 has been fine. Adobe CS3 applications are mostly fine, though there are reputed to be issues in Acrobat Pro. I have not had any problems using Acrobat Pro for viewing and markup.

- Most major system-level utilities have been updated already for Leopard. Both Parallels and VMware have public previews of their Leopard-ready releases out, and unlike with the move from Panther to Tiger, the move from Tiger to Leopard has been pretty close to glitch-free.

So in using it for a week, I find speed overall to be about the same. Applications launch a little faster on Leopard, and most UI eye candy is faster than it was on Tiger. However, there's a lot more eye candy than there was before. The new Stacks feature is nice to a point, but quickly wears out it's welcome. I think I miss the old Dock. Having remote control built-in is terrific, and I've already made good use of the feature by operating my home Mac from the road. It works well. Server browsing is much simpler, with the Bonjour view as part of standard Finder windows now.

As for applications, I am a Firefox user, so I haven't worked much with the new Safari yet. It is impressively standards-compliant. I pretty much won't use anything without an AdBlock Plus equivalent, though. As mentioned above, iCal is now blazing fast. The new editing interface is (to me) not quite as simple. Address Book has some groupware functionality added but otherwise is similar. The Internet Connect and Printer Setup Utility have been removed and their functionality rolled into their corresponding System Preferences panes. Also an improvement. Netinfo support is gone, replaced by a Directory application and improved Directory Utility that simplify network setup. And Time Machine is worth the hype. It makes backup essentially transparent, and automates virtually all decisions impressively. A little clunky to use with my laptop, mind you, but still remarkable.

Without going any farther in depth, if your Mac is on the speedy side I'd mark Leopard as a worthy upgrade. As is typical, this has a few of the minor annoyances of a .0 release, but Apple has a track record of fixing issues quickly. Expect 10.5.1 within the next couple of weeks and then further stabilization to continue.

Every now and then I come across some really basic information which we all know but, when we need it, never can remember exactly. Here is some useful information comparing the bandwidth capacity (speed) of various common telecom and network facilities:

Dial-up
An analog modem using twisted pair copper phone lines.

 Bell 103             300    bit/s
 Bell 212            1200    bit/sec
 v.22bis             2400    bit/sec
 v.32                   9.6  Kbit/sec
 v.32bis               14.4  Kbit/s
 v.34                  33.6  Kbit/s
 v.90                  53.3  Kbit/s
   v.90 up*            33.6  Kbit/sec
 v.92                  53.3  Kbit/sec
   v.92 up*            48.0  Kbit/sec
 56k                   53.3  Kbit/s
 ISDN                 128.0  Kbit/s

Cable
Uses coaxial copper cable.

 Average                2.00 Mbit/s
   Maximum             10.00 Mbit/s
   Upstream avg*      500.0  Kbit/s

DSL
Digital Subscriber Line uses twisted pair copper phone lines.

 IDSL                 128.0  Kbit/s
 UADSL                  1.5  Mbit/s
   UADSL up*          512.0  Kbit/s
 HDSL                   1.50 Mbit/s
 SDSL                   2.00 Mbit/s
 RADSL                  7.00 Mbit/s
   RADSL up*            1.00 Mbit/s
 ADSL                   8.00 Mbit/s
   ADSL up*             1.00 Mbit/s
 VDSL                  51.64 Mbit/s
   VDSL up*            19.20 Mbit/s

T-carrier
Usually delivered by fiber optic or microwave, although T1 may use two twisted pair copper phone lines.

 T-1                    1.54 Mbit/s
 T-3                   44.74 Mbit/s

Optical Carrier
Fiber optic point-to-point, often used for "backbone" facility.

 OC-3                 155.52 Mbit/s
 OC-12                622.08 Mbit/s
 OC-48              2,488.32 Mbit/s
 OC-96              4,976.64 Mbit/s
 OC-192             9,953.28 Mbit/s
 OC-255            13,219.20 Mbit/s

Ethernet
Used for local area networks (LANs) over multiple twisted pair copper cable, except for the obsolete 10base2 which uses coaxial cable.

10base2 2.00 Mbit/s
10baseT 10.00 Mbit/s
100baseT 100.00 Mbit/s
Gigabit Ethernet 1,000.00 Mbit/s


Wireless
May be fixed or mobile.

 HomeRF                 1.20 Mbit/s

 WiFi
   802.11a             54.00 Mbit/s
   802.11b             11.00 Mbit/s
   802.11g             54.00 Mbit/s
   802.11n            100.00 Mbit/s

 CSD                    9.6  Kbit/s
 CDMA                  14.4  Kbit/s
 iDEN                  19.2  Kbit/s
 CDPD                  19.2  Kbit/s
 1XRTT                144.0  Kbit/s
 HSCSD                 56.0  Kbit/s
 CDMA 2.5G             64.0  Kbit/s
 GPRS                 171.2  Kbit/s
 EDGE                 384.0  Kbit/s
 3G                   384.0  Kbit/s
 UMTS                   2.00 Mbit/s
 3G1xEV-DO              2.40 Mbit/s
 3G1xEV-DV              5.00 Mbit/s

*Note: Some connections are asymmetrical, they download faster than they upload.


An explanation of Bits(b), Bytes(B), and Baud
Bits and bytes are a measurement of electronic information. A byte is always 8 bits. Communications speeds are usually measured in bits per second while many computer operations are measured in bytes per second. A "56k" modem is 56 kilobits and a "2m" DSL connection is 2 megabits per second. "128MB" of RAM is 128 megabytes. Ideally when abbreviations are used, b means bits and B means bytes. Baud rate is another measure of transmission speed and is the number of actual signals sent per second. At one time it was equal to the bits per second, but modern technology allows us to send more than one bit per electric signal.


Mega and kilo
Communications device specifications are usually given in Kilo, meaning 1,000, and mega, meaning 1,000,000. Examples include modems and Ethernet.

Computer storage, such as hard drives, memory and file size, are ususally measured in Kilo, meaning 1,024, and mega, meaning 1,048,576.

Traditionally kilo means one thousand exactly. In the communications world engineers call a thousand bits transmitted in a second 1 kilobit per second. While 1000 is a nice round number for humans to work with, it isn't for computers. Mathematically speaking, humans use decimal or base 10 numbers and computers use binary or base 2 numbers. 1024 is 2 to the power of 10 which is a significant binary value and so is represented by kilo in the computer world. Mega is similar except it means 1,000,000 when describing a communications device and means 1,048,576 (i.e., 1024 kilo) when describing computer devices. Ideally when abbreviations are used, k means 1000 and K means 1024, but this notation convention is not always observed.


Based on information provided by various sources
including Bandwidth Place (http://www.bandwidthplace.com)

Hello, remember us?

We're BNUG - and we've changed a few things. We meet at Microsoft's Waltham offices now (where half the surviving user group community meets, too), and we've moved from the second Tuesday to the first Tuesday of each month. Come out and see us - since the move, attendance has been quite good now and we've had some really neat topics of late.

Also as a follow-up to my post a few months ago about my Treo (shamefully, the last post on this site in over 4 months - we're sorry!), the Jawbone is, in fact, amazing, but the Treo is still crud. However, hope is on the horizon - Palm currently has a major new release of the 700p firmware in carrier testing and due around the end of May. In their new blog, more details are given. Should this fix things properly, I would go ahead and recommend Treos again - if not, look at some of the latest crop of GSM Windows Mobile phones as a good alternative and give a good look at Apple's iPhone when it ships soon.

Hopefully, more brilliant technical commentary will be forthcoming soon from my BNUG brethren...

Treo 700p - 5 months later (the good, the bad, the Bluetooth)

After five months, I am still a Treo 700p user. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same in that time. The biggest change wasn't (yet) a device change, but a service change - 1xRTT mode no longer blocks incoming voice calls. This was the result of a Verizon network upgrade in the early fall (and the Treo got the benefit, along with other smartphones). Also, the accessory market for these devices has boomed. I am now using a 3200mA battery instead of my prior 2400mA extended battery (or the stock 1800mA battery). That gives me amazing life. It also makes the Treo about 3mm thicker, and includes a replacement battery cover that accommodates the thicker battery. It also includes a pre-drilled hole to allow easy access to the reset button.

Which leads me to the bad side: you need easy access to the reset button. Stability is horrible, especially in Bluetooth operation. I've had very little success hotsyncing with Bluetooth, and very limited success with the Bluetooth headsets I use in my daily life. My old Jabra JX10 worked OK with the Treo, but was just too uncomfortable to keep using on a regular basis. The Plantronics 645 doesn't really work at all, nor did a Motorola HBH-700 I tried. I tried and returned a Nokia BH700 (bad performance, lousy fit) and also an Anycom HS-777 (sucked). I had better results with a LG HBM-730, but it was just too fragile to use on a daily basis, and tended to randomly disconnect from the Treo.

I've wound up mainly using a Cardo Scala 700 with the Treo - good wind reduction, usually stays connected, good battery life, and only occasionally crashes the Treo. It's uncomfortable, but I live with it (and I've used a wired headset in the car). A new contender has finally emerged, though, that I just bought a day ago - the Aliph Jawbone (currently available only through Cingular stores). It's big, but pretty light, very comfortable, and has amazing background noise reduction. Plus so far it's rock-solid. It seems a little more fragile than I'd like for pocketing, but I think the good will outweigh the bad. I hope.

Do I list all these Bluetooth headsets to show you what a total whore for Bluetooth I am? Well, maybe a little. But in all seriousness, my day job is running a small IT service shop (myself and one other person right now). I spend the larger part of every day on the road, and reliable handsfree operation is absolutely critical to me - I could live without my MacBook Pro on a given day easier than I could live without my Treo and a solid, high-quality headset. So I've tried model after model (most are cheap), in the hopes of getting the perfect device for regular use. And the serious Bluetooth stability issues on the Treo 700p have made that a real case of Russian Roulette.

On a brighter note overall, Palm has publicly stated (on Treocentral.com) that they are aware of and are working to fix the Treo 700p issues - they expect to release a Bluetooth patch in early January and a full firmware update by spring. I am anxiously awaiting both, but mainly the Bluetooth fixes (I'm sick of buying headsets!). Over the last year or so, I've become a major Bluetooth fan, and that weakness has been whe holds the Treo 700p back from being a close-to-ideal smartphone. It's still overall the best device out there when you consider ease of operation, durability, range of software (If your mail server is IMAP-based, then Chatteremail is by far the best mobile mail client I've ever used, better than Blackberry and it's PalmOS-only), hardware ecosystem, and the quality/versatility of the device. But the newest Windows Mobile phones are awful close behind.