Macking 65

Politics and Macs
Well, it wasn't enough motivation to actually vote for him, but the Gore campaign, and his office (and Clinton's) runs on Macs. Dubya? PCs. When the Love Bug virus struck, GW lost most of his database, but the Operating System of the Gore campaign was not affected. Can any Macker guess why?
Crackers (illegally destructive hackers) known as the Crime Boys have been attacking web pages run by the Interior Department and the Army lately. The pages which were attacked were running Microsoft's Internet Information Server 4.0.
The crackers have threatened to take down the main Army home page but a CNN article said the "page was too difficult to crack because it is based on Apple Computer's Macintosh WebStar platform." Alex McCombie of New World Media said the server was "practically unhackable."

Don't Feed the Cue Cat
Surely you've heard of the CueCat by now: It's a free, pen-style bar-code scanner being given away by a company called Digital Convergence in what they're calling the largest, fastest hardware rollout in computer history: They plan to distribute 50 million of the devices by the end of next year.
The primary benefit of the device is that you can scan in specially formatted bar codes in adverts and appended to articles. The code is usually just a URL. It converts the code to a standard URL which opens your browser and takes you to the page.
Sound familiar? The rapidly disappearing MediaBridge does exactly the same thing, except at least the code is invisibly embedded into the printed image. The only clue that there is an embedded link is the MediaBridge logo somewhere on the ad.
The bar code is a lot less subtle, as in extremely obvious, with a large red arrow pointing to it and the phrase SCAN ME in 124-point type nearby. Well, at least it seems that obvious.
I said last month that this seems completely pointless: how much work is it to type in a damned URL? If an advert buys your eye you are more than willing to physically go over to your computer, log on and link up. Will a cutesy little kittie-code scanner make you willing to visit the web page of a company you otherwise have no interest in? Not bloody likely, but that's not all there is to it.
To start with, Mackers aren't even invited to this party. Digital Convergence, the producer of the CueCat (which name is supposed to be preceded by a colon - :Cue:Cat - but is so marketing-department pretentious I just ain't gonna bother) claims that Mac drivers will be available soon. Let's hope this monstrosity tanks before they even get the drivers posted.
To use the CueCat, the company requires you to register with your name, address, email, age, zip code, gender, DNA, etc. This gives them everything they need to track you, because the company knows which individually serialized CueCat you have, so it can track every ad you scan.
All of the horrific details of this latest marketing scam -er- scheme can be found at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-10-02.htm.
The author reports that their database was so poorly set up, crackers immediately broke into the site and successfully stole at least some of the personal information there. Is your confidence inspired? Neither is mine.
"Plus, the darn thing just doesn't work very well. Its bar codes are nonstandard, and lack a "start" bar on the left: This leads to frequent scan failures in standard left-to-right scans. (Oddly, the CueCat codes do have a proper "Stop" code on the right, so reverse, right-to-left scans usually work. Who designed *that* format?) And all this is mainly just to avoid having to type some URLs. Sheesh."
Since CueCat first appeared, many code-warriors have figured out how it works and wrote software that either let CueCat work on systems Digital Convergence didn't support, or that let CueCat do things its makers never intended. Even though these uses take nothing away from Digital Convergence, the company was not happy, and has sicced its lawyers on the highest-profile hackers. For example, see http://slashdot.org/features/00/09/01/149223.shtml and http://slashdot.org/articles/00/09/05/0548211.shtml. (Thanks to Dave Methvin of PC PitStop for those URLs.)
Apparently, DC wants to control any use the CueCat might ever be put to: Even when they give a CueCat to you, they *don't* want you to do anything with it other than what they want you to. In fact, the user agreements now state that when you get a CueCat, it isn't really yours; it's theirs; and, essentially, you can only use it in the way they want you to.
Now aren't you glad Mackers were left out of this? Go get yourself one (free from the nearest Radio Shuck) and stash it away. Might as well run up their bill a little more. Some day someone will write us some drivers that let you use it as a standard bar code scanner and you can save twenty bucks. If you want to scan a bar code now, just go to a site called DeBarCode. At this site you can type in the numbers under any UPC bar code, and the site will tell you who the company is and their web address! Free. No scanner, no software, no privacy-risking registration and no Digital Convergence or MediaBridge peeking over your shoulder and taking notes.

Hilarious new Eudora feature
(Note: This segment did not run in Bits.)
I just got the new 5.0 release of Eudora. This now incorporates a rating system of flame intensity, or what it considers offensive or inflammatory language. As you type, it initially rates messages starting with an ice cube. If I turn on balloon help, the balloon states, "This message is not detectably offensive, but there's one in every crowd.." Yes, two periods.
If I type the word "fuck" it switches to two chili peppers, and says "This message has some language in it that might be offensive.."
But if I add an -ing, as in "fucking," it becomes three chilis and states, "This message is the sort of thing that might get your keyboard washed out with soap, if you get my drift.."
It does not react to "damn it," or "God damn It," but a little "piss" gets it two chilis and the balloon says, "This message has a few words or phrases that might be offensive to some people.." Even stranger, as I continue to type, it goes back to an ice cube, even though the piss is still there. A 2nd piss, interestingly, boosts it back to two chilis.
I first wrote this segment in Eudora. I could not have written it without first misspelling the fucks that got it three chilis in the first place. Fix them, and three chilis appear. At this point a little piss is considered an improvement, I guess.
When you click Send or Queue, the message shown in the balloon help appears in a dialog box that lets you Cancel and edit the "offending" language, or Send Anyway.
This will provide many hours of amusement to Eudora users. As I scan my archive of digests and past messages, I see varying amounts of chilis all over the place.

Rescuing Files
Do you have an iMac or iBook? What would you do if you had to run Norton Disk Doctor and discovered you could not repair your drive? That the only chance of getting your data off was to copy it to an external device, which means USB only?
Normally, you need to install drivers to go with the device. Apple provides the drivers for Iomega products, and the USB universal device can mount anything else (usually).
Fear not. If you have a USB Zip, there is a driver on the Norton disk too. This means that you can plug in and copy files off of your dying drive, even if you have to use Undelete or Volume Recover to get at them.
Way too many iMac users think that they don't need an external drive to back up to. Many don't even have a clue how to do it! Well, get one (device, that is). Bite the $200 bullet for a 250-meg Zip or a 120-meg SuperDrive ($135). Then start copying your most important files onto it. You know, the ones you would hate to have to recreate from scratch. Your drive WILL die; it's just a matter of time, especially if you have ObjectSupportLib in your Extensions Folder. If you back up your documents regularly, a major disaster will become a minor annoyance.
But if you blow off backing up and have to run Volume Recover, you will at least have a place to recover to.
If you want to do it properly, you will need a copy of Retrospect Express ($49) and a stack of Zips, one for every 100 megs (or 250 megs with the newer drives) of data on your hard drive. Then the program will use the stack to make a mirror image of your HD, deleting files from the stack as you delete them from your drive, replacing older versions of documents with current ones, and adding new documents, and applications too. It will also back up your archived and current email, by saving the folders that contain it, usually buried in your System Folder.
The free backup program that comes with the Zip is adequate to the task, but barely. Ask yourself just how much your time and talent is worth, and if it exceeds $250, get yourself a drive.
A better alternative is the Orb drive, but I have not tested it with the iMac and iBook when running from a CD. If it would not mount a volume when running from the Norton CD you could not do a Volume Recover, but you would have already backed up your drive and it would take only one or two cartridges. Orb drives are about $300 and cartridges are about $30. Prices vary widely so shop around.
If all you want to do is make sure you always have your documents backed up, get a copy of CopyAgent from Connectix (http://www.connectix.com/products/cca.html, mentioned in Macking 63) and set your General control panel to default to the Documents folder. Then all you have to do is insert your Orb disk and drag over the Documents folder and the System Folder and you will always have a backup of your personal files and your email. Nothing could be simpler.
Finally, there is the imminent release of Rewind from PowerOn Software. This product seems like magic: Devote 10% of your drive (or more) to its files and you can Undo any mistake you could possibly make, including a crash that destroys your System and prevents startup. I can barely begin to understand how this could work, but we will all find out Real Soon Now.

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.)