Macking 110

Beware of Silver Sharpies
This from Macintouch: "The Sharpie Metallic Silver permanent marker tip is a great one for TiBooks, but please advise your readers that the marker destroys CD- and DVD-R (et al) media when used to mark on them, even through labels pre-printed on the media. Clients of mine have destroyed so many of their backups it's not even funny."
This is strange considering the black Sharpie is the industry standard for writing on CD-Rs. Beware.
The above reference to TiBooks is part of a larger discussion, where it is recommended that the Metallic Silver marker is great for filling in scratches and discolorations on Titanium PowerBooks (not Aluminum models).

Forget Earthlink Wireless
Bizarre as it is for an Apple partner that is included as part of the default install on all new Macs, Earthlink is promoting a rate reduction for their wireless Internet package - but the service is available only on Windoze laptops!
Why? Blame Sierra, the developer of the Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 used in the scheme. Everything about the card is proprietary; it doesn't use the 802.11 standard at all.
Further, it does not support Remote Access Server (RAS), SMS, static IP addresses, range limitation so it can be used through a firewall, and no 3-watt booster.
In short, it isn't much of a loss. Screw 'em.

Rendezvous Farewell
Tibco Software of Palto Alto, CA had been using the name "Rendezvous" since 1994 for their own networking software, and had filed a suit against Apple. The settlement occurred last month, with Apple phasing out the name in favor of "OpenTalk." AppleLegal is chanting the appropriate incantations at this minute.

Manipulate Your Email
I have had people ask me if they could use Eudora to build an address book that would print labels and that feature has not been available. Now a company called BeLight Software released Mail Factory 1.0," an application for designing and printing envelopes, shipping labels, and address labels, using data from Apple Address Book, Microsoft Entourage, Now Contact, and Eudora. It supports most popular label templates, can print to DYMO label printers, prints USPS POSTNET barcodes, and includes automatic address formatting for over 50 countries. Mail Factory is $29.95 for Mac OS X 10.2 and up." (Thanks, Macintouch)

Topical Toilet Paper
This is for those fans of the Recording Industry Association of America and their war on file sharing: It's toilet paper with a bright red RIAA printed on it. For six bucks plus shipping it's an expensive joke, but I did save the image from the web page. Jinx.com does have some other cool stuff so be sure to check it out.

Speaking of Which
The BBC Archive is sponsoring a treasure hunt for pre-1980s classic TV episodes. They are searching for copies of shows missing from their files, which they plan to make available on their site. They may be shows licensed to be shown abroad (like here) and never returned, or taped off the air.
This is what I referred to last month wrt archiving and why video piracy should be encouraged, especially by taping off the air. If no one is in illegal possession of these classic BBC shows, then they are lost to the world forever. So place your finger firmly up the orifice of the copyright police and start taping and trading. The past you save will be thanked by the future long after Jack Valenti has finished roasting in hell.

Which Leads To
EyeTV, a product of Elgato Systems, is a FireWire device capable of recording HDTV to any Mac with a FireWire port. Of course it can also handle your old Beta tapes, standard old broadcast TV and output from your TIVO or other digital video recorder.
Sales of this device will be banned in a year. Under orders from Hollywood, the FCC has issued a "rule" (meaning a law that does not require Congress) demanding that all devices like this sold after 7/1/5 must contain a chip that seeks a "broadcast protection flag," designed to prevent you from copying or saving a program that has the flag encoded into the signal. By law, all programs containing that flag MUST be backward-compatible with the non-flagged devices (like this one) forever. Buy now while you still can. $349.

The Broadcast Flag
The essence of the FCC's rule is in 47 CFR 73.9002(b) and the following sections: "No party shall sell or distribute in interstate commerce a Covered Demodulator Product that does not comply with the Demodulator Compliance Requirements and Demodulator Robustness Requirements."
The Demodulator Compliance Requirements insist that all HDTV demodulators must listen for the flag (or assume it to be present in all signals). Flagged content must be output only to "protected outputs" or in degraded form: through analog outputs or digital outputs with visual resolution of 720x480 pixels or less--less than 1/4 of HDTV's capability. Flagged content may be recorded only by "Authorized" methods, which may include tethering of recordings to a single device.
The Demodulator Robustness Requirements are particularly troubling for open-source developers. In order to prevent users from gaining access to the full digital signal, the FCC ties the hands of even sophisticated users and developers. Devices must be "robust" against user access or modifications that permit access to the full digital stream. Since open-source drivers are by design user-modifiable, a PC tuner card with open-source drivers would not be "robust." It's not even clear that binary-only drivers would qualify.
Together, these rules mean that future PVR developers will have to get permission from the FCC and/or Hollywood before building high-definition versions of the TiVo. The products that they do build will be epoxied against user experimentation and future improvement. The rules mean that open-source developers and hobbyists will be shut out of the HDTV loop altogether.
Since it's just a unilateral rule issued by bureaucrats it's possible that it can be repealed before then, especially if there is a regime change. But it will take lots of pressure from the people because the Democrats are usually more friendly to the wants of Hollywood than are the Republicans. Only saving grace is that they are a little more cynical toward the big-business side so be sure to pester and badger your own duly elected hacks.

MythTV
MythTV is a homebrew PVR project by open-source developers to produce devices and software to let hobbyists make their own systems. See their site for more info.

20" Cinema Display, just $799!
I'm often quoting Macintouch in these columns, some may say too often, but it's just such a great resource, and not only for Mac news. Last month a poster reported that while he was browsing at an Apple store he happened to ask "Do you have any old-style Cinema Displays you are clearing out (in advance of the new aluminum-frame models)?" Yes, they did, she said, but just $50 off the normal $1199 price.
He said he didn't think that was much so the agent checked again and said, "Wow, it's only $799!" He asked if that was really true, make sure, etc. and sprung for one.
I read this late in the day instead of the morning when I usually do. I thought, "This is the widest-read Mac news site in the world. I probably missed out on this one," but called Washington Square AppleStore anyway. I cited the story and asked if they too had any. Amazingly, they did! I had them put one away with my name on it. If I wouldn't have had to swim the commuter crawl all the way from SE Portland to Tigard, I would have gone over there immediately. Instead, I fired off a heads-up to my client e-list. (A couple of them also got in on this deal.)
The next morning I hit the store and after a bit of a search, they found my unit. Turns out the price is for demos or other opened-box displays that cannot be resold as new. But it IS new, and has the full warranty.
Even at this late date you might have a chance to get one at that great price. The new aluminum 20" displays are gorgeous, but not $500-more gorgeous. Be aware that if you don't have an ADC port, found in later G4 Towers, you will need to get the ADC to DVI adapter and power supply along with it that will add another $100 to the price. Call that $300 if you have an old Mac with only a VGA port, and see my earlier columns for reviews and sources for those VGA to ADC converters. Supposedly the display will not work under OS9 but I have not tested that.
Apple finally got smart and dumped the ADC port, going back to the industry-standard DVI for all new displays.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)