I just discovered this when trying a "I wonder if..." scenario. I'd read about it before but never tried using the internal hard drive of an iBook to actually run an iMac.It works.Both computers were G3s, both have the screen resolution of 1024x768, and both have OS 9.2.1 installed. The iBook also has 10.2.6.First, for new users, "target mode" is when you start up a laptop with the T key held down and the computer plugged into a desktop model via FireWire. The laptop screen displays a giant FW icon as a screensaver, and the hard drive of the laptop appears on the screen of the other Mac as if it were simply an external hard drive. This is a faster and simpler way of copying files between Macs than networking, especially for occasional use.But what happens if you then open "Startup Disk" on the desktop machine and tell it to start from the laptop drive? Just what you'd guess. It was quite amazing to see the desktop machine actually running from the hard drive and using the operating system of the laptop.This has real potential for those of you who use both computers but focus primarily on the laptop because you won't have to copy your email files back and forth and risk losing data by switching the wrong way.Quark Gets Worse
How annoying does a company have to be before its customers give up in disgust? XPress Version 6 is turning out to be a mess; working poorly with Apple's font management and failing miserably under the beta versions of Panther.Worst of all is their move to India. How would you like to get your tech support through a bad phone connection, half a planet away, from someone whose English is buried in an accent so thick as to be incomprehensible? This is part of a pattern of contempt for its customers that Quark has always demonstrated.Microsoft and HP are also doing the same thing: moving high-tech jobs out of the USA. Good business or treason? An American company helping contribute to the collapse of our economy and a permanent underclass of people who USED to be in the middle class! You decide. Me? I'm buying InDesign. Decide for yourself at CreativePro, where a deeply detailed review of both is available.It Never Ends
Speaking of Microshaft, two news stories were making the rounds last month: 1) the federal Bureau of Internal Security -er- Homeland Security, announced a five year, $90 million contract to install Windows XP on 140,000 computers, supplied by Dell.In a related story, Microsoft acknowledged a critical vulnerability in nearly all versions of XP, the first such design flaw to affect their current server software. According to an AP story, "...the vulnerability could allow [people] to seize control of a victim's Windows computer over the Internet, stealing data, deleting files or eavesdropping on e-mails."Homeland Security, my bleeding #@&*%! Oh, and remember to thank Microsoft for exporting those tech jobs to India, Mr. Ridge.
Microsoft Users Victimized AgainInteresting exchange from Macintouch recently. Looks you MS users had better just wait for your version of the iTunes Music Store. With Buymusic.com, the music competitor for Windows, it seems that music is permanently restricted to one registered computer, while the fine print offers a wonderful example of doublespeak:[Greg Orman] The fine print clearly states that you're only licensing the music, not purchasing it, and furthermore that the license is tied to the computer used for the transaction. If you replace your computer, you lose access to everything you've licensed and downloaded (though you'll still have any copies you burned to CD or transferred to a portable, assuming that the DRM on the songs you licensed allowed you to do that in the first place).[Rick Zeman] Maybe they should have called their service "sublicensed.com." From their legalese at "TERMS OF SALE AGREEMENT" comes this little gem in Section 2:Content Use Rules. All downloaded music, images, video, artwork, text, software and other copyrightable materials ("Content") are sublicensed to End Users and not sold, notwithstanding use of the terms "sell," "purchase," "order," or "buy" on the Site or this Agreement.
Your Digital Download sublicense is nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonsublicenseable, limited and for use only within the United States. End users may play the Digital Downloads an unlimited number of times on the same registered personal computer to which the Digital Download is originally downloaded.Isn't that special? Clinton couldn't have put it better. Join me now in a chant: "Death to the RIAA! Death to the....." Then, when you are all chanted out, vow to wait for the Windows version of iTunes Music Store. Their agreement with the record industry is good for only one year, and if the horribly restrictive BuyMusic.com system succeeds, then that could be the end of the much greater freedom from Apple.Buy This CD Anyway
Cnet News reports that Apple will have exclusive U.S. rights to the soundtrack from a new film, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen":Apple is selling the album for $9.99 as an online download, with no physical CDs being made for the U.S. market. The soundtrack includes a score by composer Trevor Jones and features performances by the London Symphony Orchestra and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Well, we'll just see about THAT. I happen to like CDs and ripping them to MP3 myself. Even though it costs more, I will be hoofing it over to Amazon UK to order this CD with the case and booklet, in willing and deliberate violation of whatever contracts the Apple lawyers dream up.Interesting New Backup Solution
Have a digital video camera? Thanks to a shareware program from Coolatoola, you also have a tape drive you can use to back up your hard drive.For $25, this shareware program sends up to 10 GB of data per hour of your camera's tape capacity. Drag and drop copying/backups are supported, as are PAL, NTSC, DV and Digital8 cameras. Requires 10.2.0 or later. Visit the web site to download the program, check to see if your camera is supported, and try before you buy.This guy deserves to make some serious money for this idea.Asia Unites Against Microsoft
The Taipei Times writes about an attempt to keep Microsoft from monopolizing small computers as it has desktop systems - it's called the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum:In a challenge to Microsoft Corp. eight of the world's leading consumer electronics companies announced Tuesday that they were forming a consortium to boost the development of the Linux operating system for use in consumer digital devices from televisions to mobile phones.The eight founding members of the group are Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Sony Corp., Hitachi Ltd, NEC Corp., Royal Philips Electronics NV, Samsung Electronics Co, Sharp Corp. and Toshiba Corp. Unconfirmed reports said that IBM Corp. also planned to join.The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum aims to improve performance of the open-source operating system to make it suitable for running smart TV sets, audio gear, DVD players and other home entertainment devices, a press release said. Comcast Spyware
Thought we Mackers were free from spyware, eh? It has been discovered that customers of Comcast, who were told to download a "transition wizard" to help with the change to Comcast.net from attbi.com, were having their web browsers modified to set Comcast as their home page - and the settings locked so beginners couldn't undo them. A quote (from a Windows user):"I recently received instructions to download Comcast software to switch my e-mail account over to mail.comcast.net. Being a bit suspicious because of a report from a friend that the software hung on copying MSVCRT.DLL [Microsoft Visual C++ runtimes? Didn't sound like a simple settings configurator to me!] to his machine, I downloaded the software and allowed it to extract files to C:\CHSI\, but aborted on the License Agreement page and proceeded to examine what they had in store for me. What I found was chilling and infuriating. It's bad enough they cut my bandwidth in half (I checked before and after the switch with Bandwidth Checker) and raised my rates from ~$40 to ~$50 per month, but now they're trying to muck with my system and install spyware to monitor my activities. Their installer software was created by BroadJump. I went to their page (link now leads somewhere else) and read their Overview which made me very nervous. QUOTE: "BroadJump has brought to market a proven engine for generating revenue from the point of installation forward in ways never before possible. Instead of simply offering a "fat pipe," service providers are now capable of profitably delivering the specific goods and services their subscribers most want and need." A look at their products and services confirms it: their ChannelDirect and Virtual Truck products sound a lot like spyware and targeted advertising to me! A quick read of the License.txt document that accompanies the install is likewise disturbing. To paraphrase: "This document is covered by Texas Law so if you want to sue us, you have to do it in Texas. You can't sue us anyway, because by clicking the Accept button you agree to waive all your legal rights. This software changes your network settings and installs network-related software. We gather personal info and send it to BroadJump and Comcast and can do whatever we please with it."This is Illegal
All the way back in February of 2002 USA Today wrote about the possible illegality of their tracking and recording of your web surfing habits. An excerpt states:"WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Ed Markey, an aggressive privacy advocate in Congress, pressed the top executive at Comcast on Wednesday over the company's decision to begin recording the Web browsing activities of each of its 1 million high-speed Internet subscribers."He said the company's action could be in violation of federal law."Comcast, the nation's third-largest cable company, acknowledged this week that it is recording which Web pages each customer visits as part of a technology overhaul that it hopes will save money and speed up its network."That's yet another reason to avoid this megalo-monster that has been gobbling up cable systems all over the country. If you are one of the lucky ones that can get DSL, by all means do. Of course Quest is no angel either, but at least you don't have to use them as your ISP; you can choose your own. Verizon is even better; they fought the music industry to protect user privacy in a court case recently. They lost, but three thumbs up to the company for even trying.Besides, the Comcast "wizard" isn't even supposed to work unless you are using Microsoft internet products, but it fails even at that. Their phone support is no help with Eudora, either. Since it isn't rocket science and any agent is capable of learning how to convert the settings in Eudora in about a minute, it has to be deliberate policy on Comcast's part, instructing their tech support contractors to parrot the phrase "We don't support anything but Microsoft."But what about Mac spyware? If you don't include the server-side tracking of your Web surfing, we are temporarily safe. Our low overall percentage of Internet users offers us the protection of "they don't care about us" - for now, anyway. Except...From MacTech - "Spyware: Spector for Macintosh"Spectorsoft Corporation today announced the Macintosh version of its award-winning Spector spyware program - the first automatic Internet and PC Activity Recorder designed for consumers and businesses."Since the release of Spector for Windows, we have had thousands of requests for a Macintosh supported version. We have been working for the past year to build Spector for Mac from the ground up to achieve the quality and ease of use Macintosh users demand." states Doug Fowler, president of Spectorsoft.They're heeeeere.What else is wrong with Comcast? Search on "Comcast is Evil" on Google and read all the stories. They surcharge your internet connection bill $15 if you don't want their cable TV, and that rate is going up again (it used to be $10; originally AT&T charged nothing) until it nearly matches the cost of basic cable. In other cities, when they take over a cable company they shut down the public-access studios and grudgingly fulfill the requirement to offer cable-access only to people who can supply their own tape or live video feed.We knew it was coming. People who had to live under Comcast on the East Coast were warning what would happen when they took over here, and they were right. I suppose it would be redundant or pointless to say it, but according to an article in news.com, Microsoft has a $1 billion investment in Comcast. Since they also had a $5 billion investment in AT&T Cable, that means the giant boot of Microsoft steps heavily on yet another piece of our lives. And in the "It figures" department, Comcast and Microsoft are uniting in an effort to produce on-demand television using their "Microsoft TV" software. Kill me now, please. Don't make me beg.For what it's worth, here is a polite request, like the one I offered Clear Channel Communications and Regal Cinema: "Please get out of Portland. Sell your investments here to someone who cares and stop making our life difficult. Your corporate attitude is disgusting and you are a black mark on the face of humanity. We don't like you and we don't want you. Get lost."