ST Report: 30-Oct-98 #1436
From: Bruce D. Nelson (aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 11/07/98-01:04:12 PM Z
From: aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bruce D. Nelson)
Subject: ST Report: 30-Oct-98 #1436
Date: Sat Nov 7 13:04:12 1998
[Silicon Times Report]
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October 30, 1998 No.1436
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From the Editor's Desk...
This past Friday, 10/30/98, will long be remembered. My original
editorial was about the inadequacies of Netscape 4.5. That sucker
cannot read frames with zeroed borders properly. I ranted and raved
about how Barksdale is crying before the courts and the world about how
MS has done his company dirty. Well the truth is Netscape is wearing
the same dirty underwear. Netscape 4.5 appears to be deliberately
written to ignore FrontPage 98 extensions.
Then, as I was about to finish the compilation of STReport I heard a
strange sounding "hardware click" coming from my main cabinet. Was I
shocked to find two of my one year old, 4gb Western Digital Caviar
Drives were going bad. One was generating bad sectors on its own and
the other was developing a steady, loud clicking noise.
[syscrsh.tif (922368 bytes)] I was not too concerned because drives are
so inexpensive these days that I felt a
replacement of the drives would go easy and I would be in good shape
because of my tape back-ups. So, I removed the bad drives and replaced
them with new MAXTOR 6gb drives. I then discovered I needed to
re-install Win98 to get the tape backup program running so I could
restore from back-ups. Not so easy. Three quarters of the way through
the restoration, I got an error message telling me "media unreadable".
There goes an easy restoration out the window. I'll tell you now it
took ALL WEEKEND to straighten this thing out. I eventually had to boot
from the old sick drive and place the new drive as its slave. I then
copied everything from the old "C" (boot) drive to the slave. I managed
to get a tape backup of my "D" drive albeit it was an older tape backup
that read fine. I was able to restore that drive to one of the other
new mechanisms with no trouble at all.
Here's the beef what is wrong with these programmers or, is it the
bean counters, who have put together backup software for MS in Win98
that's obviously stripped down and crippled? Who are they kidding? Its
the old, nickel and dime you to death $$$$ routine. Seagate provides a
lame version of Backup Exec and MS puts it in their new Win98 package.
Of course it'll run fine as long as you have no problems but the
minute you have a problem its "jump through flaming hoops time". I am
now searching for truly adequate tape back-up software. I finally got
everything going properly but only after hours upon hours of effort. I
tried to use Backup Exec v. 2.0b, but when it came to making the
emergency restoration floppy disks.. it cried and cried about too many
files for the disk.
Who wrote the routine to create the emergency boot/restoration disks??
The Three Stooges? Far too often, the user, like me right now, is left
in a lurch because of the efforts of a few greedy bean counters who
feel they must extract the very last soo out of the user. I will not
be forgetting my lost weekend too soon! Not to mention the late and
enemic issue becuase of lost last minute files. I'd have them if the
tape backup routine in Win98 had better coding....... Bad media my
foot! At $22.00 per tape it has to get better than this.
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Microsoft Wants Netscape Letter
Netscape attorneys failed to turn over all documents related to the
antitrust suit against Microsoft, including a letter that could help the
software giant's case, Microsoft lawyers said today in court filings.
That letter was dated two days after a key June 21, 1995, meeting in
which Microsoft allegedly offered to illegally split the Internet
software market with Netscape. he letter by Gary Reback, an outside
attorney hired by Netscape, was addressed to the Justice Department. The
agency was investigating possible anti-competitive practices by
Microsoft.
Reback's letter, however, never mentioned the alleged Microsoft offer,
and Microsoft attorneys have asked the judge to impose sanctions on
Netscape for failing to produce the document among requested pretrial
material. James Barksdale, Netscape's chief executive officer, admitted
during sharp cross-examination last week that he never mentioned the
alleged Microsoft offer in written correspondence after the June 1995
meeting. Today marks Barksdale's fourth day of testifying in the
Microsoft's trial, which entered its second week.
Microsoft was expected to confront Barksdale with e-mails from his own
employees, who complained angrily in the messages about their own
Internet software as shabby and bug-ridden. Some even praised Microsoft's
browser, which provides access to the Internet, as technically superior.
The e-mails, many laced with obscenities, are important to Microsoft,
which is trying to show that Netscape's business failures were its own
fault, not due to allegedly illegal acts by Microsoft. Netscape once
claimed nearly 90 percent of Internet browsers used, but it now has about
half the market.
In the weeks before the trial, Microsoft subpoenaed copies of about 4,000
e-mails by Netscape employees written over the last two years. The
messages were part of the company's informal ``bad attitude'' and "really
bad attitude" forums, in which workers griped about everything from
cafeteria food to product marketing. The "really bad attitude" forum
existed as a private e-mail discussion list run by Netscape engineer
Jamie Zawinski, who wrote about the subpoena on his personal Web site.
When Netscape lawyer Kent Walker notified Zawinski of Microsoft's
subpoena, Walker said he hoped "we've followed the document retention
policy and deleted materials older than 90 days, but I fear we haven't."
"In hindsight, complying with the document retention policy ... might
have been a good idea," Zawinski wrote later. The government contends
that Microsoft's actions contributed directly to Netscape's business
problems. It released about 150 pages of new evidence Friday that it said
illustrate Microsoft's illegally aggressive tactics, such as giving away
expensive business software to Internet providers in exchange for
converting customers from Netscape's browser. A June 1996 note described
Microsoft offering "several thousand dollars" of free consulting to Toys
R Us if the company redesigned its Web site to encourage customers to
switch to Microsoft's browser.
Another e-mail, sent by Barksdale in January 1997, described Apple
Computer Inc.'s decision to distribute Microsoft's browser along with
Netscape's. Barksdale said Microsoft had threatened not to develop its
important package of business software, called Office 97, for Apple.
Barksdale wrote that former Apple Chairman Gil Amelio told him Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates "said that was his only requirement to get his
support for Office 97 on the (Apple Macintosh computer)." The documents
also illustrate Netscape's troubles selling its own browser after
Microsoft began giving its away free. Internet providers that had been
distributing Netscape's suddenly switched to distribute Microsoft's.
Netscape, in response, began giving away its browser in January.
Microsoft Says Netscape Meeting Was A Setup
Microsoft Corp. accused Netscape Communications Corp. of using a meeting
between the two companies in 1995 to create material for the Justice
Department's antitrust probe of the software giant. As the landmark trial
against Microsoft entered its second week, the company also complained to
the court that the government had kept new documents about the meeting
hidden until Saturday. What actually happened at the June 21, 1995,
meeting is crucial to the case brought by the federal government and 20
states against Microsoft.
The government and Netscape charge that Microsoft illegally proposed
dividing the market for Internet browser software and threatened to crush
Netscape if it did not cooperate. Microsoft has denied any wrongdoing and
told the court last week that Netscape must have invented its account of
the meeting. On Monday, Microsoft lawyer John Warden kept up his attack
on Netscape's credibility in a fourth day of cross examining Netscape
Chief Executive Jim Barksdale. "Isn't it a fact that the June 21, 1995
meeting was held for the purpose of creating something that could be
called a record to be delivered to the Department of Justice to spur them
on to action against Microsoft," Warden asked. "That's absurd," Barksdale
replied.
The government's case relies in part on notes Netscape co-founder Marc
Andreessen made of the meeting. The latest documents include those notes
attached to a letter sent a day later, on June 22, 1995, to the Justice
Department by Netscape outside counsel Gary Reback. The Reback letter and
attached note would seem to help buttress the government's position that
Andreessen's account of events was immediate and accurate.
In his letter, Reback says: "The general theme of the negotiation has
been that Microsoft owns the platform (the Windows system needed to run
Netscape's browser on personal computers) and that if Netscape is going
to compete with Microsoft in any way... then Microsoft will competitively
harm Netscape." Government lawyer David Boies told reporters outside the
court that the Justice Department trial team had not known about the new
documents until they were alerted by Reback himself. Boies said the new
documents -- which he called "devastating" to Microsoft's case -- had
been provided to the Justice Department in 1995 in a different
investigation. The trial before District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is
expected to last into December. The government has plans to release video
taped excerpts of pretrial testimony by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on
Tuesday.
Free Speech Groups Sue to Stop Child Protection Act
The same coalition of free speech groups that successfully fought the
Communications Decency Act is reprising its role with Thursday's legal
challenge against a statute the coalition says would effectively be just
as harmful to online speech. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in a press conference in Philadelphia they
are seeking an injunction against the Child Online Protection Act (COPA),
which passed into law Wednesday along with other technology measures in
the $520 billion federal spending plan.
The lawsuit was filed in federal District Court in Philadelphia, the same
court where the original CDA challenge was filed. The COPA law is set to
go into effect in 30 days. "Whether you call it the 'Communications
Decency Act' or the 'Congress Doesn't Understand the Internet Act,' it is
still unconstitutional and it still reduces the Internet to what is fit
for a six-year-old," said Ann Beeson, an ACLU attorney, in a statement on
the lawsuit. The law's passage is proof that legislators are more than
willing to "make children the excuse for ill-conceived censorship
schemes," said David Sobel, legal counsel for EPIC.
"Congress has demonstrated that, when it comes to the Internet, it's
prepared to score easy political points at the expense of constitutional
rights," Sobel said in a statement on the lawsuit. COPA would make it a
crime for the operators of commercial Web sites to post material deemed
"harmful to minors" under its established legal standard, which includes
graphic sexual content. Violators would be subject to up to six months in
jail and fines of up to $50,000 per offense. Sites would be exempt from
prosecution if they used credit-card numbers or other age-verification
schemes to block youngsters under age 17 from graphic materials.
The original CDA, struck down by the Supreme Court in a near-unanimous
ruling last year, was much broader than the COPA statute. The CDA applied
to e-mail and newsgroups as well as to the World Wide Web. But COPA
applies only to "commercial" sites, and replaces the terms "indecent" and
"patently offensive," which the Supreme Court said were too vague, with
the already-set "harmful to minors" legal definition.
Material that is "harmful to minors" is defined under the law as being
"prurient" and "lacking in serious artistic, political, literary, or
scientific value" specifically when viewed by minors. A spokeswoman for
COPA's sponsor, Rep. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, told ZDNN earlier this month
that the bill was carefully crafted to avoid the First Amendment
violations that doomed the CDA. "It is important to note that 'harmful to
minors' material cannot be sold or shown to minors by commercial
establishments in other forms, like books, movies and magazines," Oxley
spokeswoman Peggy Peterson said. "COPA applies that same common sense
standard to the World Wide Web."
The law has also been applauded by the anti-pornography group Enough is
Enough, which was among the most vocal advocates of the CDA. But the ACLU
coalition, which also includes news organizations, academics, physicians'
organizations, and gay rights groups, maintains COPA would ban "a wide
range of protected expression that is provided for free on the Web by
organizations and entities who also happen to be communicating on the Web
for commercial purposes." Credit-card age verification schemes, according
to the ACLU coalition, are unlikely to be effective in screening out
youngsters, and could not realistically be used by news sites containing
material that could potentially be viewed as "harmful to minors."
And since many Web sites now host online chats, bulletin boards and free
e-mail services, the content in those areas could arguably come under the
law, making it in effect as sweeping as the CDA, coalition officials
said. The coalition also noted that even the U.S. Justice Department has
criticized the new law. In a seven-page analysis sent to President
Clinton by Justice Department officials on Oct. 5, they concluded the law
had "serious constitutional problems" and could potentially draw law
enforcement resources away from efforts to track down online child
predators and pornographers.
Justice Department officials also said in their analysis that the law
would be ineffective because minors could still access newsgroups and any
Web sites generated outside the U.S. "It is our fervent hope that
Attorney General (Janet) Reno will concede that the new law is
unconstitutional so we can avoid prolonged litigation," said Barry
Steinhardt, president of the EFF, in a statement. Among the members of
the ACLU coalition are Time Inc., Warner Bros. Online, CNet, the New York
Times Online, OBGYN.Net, Philadelphia Gay News, Salon Magazine, the
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, MSNBC, CBS New
Media, Playboy Enterprises, PlanetOut Corp., and ZDNet, publisher of
ZDNN.
AOL Complaints Surface in Maine, New Hampshire
Some America Online users in New Hampshire and Maine have found that
getting connected to the Internet can carry an unpleasant surprise -
long-distance telephone bills that were not supposed to exist. "We had in
excess of 20 (complaints) in the past couple of months ... localized
around the Nashua area," said Walter Maroney, chief of the consumer
protection bureau of the New Hampshire attorney general's office.
Maroney said complaints to his office involve only AOL, the country's
largest online service, with 14 million subscribers. "I'm not familiar
with similar complaints regarding ... other companies. It appears to be
limited to America Online," he said. "We are looking into it." The
problem - which appears to have bypassed Vermont - involves people
joining America Online for the first time, according to Maine and New
Hampshire officials.
New subscribers choose telephone numbers they want their computers to
dial when connecting to AOL, usually a local number. But the software
reportedly dials a different, long-distance number sometimes and there's
no way to tell until the telephone bill arrives. America Online disputed
that allegation, but would not comment on the specific Nashua-area
complaints. AOL has said the problem happens when users don't choose
local phone numbers or choose long-distance numbers as backups, which are
dialed when the local number is busy. America Online also has pointed
fingers at telephone companies, saying they misroute some calls. But
Maine and New Hampshire officials challenge that claim.
"There's no way for Bell Atlantic to divert those calls. It's not a
switching problem," said Maryann Lutz of the New Hampshire Public
Utilities Commission. "It's not the phone company. It's solely AOL, their
installation disk," said Phil Lindley, spokesman for the Maine Public
Utilities Commission. "It has access to AOL's database of numbers ... but
it's not dialing the right one." In Maine, some consumers have complained
about phone bills that in one case topped $1,200. Maine and New Hampshire
have only one area code in the entire state. Vermont also is a
one-area-code state, but it has gotten few complaints about unexpected
long-distance calls, perhaps because Vermont handles in-state
long-distance calls differently.
"We haven't received very many complaints about this. And I'm sure that
the reason is that we do have 11-digit dialing," said Dina Frankel,
director of consumer affairs for the Vermont Department of Public
Service. When area codes started being used up, telephone companies gave
states the option of dropping the requirement that in-state long-distance
calls be preceded by a 1 and the state area code. New Hampshire and Maine
dropped the requirement, which is why seven digits will dial any number
in the state, whether local or long distance. Vermonters, however, are
stuck with having to dial 1 and the state area code to call telephone
exchanges outside their local calling areas. Officials surmise this makes
it difficult for software to choose a long-distance number accidentally,
and alerts AOL customers to long-distance dialing because they hear four
extra beeps from the modem. Whatever the case, officials say the
situation is not only expensive but irritating.
"People get frustrated because they call the phone company, and they say
to call America Online, and America Online says to talk to the phone
company," said Lutz of the PUC. n Maine, Lindley urged people to check
phone bills so they can catch mistakes early. "Some of these bills have
gone on for two or three months before they were noticed," he said.
However, he also said the problem reflects the increasing complexity of
society, from complicated phone bills to complicated computers. "AOL is
like computers, and computers still aren't user-friendly. Until computers
are as easy to use as the telephone or television, you're going to have
this problem," he said. "My grandma can use the telephone 100 times out
of 100," he said.
SEC Unveils Internet Stock Fraud Sweep
Federal regulators announced Wednesday a first-ever nationwide sweep
against fraud over the Internet by people promoting stocks and deceiving
investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it took 23
enforcement actions against 44 people and companies for allegedly
violating federal securities laws by not disclosing payments they
received from companies whose stock they promoted. The stock promotions,
known as "touting," were made in Internet junk mail, online newsletters,
message board postings and Web sites. Such touting is not illegal in and
of itself, but any compensation received from the companies must be fully
disclosed.
Open Code Frees Up the Net
To date, the idea that software developers working within multiple
organizations without compensation to call their own could possibly mount
a serious challenge to Microsoft's hordes of wealthy or
soon-to-be-wealthy programmers -- working from the safe solidity of a
near-monopoly in the programs that control the operations of desktop,
portable and server computers -- has been scoffed at as the wishful
thinking of the company's plentiful but weak detractors.
Indeed, the dissemination of free software whose basic instructions are
open to a worldwide community of developers to improve or alter has made
little dent in mainstream corporate planning. Such "open source" code and
the entire free software movement have been seen as occasionally
successful, mainly in the delivery and maintenance of the widely used
Apache Web server that still outguns Microsoft and Netscape
Communications Corp.'s commercial challengers.
But a closer look at the record of development of Web-based computing
puts the efforts in a much different light. In fact, the free software
movement has delivered commercial-quality products in every key component
of software infrastructure for computing in a hyperlinked world. Free
software gave the Internet much of its start, from the Mosaic browser to
the basic Web server. Obscure innards such as the Domain Name System,
which translates numeric Internet addresses into English names such as
www.baby.com, and domain name servers come from the same heritage. Now,
operating systems are in the collaborative developers' crosshairs, from
the much-publicized Linux flavor of Unix to Free BSD, the software that
is at the heart of the most heavily trafficked site on the Web, Yahoo!
Inc.'s www.yahoo.com. And with the use of Web sites to conduct electronic
commerce likely to spread like wildfire -- some estimates put the amount
of worldwide e-commerce at $344 billion by 2002 -- more and more
companies are likely to move to adopt the programs that become Web
standards, with the fact that they are free as an extra, compelling
incentive. Earlier this year, SBC Communications Inc. replaced 36 Windows
95 and Windows NT workstations at its Kansas City, Mo., operations center
with Linux workstations because they handled the results of a giant
network monitoring system better. The system displays warning alarms
triggered on the network of a subsidiary, Southwestern Bell. The
graphics-intensive system caused the Windows 95 workstations "to lock up
on average every 4.2 minutes. The Windows NT workstations locked up every
2.58 minutes," said Randy Kessell, a manager at the center. The Linux
workstations haven't had a problem.
Gary Nichols, manager of network administration at WavePhore Inc.'s
WaveTop business unit which distributes content from Time Inc., People
and Money magazines and Warner Bros., was asked to rebuild the corporate
network a year ago. "I completely modeled the network around the
Internet," and was surprised to find free source code such as the Apache
Web server, the PERL scripting language, the Samba network connection and
the MySQL (Structured Query Language) relational database, "were just as
useful inside the company as on the Internet." Nichols runs Linux on 30
of WaveTop's 45 servers for such tasks as e-mail, Web servers and the
firewall. He figures he saved $30,000 in license costs of Windows NT and
Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Solaris by using the open source code.
"I bought $100 worth of Linux CDs and books and got the same
functionality," he said. These examples illustrate how Microsoft no
longer dictates the standards that determine the business computing
environment, and how difficult it will be to dominate the standards set
for doing business on the Web. Microsoft acknowledged as much in a Sept.
25 financial filing that said one of the few threats on its horizon was
Linux. The company still dominates in desktop applications. There are no
open source code equivalents -- yet -- for Office-style word processing,
presentation graphics and spreadsheets. But the importance of the
operating system itself has receded. Both browsers and Web servers can do
their jobs while remaining indifferent to the underlying operating
system.
Of course, skeptics doubt that complex software can be developed
consistently by open source code groups, which tend to form voluntarily
under loose leadership. "I'm very leery of the shared source code
movement," primarily for the known difficulty of complex software
development, said Hadley Reynolds, director of research at the Delphi
Group, himself a Microsoft skeptic. Support of open source code, often
provided by e-mailed responses from its developers, strikes information
systems managers as a key weakness. They want someone under contract to
fix glitches on demand.
Still, the Apache Web server is so reliable that it has gained 52 percent
of the market against commercial competition from Netscape (7 percent)
and Microsoft (23 percent). IBM Corp. recently joined the Apache Group as
a contributing developer and announced it will support Apache for
customers of its WebSphere application server product line, another form
of commercial support for an open source code product. What looked like a
few amateurish success stories is now turning into a movement with much
larger implications. Microsoft may be able to stretch out an antitrust
showdown with the U.S. Department of Justice. But software developers
have a way of changing the nature of computing on their own.
Indeed, free solutions come because developers confront a problem "that
has no commercial solution, or the commercial solution is viewed as
overpriced," said Larry Wall, developer of PERL. But it is the very
nature of these new economics that makes many companies worry. The rap
against the free software movement is that it will fall down from
eventual lack of momentum -- meaning that source code developers can't
continue to do this without some means of financial support.
The developers themselves disagree. They don't need to be paid for their
efforts. It's intrinsic to the Internet culture to collaborate in solving
the next problem, and they enjoy the camaraderie of doing so. They also
save their companies' money, while their employers make money on other
software or services for which they can charge. If this drive is true, it
means the ability of one company to maintain a stranglehold over any key
aspect of computing will draw to an end. Neither Microsoft nor any other
commercial company will be able to position itself as controlling access
to the Internet. And that means the DOJ with its antitrust suit has
arrived on the battleground too late o play a decisive role in
overturning any monopolies in software.
"We're building the infrastructure for what the world will look like" as
it switches over to a digital economy, said Eric Tachibana, co-founder of
Extropia Inc., a developer of open source Web site applications, such as
WebStore and Groupware, which are available from its site. Its
applications are in use at Boeing Co. and General Motors Corp. It wasn't
intended to be this way. Proponents of the open source code movement,
such as the Apache Group's Brian Behlendorf and Wall, said they didn't
set out to beat commercial companies, and in many cases it wasn't on
their agenda to produce something that the rest of the world would use.
"Open source developers are technical people who sense a need for a piece
of system-level software that doesn't exist yet," said John Ousterhout,
author of the TCL scripting language used to tie together disparate site
elements. He was an open source code advocate as a computer science
professor at the University of California at Berkeley when he invented
TCL in 1988. TCL now is widely used on Web sites to pull together Common
Gateway Interface scripts, Java applications and database access
programs.
But sharing source code in 1988 was a more laborious effort. In those
days, a developer interested in TCL would send him a big, half-inch
magnetic tape reel of the sort used to store mainframe data, and
Ousterhout would take it downstairs from his office to the machinery room
in Evans Hall, where he would load it on a Unix host and copy the data
onto it. Then he'd take it to the post office to mail back to its sender.
That method would make it impractical to send out the 8,000 to 10,000
copies of TCL that go out to prospective users per month over the
Internet, he said.
So far, open source successes "have been largely infrastructure
software," said Tim O'Reilly, publisher at O'Reilly and Associates Inc.
(www.ora.com). That's the kind of software that made IBM and Microsoft
powerful, each in their own eras of computing. Now, that very
infrastructure -- the Internet -- makes possible both the long-distance
developers' collaboration and the distribution of their software, he
said. Never before could a piece of free software have instant worldwide
availability and testing by thousands of developers.
The Linux example has begun to elicit interest among venture capitalists.
Kevin Harvey, a partner at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park, Calif., sees
"a community of developers working together [as] a big and proven trend."
They are likely to find the bugs in a system as they configure and use it
with a wide variety of other components. Both Benchmark and Greylock
Management Corp., a Boston venture capital firm, have taken minority
positions in Red Hat as the company seeks to expand its staff and more
vigorously push the distribution of Linux.
Robert Young, president of Red Hat, "is doing exactly the right thing. He
knows where he wants to go and the market is behind him," said Michael
Tiemann, founder of Cygnus Solutions, a tools and services open source
code company. Cygnus is built around its GNU's Not Unix open source code
project, which was founded by Richard Stallman to create tools and
compilers for Unix developers. Cygnus gained the backing last year of two
venture capital firms, August Capital of Palo Alto, Calif., and Greylock.
Some developers fear venture capital could prove to be the undoing of the
movement. If developers start counting on making money on open source
code by creating private companies around it, they may get into struggles
over who controls the code, and it may cease to be open code. But they
also acknowledge that venture capital and private companies are needed to
address the Achilles' heel of open source code: technical support for
products that have on around-the-clock technical staffs or on-site
assistance. The business model for open source companies is to add to the
open source developers' efforts in packaging, marketing and support, but
not to try to take control, said John Oltsik, an analyst at Forrester
Research Inc.
If open source code development broadens, it is not likely that there
will be a single company that ever takes Microsoft's place in the center
of networked computing. Instead, there will be many cells, each making
its own contribution. Indeed, Red Hat's Young jokes that his goal is not
to make his company as big as Microsoft, but to make Microsoft as big as
Red Hat. At open source company Extropia, Tachibana, 29, said his
company's giveaway applications attract so much development work that he
farms it out to selected developers. He and his partner, Gunther
Birznieks, also 29, continue to develop generic Web site applications to
be given away, such as Extropia's WebChat for group interaction.
The practice keeps a steady flow of work passing through the doors of
Extropia as the pair builds a network of 20 skilled developers with whom
they wish to collaborate. And if they develop an application that becomes
part of every Web site, there will be many ways to convert that success
into a long-term business. It's as if Lilliputians came to hold sway over
Gulliver. Size will not matter on the Internet, only usage of your
product. "I feel we could have an open source code company that is just
as successful as Microsoft," Tachibana said. With the advent of the
Internet, the free software movement has flourished, rendering the U.S.
Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft too little too
late. It's not altogether necessary to pay for software if you want to
run an effective Web site. Networks of developers have collaborated on
creating free software whose lines of code are "open" to improvement by
other parties for key pieces of Web infrastructure.
Paralyzed U.S. Man Controls Computer With Thoughts
A paralyzed Georgia man who received a tiny brain implant has become the
first human to control a computer using only his thoughts. Known only by
his initials, J.R., the 53-year-old man was the second person to receive
the implant, about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, but only the
first to successfully communicate with a computer using his thoughts, Dr.
Roy Bakay, who developed the implant with Dr. Phillip Kennedy, told
Reuters.
"What we've done is enabled a patient who was unable to move his limbs or
speak to communicate through a computer," Bakay, an Emory University
researcher, said. "We have him think about movement. This sends a signal
to a receiving unit in his scalp, which sends a message to the computer
screen." "It's like operating an on/off switch." he said. "The person
thinks about the activity, electrical activity in his brain increases and
sends a message to control the cursor."
The implants consist of two tiny hollow glass cones coated with
neurotropic chemicals extracted from the recipients' peripheral nerves.
The chemicals encourage nerves to grow into the cones, penetrating the
glass, Bakay said. "This puts the cells inside the cone so it keeps the
cells going for a very long time. It is critical to train these cells in
a stable environment," he said. "The nerve tissue grows into the cone and
forms contacts or synapses.
"It's those signals that we pick up. It's like having a little piece of
isolated brain within the glass cone. We are able to run electrical
activity off of that." Although Bakay said the research, which began 12
years ago, is in its infancy, future steps may include training "a whole
series of cells to do things. There is tremendous potential." He said the
goal is to improve a recipient's ability at the computer so he would be
able to type letters and send e-mail. "We'd like to get them on the
Internet and open communications to the rest of the world, and vice
versa.
"After that, we'd like for them to use the computer to control their
environments, turn lights on and off, adjust a bed, call an attendant,
turn the TV on or off. Finally, we hope they will be able to run
prosthetic devices, wheelchairs, even prosthetic limbs" Bakay and Kennedy
decided to use glass cones because metal "pokes holes into cells and they
die," he said. The two people who have received the implants were both
very ill, Bakay said. The first recipient died of amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) before she could be trained to control
the computer cursor, he said. J.R. is also in poor health, hospitalized
at the U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur, Georgia, near
Atlanta. A massive stroke paralyzed him and left him on a ventilator.
Bakay said the first recipient was "only able to move her eyes up and
down and sideways a little bit," but died three months after receiving
the implant. "She was able to prove all our basic premises for us," Bakay
said. "She helped us identify the cells we were looking for in this
project." The prognosis for the second patient, who has mastered such
simple computer commands as up, down, left and right, remains uncertain.
Bakay said he was taken to a hospital intensive care unit Wednesday night
after developing respiratory problems.
"When he gets sick he can't work," Bakay said. "The mind doesn't function
well. It's difficult working with him when he is at his best, but we're
learning a lot from this fellow." Bakay said a third recipient likely
would be chosen next year after he and Kennedy fully understand how much
the current subject can accomplish. But he said the project has very
limited financing. Bakay and Kennedy experimented first with monkeys at
Yerkes Regional Primate Center in Atlanta, then won permission from the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration to try the implants on three human
recipients. The project's biggest impediment has been money. "Dr. Kennedy
and I are two overworked clinicians who still have patients to see,"
Bakay said. "We need some help. We are hoping some venture capitalist
will be interested."
Sun To Unveil Next Generation of Solaris
Sun Microsystems Inc. will unveil a major upgrade of its Solaris
operating system Tuesday as part of an increasing focus by the computer
workstation maker on its growing software business. Sun will host a news
conference in New York to roll out its 64-bit Solaris, its version of the
UNIX operating system that will run on the highest performing servers and
workstations. Sun said its new software is a generation ahead of the next
much anticipated upgrade of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT. Sun's upgrade
of Solaris, called Solaris 7 (which skips several numbers in the upgrade
cycle from the current Solaris 2.6), moves data in chunks of 64 bits, as
opposed to the 32-bit chunks that most computers process currently.
Danish Scientists Develop Atom-size Computer Chip
Danish scientists said Monday they had created a chip where a single atom
jumping back and forth could generate the binary code which is the basis
of digital information used by computers. Applying this technique - which
might only become commercially viable in a decade or two - information
stored today on a million CD-roms could be stored on a single disc, said
physics doctor Francois Grey, the team leader. "Society seems to find use
for this," he said, referring to the search for ever smaller units in
various technological applications.
Vice President Gore Unveils World's Fastest Computer
Vice President Al Gore unveiled the world's fastest computer Wednesday,
able to make 3.9 trillion calculations per second. The computer is about
40 million times more powerful than the one that put John Glenn into
space 36 years ago. Glenn, 77, America's first man in orbit, returned to
space aboard the space shuttle Discovery Thursday. The Department of
Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will use the new
computer, called Blue Pacific, in California as part of a program that
uses simulations to test the safety, security and reliability of nuclear
weapons without underground explosions.
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EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed
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Edupage
Contents
High-Tech Industry Says Education "Grassroots" Lobby Effort Rooted At
Is Key To Worker Shortage AT&T
Gov't Tells ICANN It Can't (Yet) Fractal Models For Managing Internet
Traffic
Spammer Sued By Washington State E-Books To Come Singing Down The
Wire
NEC Chairman Takes Responsibility Court Rejects Attempt To Block
For Scandal And Resigns Recording Device
Mike Roberts Chosen As Interim MS Charges NS And DOJ Of "Setup"
Head Of ICANN
IBM HotMedia Tackles Online Unix News From Sun-IBM-Sequent-SCO
Advertising
Intel Touts "E-Health" Group Strives To Set E-Book
Standards
Virtual Components Exchange Complaints About AOL In 2 New
England States
Western Digital Debuts FCC May Change The Rules On Internet
13-Gigabyte Drive Calls
Fastest Computer Keeps Speeding Apple Makes $30 A Month iMac Offer
By
A Day In The Life Of The PointCast Unveils Online Shopping
Microsoft Trial Service
Unix Growth Still Outpaces NT Stock Fraud On The Net
HIGH-TECH INDUSTRY SAYS EDUCATION IS KEY TO WORKER SHORTAGE
Pleased over the recent passage of the American Competitiveness and
Workforce Improvement Act, which raises the annual number of temporary,
professional-worker visas from 65,000 to 115,000 over the next three
years, members of the high tech say better education in the U.S. is the
long-term solution to worker shortages. "Now that employers have some
temporary assistance with the high-tech worker shortage, our nation needs
to turn its attention to ensuring that American students are getting the
proper education to make them competitive in today's and tomorrow's job
markets," says the director of human-resources policy at the National
Association of Manufacturers. "What we're most interested in are those
skill sets not available here," says the president of CTS International,
a high-tech recruiter. "It's a global marketplace. In order to be
competitive in the marketplace, we must have [access to] the best
technology and personnel." (EE Times 24 Oct 98)
"GRASSROOTS" LOBBY EFFORT ROOTED AT AT&T
The Prince George's Coalition Against Hidden Taxes, supposedly a
grassroots lobbying effort organized in Maryland, has been revealed to be
a massive effort by AT&T to defeat proposed legislation that would charge
a fee of 3% of gross revenues generated by telecom companies seeking to
use public rights of way to lay cable, string wire, or plant cellular
towers to provide new services. AT&T considers the legislation unfair
because it singles out telecommunications companies from other users of
public land, such as sanitary commissions and gas & electric companies.
Calling the Coalition's media campaign a "massive fraud," the Prince
George's County chief executive said, "This isn't any citizens coalition.
This is a bunch of giant companies trying to profit off the public for
free." (Washington Post 24 Oct 98)
GOV'T TELLS ICANN IT CAN'T (YET)
U.S. Commerce Dept. officials have told the authors of the leading
proposal for domain name privatization that their plan still needs some
work: "The Department of Commerce regards the ICANN [Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers] submission as a significant step toward
privatizing management of the domain name system," wrote Becky Burr,
associate administrator of the department handling the issue. "We note,
however, that the public comments received... reflect significant
concerns about substantive and operation aspects of the ICANN." The
proposal for the new corporation was submitted by the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA), the University of Southern California group
that has long contracted to manage the technical aspects of the
Internet's address system. A Washington, D.C., lawyer who helped IANA
draft its proposal notes that his group will examine the comments and see
what changes should be made, but added, "It would not be successful to
accept ideas from small groups of people and then lose the support of
large groups." (TechWeb 23 Oct 98)
FRACTAL MODELS FOR MANAGING INTERNET TRAFFIC
Researchers at AT&T Labs and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are
looking for new ways to manage networks that carry more data than voice
traffic, and suggest the mathematics underlying so-called fractal
behavior could serve as a b basis for more efficient models of data
networks. (A geometric object has fractal characteristics if a magnified
piece of the object resembles the original pattern.) In the case of data
traffic, bursts of activity show up in approximately the same spiky
pattern over a wide range of time scales -- from milliseconds to minutes.
"The finding the of fractal nature of Internet traffic can be viewed as a
promising start toward solid characterizations of Internet traffic,"
Walter Willinger and Vern Paxson conclude in the September issue of
Notices of the American Mathematical Society. (Science News 17 Oct 98)
SPAMMER SUED BY WASHINGTON STATE
The owner of a company called Natural Instincts is being charged by
Washington State for violation of its four-month-old legislation against
sending unsolicited bulk e-mail ("spamming"). The solicitations --which
used forged return addresses and were sent under the subject line "Did I
get the right e-mail address?" -- offered customers access to 50,000
e-mail addresses for $39.95. Washington's attorney general Christine
Gregoire says that the messages "clearly crossed the boundary from being
annoying to being illegal." (ZDNet 23 Oct 98)
E-BOOKS TO COME SINGING DOWN THE WIRE
Saying that "if you can get to the Web, you can buy a book -- instantly,"
the chief executive of NuvoMedia unveiled his company's paperback-size,
22-ounce $499 electronic Rocket eBook at Barnes & Noble, the bookstore
and publishing company that will make titles available for downloading
onto a personal computer. Books will sell for $18 to $25, and downloading
of a book will take 2 to 5 minutes. Tapping a button will allow the
reader to scroll through the book, which will include a built-in
dictionary and allow electronic underlining, note-taking, word search,
and font changes. Generally similar products are being developed by other
manufacturers, including SoftBook Press and Everybook Inc. (AP 23 Oct 98)
NEC CHAIRMAN TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR SCANDAL AND RESIGNS
Tadahiro Sekimoto, the 71-year-old chairman of NEC, the world's
second-largest manufacturer of computer chips, has resigned because of
NEC's involvement in a scheme to overcharge the Japanese military on
procurement contracts. Although Mr. Sekimoto was not personally linked to
the scandal, it is Japanese practice to demand the resignation of senior
executives when the companies they run have sinned. (New York Times 24
Oct 98)
MIKE ROBERTS CHOSEN AS INTERIM HEAD OF ICANN
Mike Roberts, who recently retired as vice president of Educom (the
nonprofit organization that merged with CAUSE to form EDUCAUSE), has been
selected as interim president and chief executive officer of ICANN
(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN is the new
California-based nonprofit corporation that will assume primary
responsibility for administering Internet address assignments. Roberts,
who says he will not serve as president beyond the group's organizing
stage, was a co-founder of CAUSE, the first director of Internet 2, and
the first executive director of the Internet Society. The interim
chairperson of ICANN will be Esther Dyson, who is a well-known figure in
information technology. (AP 27 Oct 98)
MICROSOFT CHARGES NETSCAPE AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF "SETUP"
In the Microsoft antitrust trial, Microsoft has accused Netscape of
setting up a June 1995 meeting between executives of the two companies
"for the express purpose of manufacturing evidence against Microsoft."
With Netscape president James Barksdale in the witness stand, Microsoft
attorney John L. Warden asked: "Isn't it a fact, Mr. Barksdale, that the
June 21, 1995 meeting was held for the purpose of creating something that
could be called a record that could be delivered to the Department of
Justice to spur them on to action against Microsoft?" Barksdale's answer:
"That's absurd." (Washington Post 27 Oct 98)
IBM HOTMEDIA TACKLES ONLINE ADVERTISING
IBM's HotMedia software enables Web site operators to create ads with a
variety of special and interactive effects -- including audio, video,
zoom and panoramic views -- without the delays normally associated with
downloading rich graphical formats. "The future of e-business depends on
making the user experience as natural as possible," says IBM's VP for
Internet media. "This is a set of tools to add rich media for commerce
and advertising in a way that is completely transparent and painless."
The technology works by delivering the packets of data that make up an
interactive ad on a piecemeal basis and then reassembling them, rather
than trying to push the entire format through at once. (Wall Street
Journal 27 Oct 98)
UNIX NEWS FROM SUN, IBM, SEQUENT, AND SCO
Microsoft's year-long delay in bringing to market the newest version of
its Windows NT operating system has provided a window of opportunity for
Sun to introduce Solaris 7, the 64-bit-addressable and latest version of
Sun's version of the Unix operating system. Solaris runs on the Sun Sparc
microprocessor and on Intel-based servers. Sun executive Ed Zandler is
claiming a three-year lead on Microsoft, and suggesting that the leaner
Solaris (with only 12 to 13 million lines of code) will make it more
stable than Windows NT, which is reported to have more than 35 million
lines of code. In other developments, IBM, Sequent and the Santa Cruz
Organization have agreed to develop a single Unix-based operating system
that will run on both Intel and IBM microprocessors. (New York Times 27
Oct 98)
INTEL TOUTS "E-HEALTH"
Intel plans to jump-start Web-based consumer health services by investing
in about a dozen companies that use the Internet to manage chronically
ill patients, sell vitamins and baby supplies, and distribute
health-related information to consumers. "It's one area that touches the
lives of virtually everyone, and at the same time it's underrepresented
on the Net," says Intel VP Steven McGeady. "Consumers are champing at the
bit to get access to health information and services online." McGeady
points out that the cost savings from eliminating unnecessary doctor's
visits would be enough to cover the cost of a PC for every patient.
"Everybody in this country knows the phrase 'e-commerce,' but nobody
knows the phrase 'e-health.'" (Los Angeles Times 26 Oct 98)
GROUP STRIVES TO SET E-BOOK STANDARDS
A group of publishers, software makers and electronics manufacturers have
pledged to work together to set technical standards for electronic books.
Among the supporters of the standards are Microsoft, SoftBook Press,
Bertelsmann, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster,
and Time-Warner Books. The standards are based on HTML and XML coding
systems. Publishers are attracted to the e-book, both because of the
savings on printing and distribution costs, but also because they could
include more illustrations, charts and even raw data -- material that
might be excluded now to save on printing costs. "Publishers could
present vast quantities of data without loss of trees or muscle strain
for our readers," says the director of online publishing for McGraw-Hill.
On the other hand, publishers still have reservations regarding the
security of the technology and fear that e-books will provide a new
channel for copyright violations and intellectual property piracy.
(Chronicle of Higher Education 30 Oct 98)
VIRTUAL COMPONENTS EXCHANGE
The Virtual Components Exchange is a consortium of companies organized by
a Scottish economic development group, formed to provide a forum for
buying and selling semiconductor chip designs. The idea behind this
virtual shopping mall for chip intellectual property is that one day
chips might be assembled using parts ordered one by one from an online
catalogue, and then plugged into highly integrated chips, building-block
style. Such an exchange of technology could usher in the era of the
"system on a chip" -- a long-sought goal of chipmakers. "The trends tell
us that in five years, you could see billions of dollars" in licensing
transactions on such an exchange, says the senior VP of market
development at Cadence Design Systems. (Wall Street Journal 26 Oct 98)
COMPLAINTS ABOUT AMERICA ONLINE IN TWO NEW ENGLAND STATES
Some new AOL subscribers in New Hampshire and Maine have found that local
calls to connect to that service were routed to a long-distance number
and resulted in unexpected long-distance bills. AOL claims that phone
companies have been misrouting the calls, but that assertion is disputed
by an executive of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, who says: "It's
not the phone company. It's solely AOL, their installation disk. It has
access to AOL's database of numbers ... but it's not dialing the right
one." (AP 26 Oct 98)
WESTERN DIGITAL DEBUTS 13-GIGABYTE DRIVE
Western Digital Corp. is taking the wraps off its newest hard drive -- a
magnetoresistive-based drive that holds 13 gigabytes of data. The drives
also come equipped with new technology that automatically detects,
isolates and repairs possible problem areas on the hard drive. The
13-gigabyte drive, part of Western Digital's Caviar line, is due out in
mid-November, priced at about $339. (Los Angeles Times 26 Oct 98)
FCC MAY CHANGE THE RULES ON INTERNET CALLS
The Federal Communications Commission is leaning toward a decision that
would make telephone connections between PCs and Internet service
providers more like long distance calls, and therefore subject to the
agency's jurisdiction. If a majority of the commission's five members opt
for this approach, the "reciprocal compensation" agreements between the
regional Bell companies and new local carriers serving ISPs will expire
or be greatly reduced. Under the current arrangement, companies must pay
each other a small fee for completing the local calls of each other's
customers, but not for long distance calls. New carriers have turned
these arrangements to their advantage by serving the modem banks of ISPs,
which receive thousands of calls but never make any. "The current
reciprocal compensation gravy train is running out of track," says an
industry analyst with Legg Mason Precursor Group. "This may come as a
surprise to some people, but they were in denial." (Reuters 29 Oct 98)
FASTEST COMPUTER KEEPS SPEEDING BY
The U.S. Department of Energy now has at the Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory in California an IBM-built supercomputer claimed to be the
fastest in the world, capable of a peak performance of 3.88 trillion
calculations (or teraflops) a second and employing 5,800 processor chips
connected in a "massively parallel" architecture. Energy Department
officials hope to have a 10-teraflop IBM system running at Livermore by
2000 and a 100-teraflop computer by 2004. (New York Times 28 Oct 98)
APPLE MAKES $30 A MONTH iMAC OFFER
In a challenge to Gateway's $49.95-a-month Your: )Ware PC leasing
program, Apple Computer says it will offer its popular iMac machine to
customers for $29.95 a month. The company hasn't said whether the new
arrangement, which will debut Nov. 2, is a lease or a loan program, but
by lowering the initial cost, the company hopes to lure new users to its
line of products. Apple has sold 278,000 iMacs, with almost a third going
to first-time buyers. (Investor's Business Daily 29 Oct 98)
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE MICROSOFT TRIAL
Microsoft's lead attorney has accused America Online and Netscape of
engaging in the same kind of conduct the government calls illegal and
abusive if Microsoft did it (and that, of course, is what the government
is hoping to prove). The attorney, John L. Warden, produced a message
written by AOL chief executive Steve Case summarizing a meeting with
Netscape executives and saying that Netscape "states unequivocally that
there are no plans for interest in entering the online services business
and/or related businesses such as Internet access. Netscape agrees that
it will not enter
these businesses for a minimum of 3 years following the completion of the
licensing agreement with AOL." Warden used the message to show that
Microsoft's two rivals were trying to "divide the market." Outside the
courtroom, government attorney David Boies said that the discussions
between AOL and Netscape were irrelevant to the charges against
Microsoft, because "neither Netscape or America Online approached the
market share or the market dominance of Microsoft." (Washington Post 29
Oct 98)
POINTCAST UNVEILS ONLINE SHOPPING SERVICE
PointCast, which was one of the first companies to pioneer "push"
technology that automatically delivers information to a user's desktop,
is opening an electronic-commerce shopping service called MarketPlace.
The MarketPlace Web site, which will offer links to computer hardware,
books and other merchandise, will be sponsored by Visa. (Bloomberg
News/Los Angeles Times 29 Oct 98)
UNIX GROWTH STILL OUTPACES NT
A recent Dataquest survey shows that Unix growth is accelerating and
outpacing that of its main competitor, Windows NT. Unix market share has
grown from 36% in 1996 to 42.7% in the second quarter of this year. The
NT market has increased from 9.7% to 16.2% during the same time period.
"NT is far behind where the state of the art is, and it has a long way to
go," says a Dataquest analyst. Meanwhile, Sun's recent program to offer
its Solaris 7.0 operating system free to developers and educational
institutions is also making inroads in the server software market. "Where
the Solaris giveaway will eat up market share is Windows and NT on PCs,"
says the group marketing manager for Solaris. Sun is also reinforcing the
Linux system by licensing its source code for the Java Development and
Compatibility Kits. "That's a good combo, Linux and Java," says a former
SunSoft programmer who's now working on a Linux port. "They both cater to
quick, more simple types of applications. Getting Java on Linux is one of
the items I've felt Linux needs to make into the enterprise." (TechWeb 29
Oct 98)
STOCK FRAUD ON THE NET
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 23 enforcement actions
against 44 individuals and companies who used Internet junk mail, online
newsletters, message board postings and Web sites to illegally tout
stocks. The individuals charged with fraud for allegedly lying about the
companies they touted or their independence from those companies. (USA
Today 29 Oct 98)
COURT REJECTS ATTEMPT TO BLOCK RECORDING DEVICE
Federal District Judge Audrey B. Collins of Los Angeles has denied a
request by the recording industry to stop production of a 2.4-ounce $$188
handheld recording device called Rio, which can record and play back
digital music found on the Internet. The industry is concerned that the
recorder will encourage widespread piracy, and that manufacturers of such
devices "have a moral obligation to protect creative works." But a lawyer
for Diamond Multimedia Systems, the company that makes Rio, asks: "Are
they saying no one can develop a new technology without their
permission?" (New York Times 28 Oct 98)
NEW!
[BITSBYTES.GIF (64527 bytes)]
by R. F. Mariano
As fate would have it. We lost the bottom end in the starboard engine.
So.... Bits & Bytes is in the shop to have that motor pulled and
rebuilt. We are looking at about two to three weeks down time. I know I
am in good hands a Pablo Creek Marina. The boat's indoors while the
engine work is being done. We are looking at low to mid five figures...
whew.... anyone out there feeling flush? All donations will be greatly
appreciated. The Bits & Bytes will be used for a number of duties
including showing the wonders of the inland Florida waters to the
underprivileged children in the ne Florida area. Hopefully, it will
instill a desire to succeed and avoid a lifetime of failures and
hardship. The boat is of an extremely sound hull and superstructure it
has the very best of electronics installed. We are so close to full
launch. The engine problems evidenced themselves during the second set
of shakedown tests.
[speckled seatrout.gif (33458 bytes)] Catching BIG Trout
To begin with, pretend to fish for reds, but you would really be fishing
for trout--big trout. This idea was born out of a series of articles in
recent outdoor publications that described various not-so-well-known
approaches to catching large seatrout in Florida waters. The reason for
the apparent flood of seatrout articles is a statewide resurgence of
trout populations. This a direct result of stronger commercial and
recreational fishing regulations going into affect in the past few years.
More trout means more big trout. "It seems that the best way to catch big
trout is to fish for reds or snook, for NE Florida that leaves only
reds."
Apparently "gator" trout rarely inhabit the same places as the younger,
smaller fish most of anglers pursue diligently on the grass flats every
summer. Instead, large seatrout lead a more solitary lifestyle,
preferring areas more often associated with reds such as oyster bars,
creek mouths and the shallows along the marsh-covered shoreline. With a
flats boat to improve your "stealth" factor, and you would be fishing in
less than two feet of water, the least that could happen is a few reds
wind up being caught.
Begin by fishing topwater plugs around oyster bars in the Ft. George
River and Simpson's Creek areas. When that slowed try fishing along the
marshy shoreline of Little Talbot Island, concentrating your efforts on
sections of the shoreline that slope away into deeper water. Take turns
paddling and casting gold spoons next to the marshgrass and reeling them
slowly down the sloping bottom. It's a time-tested method for catching
reds, and it usually worked.
Spring and fall are the best times of the year to catch one or more of
these big trout in NE Florida. That's also when it's more likely to catch
reds and trout in the same space or, there abouts . Look for areas where
there is deep water, four-to-six feet, or more, near oyster bars or the
shoreline. With the rising tide, trout will move into the shallows to
forage for small baitfish that normally rely on the shallow water for
protection from predators. When done feeding the larger fish will return
to near-by deeper water until the urge strikes again. "Sometimes they
feed for an hour, sometimes less, but if you fish through most of the
rising tide you'll be there when they show."
The same applies for oyster bars where the gamefish will roam over the
newly-covered bars just long enough for a good meal. The trick is to be
there when they come out of their "comfort zones" for food. Fishing in
shallow, clear water presents many other problems. "The fish are very
nervous and will quit feeding at the slightest disturbance." Its
recommended that you keep your boat as far away from your target as
possible. When wading, keep a low profile and cast sidearm when you're
close to the fish. When fishing oyster bars, wade from bar to bar,
fishing 360 degrees around each one.
Live bait is another way to nail large trout. Use large finger mullet or
other live native baitfish at least six inches long. As seatrout grow
larger, they get slower because the amount of water they have to push out
of their way. As a result they seek baitfish that are also relatively
large and slow. Of course, even a small trout will grab a large bait, but
if you're catching small trout you're fishing in the wrong place anyway.
Use a popping cork to keep the bait from hiding and/or snagging on the
bottom, and a splitshot or two to slow it down even more. The same
applies to fishing with artificials: work topwater plugs very slowly, and
gold spoons just fast enough to make them wobble. The final ingredient
you'll need is patience. You're simply not going to catch as many fish,
but the fun of catching even one or two "gators" is worth all the hours
of casting. Believe me.
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The Linux Advocate
Column #25
October 30th, 1998
by Scott Dowdle
dowdle@icstech.net
ICQ UIN: 15509440
LOGIN:
Wow, it's been a very busy week at work. I wonder how that Microsoft trial is
going? This past weekend was the Atlanta Linux Showcase show. From what I've
read about it, it had record turn outs... too bad I couldn't attend. There's
always next year. I did find some decent coverage of the ALS and included it
as a spotlight. Also, a friend of mine submitted a spotlight that talks about
installing Linux over the Internet. Let's see you do THAT with Windows 2000.
At the ALS, one of the keynote speakers was a fellow from Corel. He happened
to mention that Corel has decided to give away WordPerfect 8 for Linux for
personal use... which will be available online sometime next week. There are
quite a few other juicy tidbits that Corel announced but I'm saving that for
next week. Be sure and get signed up with Corel so you can download
WordPerfect 8 when it comes out. http://linux.corel.com
NEWS:
Item #1: The future of computing starts with an L - One columnist from ZDNET
details her experience at the Atlanta Linux Showcase. Although she spells
GNOME as GENOME, I'll forgive her. She points out that Linux is a better
solution to the industries problems than, you know... that other thing. Check
out the following URL:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/columns/0,4351,364470,00.html
Item #2: Mozilla for X moves from Motif to GTK - All I can say is wow. Jamie
Z. at Netscape was quoted in an interview on theme.org a few months ago as
saying that Motif was the only way to go on Unix because it was the standard:
I guess standards are changing. Since the goal of Mozilla is to offer an open
source browser, they finally decided to go with an open source GUI API. I
think this is a big push for GTK, which as you will remember was originally
created by the GIMP developers. GTK has come a long way since then though. To
read more about the development roadmap for Mozilla visit the following URL.
You can search for gtk in the page if you want to see that part.
http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html
Item #3: Stuart Anderson on the Linux Standard Base Project - The head of the
LSB gave a talk recently and the following URL contains a transcript. I think
it is very important to watch what's going on with this Linux distribution
standardizing effort. After it is concluded, there shouldn't be any disparity
between Linux distributions, which is something that third party software
makers are concerned about. Check it out at the following URL:
http://www.flux.org/linux/lsb.html
Item #4: Unix gaining in NT rivalry - Who'da thunk it? The backlash against
Windows NT is finally noticeable. Well, in all fairness, Windows NT is still
growing but Unix is gaining more in marketshare. This just goes to show that
the death of Unix was announced prematurely. Enjoy the following URL:
http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/center/unix102798.htm
Item #5: Linux inventor assesses future of open-source software - Yet another
interview with Linus. Find it at the following URL:
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19981027S0007
Item #6: Mexico's Project Scholar Net adopts Linux - The Mexican school
systems seem to have decided o adopt Linux in a big way and will be installing
Linux at various schools starting soon and continuing over the next five
years. The estimated number of Linux machines in the school systems of Mexico
at thecompletion of of Project Scholar is 140,000. Not too shabby, eh? Check
it out at the following URL:
http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-list/1998-October/1298.html
Item #7: Oracle firms stance on Linux - Although Linux is legendary for it's
technical quality, the Linux community is also very well known for its support
system. InfoWorld Magazine gave the Linux Community the Best of Technical
support award last year but you'd think the industry press never heard about
it. In his opening speech at the Atlanta Linux Showcase this past weekend,
Allen Miner, vice president of strategic business development for Oracle said
that the tech support from Red Hat, SuSE and Caldera is faster and better than
Oracles own. He also said that Oracle wants to learn from the Linux model and
hopefully achieve the level of customer satisfaction the Linux community
enjoys. Good luck. Read the full article at the following URL:
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?981023.whoracle.htm
Item #8: Open Response to Microsoft France - I don't know if anyone noticed,
but I made a brief reference to the General Manager of Microsoft France and a
FUD campaign against Linux somewhere in the last column. I didn't cover it in
a news item last week because the URL in question was all in French and, for
one thing, I don't speak French. Anyway, there have been several responses to
the Microsoft France GM and the following URL is the funniest one I've seen so
far. Be warned, it does contain a few racy words. It can be found at the
following URL: http://www.zork.net/suite.html
SPOTLIGHT: Atlanta Linux Showcase 1998 - As mentioned in the Login section
above, the ALS was this past weekend. Below are two URLs for great coverage of
the show. I did get the permission of one ALS vendor to reproduce his account
of the show which follows. Enjoy.
http://slashdot.org/articles/98/10/26/1449214.shtml
http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~mdemma/linuxexpo/
--- begin long quote here ---
Brief report on:
Atlanta Linux Showcase
by Eric Lee Green
Sunday - Oct 25th, 1998
Now that I'm back from Atlanta...
All in all, a successful show. The "nerd" factor was low at this one. At
LinuxExpo there were all these hacker types walking around who would talk your
head off about the technical details of your product but who would never buy
it in a thousand years. There were real people at ALS -- people with money.
System administrators. Technical directors. Company presidents. Consultants.
We were approached by people wanting some big-time Linux systems -- a guy who
needs to support 250 simultaneous telnet users while running the Progress
database, for example (No problem, with the ICP-Vortex 5-channel RAID
controller and enough Seagate Cheetah hard drives we can get him all the disk
bandwidth the PCI bus is capable of passing), and a university researcher ("I
have a grant, but not enough for an SGI") who wanted the absolute
highest-performance Linux system he could get, 2gb of system RAM, etc. I also
found the answer to another question there. There was a guy who needed 45
megabytes per second throughput for a video application. He sent me email last
week asking if I had any ideas. I had to admit that the fastest I'd managed
was 28 megabytes per second sustained throughput in a multi-channel RAID
setup. Well, some researchers in Wisconsin have released a distributed
fiber-channel disk filesystem with drivers for Linux. One of their guys came
by our booth, talking about it, and I mentioned my problem. He said "45
megabytes per second? No problem!". He left me the literature for all the
stuff involved -- Fiber-Channel disk drives, interface cards, etc.
A Motorola rep approached me, wanting to sell us some Power PC motherboards in
ATX form factor to run Linux. I told him I couldn't see the market, we sell
lots of Alphas to research labs and etc. that need power and they're not going
o buy a slightly-slower PowerPC to do their molecular modeling etc., but I
told him I'd give his card to our marketing guys to see what they can come up
with. I think I'm going to call him Monday anyhow just to get the technical
goodies on it :-) (What can I say, I may know a bit about marketing but I'm a
tech nerd at heart).
By far the most impressive product, though, was hardware-accelerated OpenGL
running under Linux. Thomas Rouell of XI Graphics came by our booth on
Thursday, prior to the show opening, and asked if he could install the demo on
one of our machines. I asked my boss and he said sure, so we popped the cover
on a low-end RAID server (this one had a PII-400, 128MB of RAM, a
single-channel RAID controller and three hot-swappable 9gb Cheetah hard
drives), replaced the piece of junk S3 video card (hey, it's a server, it's
gonna sit in a back room somewhere and gather dust) with a Number Nine
Revolution 4 with 32mb of SDRAM (these things go around $200-$300, i.e., we're
not talking Elsa Gloria territory), and then... then he started up four
simultaneous OpenGL demos, each running in its own window, each running at
speeds similar to an SGI of three years ago (alas, even AGP framerates can't
keep up with current SGI hardware). Combined with the 600Mhz Alpha next to it
that was running Mandelbrots in real time, this was a real show-stopper.
People were always stopping and saying "Wow! Is this a dual-processor Xeon?"
and I had to say no, it was the video card doing the work, the processor was
just a plain old PII-400. I asked Thomas what the framerate for Quake was on
this thing. I forget what he told me, but he also told me it was faster than
with that same video card under Windows 95 and OpenGL only works in
full-screenm mode under Windows 95! I.e., rendering into a window (even a
window expanded to the full size of the screen, with windows on top of it!) we
can get faster rendering than Win95 in full-screen mode. To say that I was
impressed is to understate it.
Our booth was right across from Metro-Link's booth (Xi Graphic's big
competitor in the Linux video market). One of their programmers had the "C"
source to their own accelerated OpenGL open on a window, trying to make it
work. They kept glancing over at our booth and I overheard one of them tell
one of their programmers (who was in the booth) "Hurry up, hurry up, get it
working, we gotta show ours too!". Alas, their hardware-accelerated OpenGL
kept crashing every time they tried to double-buffer, but they promised "Give
us two weeks and we'll blow their doors off." Ain't it great?
A Microsoft guy came wandering by our booth, looked at the Mandelbrots running
in real time, looked at three simultaneous OpenGL demos running in separate
windows in real time, and shook his head. "What's this?" he asked. I said
"Hardware accelerated OpenGL. Impressive, isn't it?" He clicked on the "Start"
menu (the system was running the FVWM95 window manager, which looks similar to
Windows 95) and the Linux "Start" menu came up, and he shook his head again.
"This is Linux? I didn't know it was going to be like this," he said. I asked
"What do you mean?" He said "All these windows and graphics and everything.
When they said Linux was a Unix clone, I came in here expecting to see a bunch
of dumb terminals."
I don't think so, Toto :-).
-- Eric
--- end long quote here ---
SPOTLIGHT: Installing a Linux distribution over the Internet
A friend of mine recently moved from Billings to Missoula, Montana in order to
start college. He moved into the dorms and it just so happens that each dorm
room has a 10BaseT Ethernet network connector for Internet access (which
includes access to the campus network via SMB). Having a high speed connection
opens up many new possibilities and Peter talks about doing a network install
of the SuSE Linux distribution. All this entails is downloading an file and
making an install floppy disk out of it, booting from that disk and answering
a few questions. Being able to install over the network means that when the
install program asks what media do you want to install from, rather than
picking CD-ROM, or local hard drive partition, you pick an FTP site on the
Internet from which the install program will access all of the files it needs
to do the install. This is very cool, trust me, I've done an install on my
laptop over my home LAN. What follows is Peter's write up. Thanks for the
submission Peter!
--- begin long quote here ---
Installing SuSE Linux over the Internet
by Peter Schmiedeskamp
email: peter@dabe1003b.aber.umt.edu
Yeah, I know. Yet another product review of yet another Linux distribution.
The goal of this article is to be slightly off the beaten path by reviewing a
network install of the new S.u.S.E. Linux version 5.3. As a student with a
newly found high speed internet connection, Linux becomes a very viable option
when compared with many operating systems that rarely see revisions and are
solely distributed on CD-ROM. Several students I have met are amazed that they
don't need to put in a Windows 98 CD and go through an agony comparable to the
dentist's office to get a good solid system. With S.u.S.E. I really found it
to be as easy as putting in a disk (created by the old standard rawwrite
utility or some linux equivalent like "cat eide01 > /dev/fd0") and I was off
and running.
The notion that Microsoft supporters spread that Linux is difficult to install
is laughable with the advent of installers like the one contained in S.u.S.E.
One would have to be brain dead to not be able to reason through this simple
install process. I started my installation on the hardest of all
Intel-compatible hardware: A laptop with a PCMCIA ethernet card. It goes
without saying that the average linux installation is going to work smoothly
on most desktop systems (On a side note, the desktop from which I'm typing
this installed swimmingly as well). Laptop computers tend to separate the real
operating systems from the mediocre. My Pentium 233 MMX complied without the
slightest hesitation. I loaded from the "Kernel Modules" section the PCMCIA
support. That was all I had to do. My 3Com card was no longer an issue. This
was, in fact, easier than my desktop where I had to (Gasp!) select the type of
network card. For those who regularly spend time on the net hunting for that
elusive driver for Windows, you have no idea the satisfaction of having
everything "right there."
From this point it was a matter of telling S.u.S.E. to do an FTP install and
punch in my IP address and the other various numbers that the University gave
me. Assuming you know all of this information, this is cake. One caveat: when
selecting an FTP site, S.u.S.E. asks for an IP of a server. You can enter a
real hostname instead. I used ftp.suse.org/pub/SuSE-Linux/5.3/suse/. After
pausing to bask in the glory of an easy kill I continued onward. The next
stage of the install involved the typically daunting task of partitioning the
hard disk. For the linux new-comer, the typical response is, "What the hell is
disk partitioning?" S.u.S.E. does a nice job of giving a small crash course in
partitioning (provided the novice is literate and is willing to actually read
the concise online help). Disk partitioning is often a tricky issue even to
the experienced user. Frequently partitioning becomes a guessing game as to
how much space should be allocated and where it should be allocated to.
Unfortunately this is how it is. Linux uses a much more robust way of doing
things than Windows and it is simply necessary to spend the time to learn what
it is and do it right. S.u.S.E. did the best thing it could possibly do and
created a clear layout of a partitioning utility that is far easier than
RedHat's much acclaimed "Disk Druid" software.
Following partitioning the drive(s), the user is faced with what software to
install. There are a number of configurations that are pre-defined. I rarely
use these as they always seem to include some software that I know I'll never
use. In RedHat installations I'm often afraid to play with much of this
because I always manage to break something. In S.u.S.E. I found that it
detected discrepancies in package requirements that I've blundered into in the
past with other distributions. Time to kick back and relax! Unlike some other
operating systems, (i.e. Windows) Linux does not need to be baby sat. O.K. I
could never leave a freshly installing linux system either. I'm too much of an
addict to not play around in the other consoles by pressing Alt-F1-8. One
thing I noticed in S.u.S.E. was that during an install, I was able to use
utilities such as telnet. For those of you who regularly use a remote shell,
this feature is really fun. I used the time that my system spent installing to
check e-mail.
Unlike many distributions, I feel that S.u.S.E. lives up to the ease of it's
installation. Administration is a snap. It is called "YaST." Simply type
"yast" at the command prompt and you are up and running. This is the same
interface that is used during installation, so the user should already feel
somewhat at home with the menus. From here you can configure everything from
your network devices to X.
On a whole, I have to say that S.u.S.E. is very, very impressive. With an
easy-to-use bundle like the Linux Office Suite, S.u.S.E. Linux is in a
position to nip some market share from the big players. I expect that as
people discover the simplicity of S.u.S.E. it will win more and more converts.
As the S.u.S.E. people are fond of saying, "Have a lot of fun!"
--- end long quote here ---
LOGOUT:
I hope you enjoyed this edition of LA. Remember, if you have any questions or
comments, please.. send me some email.
Scott Dowdle
Happy Halloween!!
Halloween in Jacksonville Florida 1998....
[JSR2.tif (922368 bytes)]The classy costumes and the numbers of parents
escorting the youngsters was wonderful. What
made it all even better was the costumes the parents and grandparents
were wearing.
[kevin.tif (922368 bytes)]Some of the getups were absolutely stunning
with originality and creativity.
[hween2.tif (922368 bytes)] [hween.tif (922368 bytes)]
Four Pounds of Bach's Candies later.... and all was quiet again... I
hope these youngsters and grandparent had as much fun as I did.
[hween1.tif (922368 bytes)]
Hey Taylor? Who did the "make-up" job??? Its pretty good! You DO
look like a DEAD Rollerblader! Nice job.
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Editor's MailBag
Messages * NOT EDITED * for content
From: Larry Reagan pastorlr@aeneas.net
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 1998 11:20 PM
To: rmariano@streport.com
Subject: a different opinion
In my honest opinion, Democrats & Republicans, are more interested in
their own personal fame, wealth, and power, than in honestly leading our
country. There may be a very few who have some integrity. The
Democratic party platform is a shame. The Republicans butter up to
conservative thinking people, and Christians, to get their vote. Then,
they do as they please. Democrats believe in big gov't that grows at a
rate of 5% per year. Republicans believe in big gov't that grows at a
rate of 3% per year.
Bottom Line: They like the power that our money gives them. It amazes me
how any honest thinking person could really believe either party really
cares about what is really right. The proof is in the pudding. We work
until the middle of May to give them money to operate on. Then, the rest
of the year to feed our families and provide for them. I'm sick of
hypocrital gov't.
The only real hope for honest gov't is Jesus Christ. He will sit on an
earthly throne someday. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus. I wonder if
you've ever read the entire story of His life. Matthew, Mark, Luke, &
John.
Sincerely,
Larry Reagan
Thanks for the inspirational encouragement. At one point in my life I had
plans of entering the Clergy as a teaching Brother. I hope the rest of
our readers turn out to vote. This is a very serious election coming
up. God help us all if the Republicans gain a majority in both houses.
The little guys out there will be dead.
[image87.gif (45316 bytes)]
Classics & Gaming Section
Editor Dana P. Jacobson
dpj@streport.com
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
Is it already the end of October? Wow! Halloween is tomorrow night; I
enjoy this holiday more than ever now that I'm out in the 'burbs! Seeing
all of the kids in costume is really a treat (no pun intended); it's
something I really didn't have when living in the city. Our house is
lightly decorated for the festivities and we're almost ready for the
hordes of little ghosts and goblins that will be dropping by. A terrific
holiday here during a fun season of the year. Please, drive carefully on
Halloween night - the streets will be full of trick-or-treaters and may
not be as visible to you because of their costumes.
I don't have much to say this week, so I'll move right into this week's
issue and then finish up my scary preparations for Saturday night!
Until next time...
Welcome to your channel Atari Member Update.
1. New MyMail update
2. A MP3-player/decoder for Falcon030.
3. Alexander Clauss Homepage
4. Webpages made by me
M Y M A I L U P D A T E
My Mail by Erik Hall is now up to v0.70 and he is asking for more
beta-testers for MyMail. Here's the news and bug fixes since the last
version: info sent from him:
* Fixed problems with decoding of base64 encoded attachmens
from SUN mailer.
* It was not possible to close "Edit Address card" cause of
bad return value for a function. This is now done
correctly.
* Problem with popup menu opened outside the top of screen
is now fixed.
* Added sound functions.
* MyMAIL is NOT doing the playback; it is only sending a
va-start message so it works if there is a soundplayer
installed correctly on the computer.
* New setup added for sound events.
* If gemjing is used do select the button "Use GEMJing"
* Now settings are saved directly at change and the save
settings icon are removed.
* Rewrite of setting window handler.
* Prev/next buttons in editor caused mymail to crash caused
by a NULL pointer.
* Internal ram buffert for clipboard is now dynamicly
allocated.
* Fixed problems with mail from outlook express coding
filenames in base64; these filenames are now decoded
correctly.
* As usual this is violating the specifications so mymail
only decode this and will never encode in this format.
* Bug in call to file selector in save mail as text or html
was randomly causing mymail to crash.
* One memory release error fixed.
* Now mymail is telling the user the if the mail server
refuse to accept a mailaddress when sending a mail but not
if it is to a mailing list where the error addresses is
saved in the file FAILED.TXT.
* This is a must because some servers checks if it is a
"real" address by contacting the destination server.
* If the server is down then it is not possible to send mail
to that address. This is not any fault in mymail this is
only a way for providers to protect them from being used
as "Spam" server.
* A bug in the logging of mail was causing the log to be
closed and re-opened many times in a mail send and this
was slowing down the transmit of the mail.
* A small speed optimization is done in the base64(mime)
encoding.
* Some spelling errors fixed in dialogs.
* Empty text in mail was some times causing mymail to bomb
this is now fixed.
* Faulty pointer in "Depack" window was causing problems.
This is now fixed.
* CTRL-V was causing mymail to hang randomly this is now
fixed.
* Faster encoding of fileattachments (base64)
* Some times text after links was not displayed this is now
fixed.
* At export of mail to html format the links inside a mail
is converted into a selectable link.
* Now the keys Shift-upp arrow/Shift down arrow is now
supported by mymail to scroll pages up and down.
* Fixed a bug causing problems when there was more mail in a
mailbox than mymail could handle. The limit was 512 but is
now increased to 1024 but the program do not crash if
there is more mail.
My MyMail support page is to be found at:
http://home.bip.net/atari/mymail/
and the official webpage, made by the author:
http://www2.tripnet.se/~erikhall/programs/mymail.html
A M P 3 - P L A Y E R F O R F A L C O N ?
The authors behind MPEG Audio Layer II PRG/ACC Realtime DSP Decoder,
Fredrik Noring and Tomas Berndtsson have now started to continue work
with their MP2-player from dec 1996. After a discussion with them Ive
been told that they might try to compile a MP3-decoder, just, might. I
told them that if theres someone who can try to make a mp3-player for
Falcon in near future, they can.
There's a pre-beta alpha version out of their mp2-player to download from
this path: http://home.bip.net/atari/apps/mp2_099a-19981016.lzh
This is the version 0.99 release of the MPEG Audio Layer II decoder
You can find info and more about this app and their developments at
following URLs: http://www.noring.org/mp2/
Fredrik Noring: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~noring/DSP.html
Tomas Berndtsson: http://tomas.nocrew.org/DSP/DSP-main.html
Ive also been told that if theres a wide interest of a mp3-player/decoder
they might give it a chance. You have to mail them at the following
address and give the your own opinion about this:
tomas@nocrew.org
They also have started to use the Falcon MP3 mailing list. If you want to
became a member of this list, just mail them at the address above and
tell them that you are interested to follow the development of a
MP3-player for Falcon. This list uses the address
Do something good for the Atari market, mail them and encurage them to
start writing a MP3-player/decoder. The whole Internet is full of the
MP3-files and this is growing popular every month. We need a player for
our machines too.
A L E X A N D E R C L A U S S H O M E P A G E
The author of CAB, Alexander Clauss has moved his homepage to a new
location.
http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/~aclauss/
His new e-mailaddress is: aclauss@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de
W E B P A G E S M A D E B Y M Y S E L F
I have since the month of july constructed some pages related to the
Swedish Atari Users Association SAK. The Nordic Atari Show 1999 will be
held here in Gotheburg next June. Info and more about this show, is
available at: http://www.sak.nu/nas
Theres also pictures to view taken by a webcamera from the show 1998 at
there. We have a own members magazine too, called Atarimagasinet. It is
distributed to our members four times a year. If you can read the swedish
language why dont you join us and receive this magazine? I now that
theres lots of norwegian, danish and finnish that can cope with the
language. After the close down of the norwegian Atari user group AOUN we
invite the membrs to come and join us now.
The Atarimagsinet homepage is located at: http://www.sak.nu/am
I also have made a starting point for our new members to discover the Net
with several links, Atarirelated documents and more at:
http://surf.to/sakmedlem
Best Regards
Mille Babic
E-mail: atari@mail.bip.net
WWW: http://home.bip.net/atari/
Gaming Section
* "Starship"!!
* "Soldier"!
* "Xenogears"!
* "Contender"!!
* "Vegas Games 2000"!
* And much more!
Industry News STR Game Console NewsFile - The Latest Gaming News!
SouthPeak Interactive to Publish Game Based on the Warner Bros. Feature
Film, Soldier
SouthPeak Interactive announced that it will publish a PC CD-ROM and
PlayStation game based on the Warner Bros. film ``Soldier'' starring Kurt
Russell. The PC version of this real-time, 3-D action-arcade computer
game developed by Gigawatt Studios will be released in the summer of
1999, with the PlayStation version to follow in the fall. "We are
genuinely impressed with the terrific acting, directing, writing and
production talent working on the 'Soldier' film," said Armistead Sapp,
president of SouthPeak. "We're flattered that the team at Warner Bros.
decided to choose SouthPeak to extend Soldier into the gaming realm."
The "Soldier" game is the latest in a long line of games and
entertainment software to be developed or published by SouthPeak based on
select Warner Bros. properties. SouthPeak is also publishing four PC
puzzle collections named Looney Tunes Animated Jigsaws, four interactive
coloring books titled Crazy Paint, an action-arcade maze game called
Pinky & The Brain World Conquest, a side-scrolling adventure game
Animaniacs: A Gigantic Adventure, and a Daily Desktop computer calendar
utility.
"We have a tremendous working relationship with everyone at SouthPeak,"
remarked Michael Harkavy, Vice President Worldwide Publishing, Kids' WB!
Music and Interactive Entertainment. "They develop and publish
technologically superior software that's just as much fun to play, and
the 'Soldier' game will certainly add to that reputation." The "Soldier"
film, a Jerry Weintraub Production to be released worldwide by Warner
Bros. this Friday, October 23, 1998, stars Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee,
Connie Nielsen, Gary Busey and Michael Chiklis and is directed by Paul
Anderson from a script by David Webb Peoples. Jeremy Bolt co-produces and
R.J. Louis and Susan Ekins executive produce.
In "Soldier," Russell plays Todd, a veteran of numerous galactic
conflicts and maneuvers who finds himself rendered obsolete by a new
generation of specially bred warriors led by Caine 607 (Lee). Following a
government test conducted by the Makers where Caine powerfully defeats
Todd, the vanquished First Generation soldier is left for dead on a
remote garbage outpost at the edge of the galaxy. Gradually nursed back
to health by the inhabitants of this harsh planet, Todd begins to learn
about the everyday aspects of life beyond the battlefield until he is
called to defend the outpost and its overmatched settlers against Caine
and his scientifically engineered squadron.
The game serves as an extension of the movie, where players assume the
role of Todd or another of his First Generation comrades-at-arms who have
been skilled in the use of all types of weapons and military equipment.
This unit of elite soldiers scours the universe to protect the weak and
root out all the remains of their Makers and their new breed of weapons,
both human and technological. "Soldier" is a real-time,
three-dimensional, level-based game. Each of the six levels is
constructed of a series of 3D environments containing a number of
missions and objectives that must be completed by using lightning-quick
reflexes and a variety of weapons. Level objectives are diverse and
include challenging tasks like saving hostages, freeing settlers, and
defeating the formidable foes dispatched by the Makers. ictory can only
be achieved through pure brawn tempered by intelligent, strategic game
play.
"Soldier" is being developed by Hollywood, California's Gigawatt Studios,
creators of Men in Black: The Game and Pinky & The Brain World Conquest.
Brothers David and Yoni Koenig are leading the team facing the challenge
of bringing director Paul Anderson's and writer David Webb Peoples'
vision to life. "The movie is going to wow hard-core gamers with its
ultra-cool environments - a bleak, wind-swept wasteland of a planet with
mountains of industrial debris like transformers, spacecraft and outdated
machinery," said Yoni Koenig, president of Gigawatt. "We're going to take
this brilliant artistic vision and extend it into six gaming environments
that remain true to the film and give gamers ever-increasing levels of
visual excitement."
"But one of the most powerful themes in the movie is the power of
redemption and the belief that, no matter how much a person may have been
trained to disregard his emotions, we can always find the humanity deep
within him," observed Gigawatt Chief Executive Officer David Koenig. "
'Soldier' willrequire gamers to be quite skilled in combat, but in order
to succeed, they too will have to connect with their own humanity by
protecting the weak and defenseless from tyranny."
Star Trek Cousin Coming to TV
Mainframe Entertainment has begun pre-production efforts for a 3-D
computer-animated series based upon Gene Roddenberry's "Starship." The
story is the last property by the creator of Star Trek that hasn't been
produced for TV or film. Following three years of negotiations,
theVancouver-based animated television series producer acquired the
rights to produce the Starship series in all media. "This is one of the
last unproduced Roddenberry properties or ideas," said Chris Brough,
Mainframe's CEO and vice chairman. Brough said the Roddenberry Group
selected Mainframe because the company's ideas were in accord with
Roddenberry's philosophy and content.
The 3-D CGI-animated television series is molded after Roddenberry's
vision of a vast starship built and launched to scientifically explore
the galaxy. Mainframe is initially gearing the series for prime-time
television. Mainframe has begun pre-production activities including
animation tests, character modeling,and production design. The series
will begin production in mid-1999.
Square Soft Launches Xenogears in North America
Square Soft, provider of one of the most successful gaming franchises in
interactive entertainment history, today announced the launch of
Xenogears for the PlayStation game console. Xenogears features
traditional role-playing gameplay combined with exquisitely hand-drawn
and computer- generated animation. An intricate storyline involving many
human and non-human characters will prove to captivate audiences of all
ages.
Following the release of Parasite Eve, Square Soft's critically acclaimed
cinematic role playing game (RPG), Xenogears is the second of four new
titles to be marketed and distributed in North America during 1998 under
the recently-formed Square Electronic Arts joint venture between Square
Soft and Electronic Arts. Square Soft has once again proven themselves as
a leader in role playing game (RPG) development with the release of
Xenogears. Xenogears provides the elements that made Final FantasyVII
popular, and adds original features such as giant fighting robot action,
dramatic hand-drawn cell animation, and unique real-time battle systems.
Players can rotate the amazingly detailed 3D gameplay maps 360 degrees,
and have the ability to navigate around the environment by jumping and
climbing. In battle, mega-robots can be controlled, adding great variety
to play. A new real-time combat system eliminates restrictive menus,
using button commands to provide fast-paced, intuitive action. Players
can wield dramatic magical spells or engage in real-time polygonal robot
vs. robot battles. Combined with dynamic camera angles and intense
lighting effects, Xenogears is an experience that won't be forgotten.
"Square Soft knows RPGs," stated Jun Iwasaki, president of Square
Electronic Arts. "Xenogears brings the best RPG development know-how and
combines the utmost in current technological innovation to bring a new
type of RPG to the gaming world. Our goal, as always, is to provide our
customers with the highest quality gameplay experience available.
Xenogears reinforces Square Soft's commitment to this goal." A gigantic
colony ship is forced to evacuate immediately after it is invaded by a
foreign organism. After leaving a greatly overpopulated home and becoming
severely crippled with the destruction of its major operating system the
ship plunges into a remote area by the name of Ignas when the captain
activates the self-destruct sequence.
Upon Ignas' continent, a war has been raging between two countries for
hundreds of years. In the north of the continent lies the Kislev Empire,
in the south lies the desert kingdom of Aveh. The story begins in the
remote village of Lahan, in the outskirts of Aveh, near the border with
Kislev. The new robots found by the Ethos institution and excavated by
both countries changed the way that combat was fought. What lies beyond
is a story of intrigue, treachery, allies becoming enemies and enemies
becoming allies. Fei Fong Wong, a marital artist extraordinaire, makes
many remarkable discoveries along the way, challenging past doubts and
resolving issues regarding his current mission.
Xenogears is a 2 disc RPG available for approximately US $45.00 and
carries an ESRB rating of "Teen." It is available now in leading retail
outlets throughout North America.
The Main Event in January is Contender - Only on the PlayStation
FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 26, 1998--Bringing pure
fighting enjoyment to the videogame ring in January is Sony Computer
Entertainment America's premiere boxing title, ontender(tm), available
only for the PlayStation game console. Contender offers head-to-head
boxing action with arcade-style gameplay and control, and is compatible
with the new Dual Shock(tm) Analog Controller.
"Combining crisp 3D polygonal graphics with fast and furious arcade
boxing action, Contender is sure to appeal to a very broad range of
gamers," said Peter Dille, senior director, product marketing, Sony
Computer Entertainment America. "This is one of those games that you can
just pick-up and have a blast with. You don't need to know a ton about
boxing appreciate the game. It's amazing how quickly the competitive
juices get flowing when your are trying to knock your friend out."
Contender features 40 different boxers, 20 playable characters, each with
their own unique look, fighting style, strengths and weaknesses. When
playing in the Single Player Main Event Mode the ultimate goal is to jab,
punch and knock out competitors till you rank as World Champion of the
boxing ring. With every fight, you can build your fighter's speed,
strength and stamina. These fighters can be saved on to memory cards to
fight against friends. Contender includes ringside cheers from the crowd
that grow louder with each progressing game, as well as realistic
character reactions like twitching on the mat when lying unconscious,
faces grimacing and eyes blinking when hit, and even facial bruises and
black eyes after a brutal fighting match.
Utilizing a true boxing scoring system, it'll take proven boxing skills
and mastery of the three different fight styles, including Detroit, Open
and Peek-a-boo to outmaneuver each competitor and earn the ultimate title
as boxing Champion of the World. A Super Punch can also be used, which
has three times the power of a regular punch.
Cool Boarders 3 Shreds Onto the Playstation
FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Oct. 27, 1998--989 Studios
announced today the availability of Cool Boarders 3 for the PlayStation
game console. Equipped with revolutionary graphics and unparalleled
gameplay, Cool Boarders 3 is setting the standard for realism in
snowboarding videogames by providing the look and feel of real
snowboarding action. "Cool Boarders 3 was designed to be the most
realistic and fun-to-play snowboarding videogame available," said Jeffrey
Fox, vice president, marketing, 989 Studios. "We have even taken a page
out of our licensed sports games playbook and motion captured actual
snowboarders to provide the most realistic experience in any snowboarding
videogame."
Gamers will experience the breathtaking beauty of numerous realistic runs
as they compete on 34 newly designed courses with razor sharp turns,
intimidating jumps, unforgiving moguls and slippery ice. With its
advanced 3D game engine, Cool Boarders 3 lets you feel every rock, bump,
ice patch and jump, while competing on five diverse and tenacious
mountains. For those who feel up to the challenge, there are two hidden
courses: Avalanche Run -- where gamers must maneuver through a tight
course while trying to outrun an avalanche, and the Tree Run -- a long,
narrow run, which demands flawless control in order to avoid hitting an
obstacle course of trees.
Depending on the gamers own personality, there are 20 different
snowboarding competitors to choose from, each with their own unique
styles, strengths and weaknesses. To further increase the realism of the
Cool Boarders 3 experience, professional snowboarders' signature moves
have been motion captured to provide the most realistic snowboarding game
animations possible. Players select from 22 authentic snowboards, which
include sixteen Burton Snowboards and six Ride Snowboards, each created
with real performance ratings for acceleration, control, responsiveness
and flexibility.
For the adventurous snowboarder, Cool Boarders 3 is packed with 35 real
jaw-dropping snowboarding maneuvers and thousands of combos like Front
Side 540's, Back Side Ally-Oops, Back Flips, Tail Grabs and 360's.
Whether gamers are sticking a Misty in the Half Pipe or hitting a 720
Back flip in the big air competition, they are destined to have an
adrenaline pumping experience. Cool Boarders 3 is a 989 Studios
production, developed by Idol Minds, LLC.
Cool Boarders 3 Key Features:
* One or two-player action allows friends to compete head-to-head
* Choice of 20 daredevil snowboarders, each with specific attributes,
skill strengths and weaknesses
* Select from 22 authentic snowboards: sixteen Burton Snowboards and
six Ride Snowboards, each individually designed with their own
performance rating
* 34 new, beautifully designed courses with razor sharp turns,
intimidating jumps, massive moguls and slippery ice
* Tons of snowboarding tricks including the Reverse 360(degree), Front
Side 540's, Rodeo, Misty, Flips, Board Slides and Tailgrabs
* Five challenging mountains including Powder Hill, Mt. Koji,
Devil's Butt, Alps and Mt. Everest
* For the first time in any snowboarding game, players will be able to
fight other snowboarders on the course in the heat of competition
* State of the art 3D game engine featuring polygonal characters,
unprecedented courses and real time rendering that provide the most
realistic, entertaining snowboarding experience
* Race against opponents in six World Class Events including the
Downhill, Boarder Cross and Slalom events or compete in the tricks
competition while boarding in the Half-Pipe, Big Air and Slope Style
Events
* Two hidden courses -- Avalanche and Tree Run -- where flawless
control is mandatory
Electronic Arts to Ship ESPN Digital Games' "X Games Pro Boarder"
Electronic Arts, the world's largest interactive entertainment software
company, today announced it will soon release ESPN Digital Games' "X
Games Pro Boarder" on both the PC and PlayStation. X Games Pro Boarder is
the only snowboarding game that features eight of the world's best
professional snowboarders. In addition, the game's soundtrack will
include tracks from several well known alternative bands including the
Foo Fighters, Lunatic Calm, Rancid and Pennywise, to name a few.
The game will be published by Electronic Arts (EA) under its new action
game division. Frank Gibeau, vice president of marketing for EA, said,
"We are very excited about the addition of X Games Pro Boarder to our
line-up of quality games. There is already a tremendous amount of buzz
and anticipation for X Games Pro Boarder, as it is the game that truly
captures the snowboarding lifestyle, including professional snowboarders,
signature moves, boards, gear, courses, music and attitude."
X Games Pro Boarder is the only snowboarding game in which players can
ride as their favorite pro, compete against the best snowboarders in the
world and pick their own line down a 3-D mountain with no boundaries. The
game will feature nine intense levels of gameplay that mirror the
broadcast presentation of the Winter X Games, the signature winter
alternative sports competition featuring the world's best athletes. The
PlayStation version can be played by 1 - 2 individuals and PC version
will support up to eight players via LAN or the Internet.
3DO Ships Vegas Games 2000 For PC
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 1998--The 3DO Company
this week began shipment of Vegas Games 2000, the fifth title in the
award-winning Vegas Games series. An easy-to-play collection of
twenty-five classic casino games, Vegas Games 2000 features new
high-resolution graphics and simple "plug-n-play" set-up for matching
wits with friends and family over the Internet.
Whether you're a first-time player or a keno king, there's something for
everyone in Vegas Games 2000, including Video Poker (five versions),
Slots (five versions), Blackjack (four versions), Video Keno, Roulette,
Craps, and more. Card sharks can ante up in the poker lounge, where 5
card stud, 5 card draw, card stud and Texas Hold 'em are always ready to
go. "Everyone will find something they love to play in this package,"
said Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO of The 3DO Company. "The simple
interface makes it easy for both savvy players and novices to jump in and
play, even over the Internet, and the rich sound effects and graphics
make for an absorbing experience that's just plain fun."
Players may choose to compete against up to six other players, either
human or computer, in "table" games for free over a network or across the
Internet via Mplayer.com(tm), the Internet's fastest growing multiplayer
game service. Vegas Games 2000 players can talk gaming strategy with
other enthusiasts around the world through an easy-to-use chat interface,
and the "pop-in-out" feature allows the player to join or leave games in
progress at any time. Vegas Games 2000 is now available at an estimated
retail price of $29.95 for Windows 95/98. The game is also available
through direct sales at The 3DO Company by calling 800/336-3506 or online
at the 3DO Internet site at http://www.3do.com.
ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'!
People are Talking
Compiled by Joe Mirando
jmirando@streport.com
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Yet another week has come and gone. It's
often hard to believe that the time goes so quickly and that so little
seems to get accomplished.
Heck, it seems to me that it was only yesterday that John Glenn made news
around the world by going... well, by going around the world. "First
American in Orbit". What a title! Even now, 36 years later, it brings to
mind the true pioneering spirit that most of us can only aspire to.
All these years later SENATOR Glenn is about to make history again by
becoming the oldest man to go into space. But unless you live in a cave
in outer mongolia you already know all about this.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an absolute fanatic about space and
its exploration. It's simply something we need to do. We need to explore.
We need to reach. We need to stretch the limits of what we can do. John
Glenn has spent a a large part of his life doing just that. I've always
admired him... first as an astronaut, then as a senator, now as an
astronaut again. While it's true that there are, at this very moment, as
many astronauts on the space shuttle DISCOVERY as there were in the
entire space program during its early years, Glenn has again succeeded in
centering our attention on the skys and beyond.
Lest I make it sound like Senator Glenn is doing this out of some
altruistic impulse, I should mention that Glenn probably jumped at the
chance to join a shuttle mission. Wouldn't you? ANY person with a lick of
adventure in them would jump at the opportunity to fly on a shuttle
mission. And it's not like he's going to be a visiting celebrity either.
As Payload Specialist he's a true member of the crew with
responsibilities to perform and experiments to carry out.
I'm sure that there will be some heated discussions about the cost of the
space program and what 'little' knowledge there may be to learn on the
current mission for the next several weeks, and the results might even
end up supporting that point (although I doubt it). But as I said, it's
something we need to do. In this world of corporate mergers and
disposable everything, knowledge, intelligence, and courage are still not
for sale. Knowledge must be earned, intelligence must be cultivated, and
courage must be built from a combination of the other two. I'm sure that
it's been said thousands of times since its original pronouncement, but
I'm going to say it again...
Godspeed, John Glenn.
Now let's take a look as what knowledge we can garner from the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
Tony Cianfaglione asks for help with his Falcon:
"I attempted to copy the contents of an 800k floppy to a 1.44mb floppy on
a Falcon. Since they report a size mismatch by direct copying, I decided
to add a step in the middle by simply the contents of the 800k to a
folder and then transfer it the rest of the way to the high density
floppy by the following steps:
* copy the 800k contents to a folder on the Falcon desktop
* format a 1.44mb PC floppy to 1.46mb Atari Falcon format
* copy the contents of the folder to the newly formatted floppy
After only 300k has transferred the Falcon reports: Destination disk does
not have space to continue copying. Attempting the identical transfer to
an unformatted PC 1.44mb floppy renders the same report.
An info check reveals at least 111,000k remaining on the disk yet the
Falcon refuses to continue copying, saying that there isn't enough room.
Anyone have any ideas as to what's happening here? Is the Falcon senile?"
Nicholas Bales tells Tony:
"[Copy the contents] To the harddrive, do you mean ? Sounds ok. The
formats are exactly the same. You shouldn't need to reformat the disk.
The falcon format is 100% DOS compatible. Sounds like maybe a bad disk.
Have you tried another disk ? When you format it, does it go through ok
without reporting any bad sectors and a full 1.44Mb at the end ? [It]
Could also be a bad drive, or even a bad sector on your hard disk from
which it is copying. 111000 bytes or Kbytes ? That would be over 100Mb,
which is not possible on a 1.44Mb floppy."
Thomas Binder tells Nick:
"Nope, if I recall correctly, the formats aren't exactly the same. TOS
formats HD disks with 2 sectors per cluster, whereas DOS expects them to
have 1 sector per cluster. TOS also handles DOS disks, though, but Falcon
TOS has a stupid bug which causes a crash when creating folders in the
root directory of disks with 1 sector per cluster." 'Louis' posts this,
the first installment of STUPID GEMJING TRICKS: "[I] Just started working
with MyMail 0.70 and of course I tried the options to add sound stuff
thru' Gemjing.
So now on startup MyMail says "meepmeep", at quitting it shouts "I'll be
back" and in case of new mail a fanfare is sounding. (Note this will
probably annoy after sometime, but it's nice to show to all the peecee
suckers...) Now the strange part: the first time I started MyMail with
it, all the samples ran at half speed.
Next I did some testing with Aniplayer, and after that went back to
MyMail and that time it played at normal speed. This morning I sorted
some more WAV's with Aniplayer, next worked with MyMail again and then it
played at double speed... So just to check again, I just started
Aniplayer once more, played a WAV and next started up MyMail and this
time it plays at right speed again... Anyone with a clue here? I don't
think Gemjing is configurable on the playing speed, but there must be
something funny going on.
BTW: this fanfare at new mail keeps on repeating, making it HARD to click
the "details" and next the "get mail" buttons... Erik, any chance of
changing something? The meepmeep only sounds once, so does the "I'll be
back" but the sound for New Mail keeps on looping...?"
Roger Cain tells Louis:
"This sort of thing was happening to me when I was using CAB + GEMJING. I
would load the KUH htm and get a VERY low-pitched MOO. At other times I
got the expected MOO. So I don't think it is anything to do with MyMail
in particular. More to do with Gemjing and, more likely, to do with other
apps. which may be running at the time."
Jason Watson asks about one of my favorite subjects: hardware hacks:
"I have just fished the Atari out off the attic and set it up to see if
it still works. It does, great I thought might as well get some use out
of it. One problem though. It takes up a hell of a lot of desk space,
Atari 520STFM, external HD, Monitor etc. Anyway I have a an old PC AT
desktop case that could easily hold everything with one problem. The
keyboard. So to my question (finnally). How easy is it to hack a PC AT
keyboard onto the Atari keyboard interface. Anyone have details?"
Joshua Kaijankoski tells Jason:
"Why don't you use the ST keyboard? Just build a little case for it and
get some cable etc. I did it and it worked just fine. It's so darn easy
too."
Brian Becroft tells Jason:
"A good option IMO would be to get the PC/MS mouse/AT keyboard interface
made by Mario Becroft, I'm using it now, without a doubt this is a great
little add-on. I'm testing it, but I believe it is near ready to
release."
Ian Sadler asks:
"Is it possible to run inkjet colour printers with the Atari 1040 STe and
if so, does anyone have experience as to which printers will/won't work?
(The info I have with mine only referes to dot & daisywheel printers)."
Lewis Simcox tells Ian:
"Not much help now as this printer has been superceeded, but Epson stylus
color 11 works with the STFM."
Terry May adds:
"The DeskJets work very well with Ataris, and there are many programs out
there that support them directly. Just make sure you don't get one that
requires Windows. Most support Windows, but still work on other machines.
However, some absolutely require Windows."
Stephen Green tells Ian:
"I've used a LEXMARK 1020 with good results on STE, STacy and (best of
all) FALCON. Use HP500c or HP550c print drivers for colour. It makes
Pagestream much more fun. NOTE, don't confuse it with some of the recent
Windows only models Lexmark have graced the market with, these are
totally software driven. You can't even change an ink cart without probs
on these. ARGOS in the UK were selling the 1020 up to a few months ago
for 89pounds inc colour + b/w ink carts."
Martin Wilson asks about connecting up his ST to the internet:
"First the hardware... Atari Falcon 32MHZ 4MEG 4.04 with hard drive etc
Atari 4MEG STe with Toplink interrace and 16mhz accelerator The provider
Uk Online (PPP only)
Previous efforts have been hopeless mainly because half way though I
realised the software didn't have PPP compatibility and then there was
Oasis which fared no better. However I believe Sting does provide PPP
which I have downloaded and I can make use of an old Cab version. But
before I start on the wrong foot again is there any where there is a step
by step guide or email addresses of people who might be able to help.
What is the best software to use? Please note I'm not after a commercial
solution. I'm using a PC at the moment and would stick with that in
preference to coughing up money but would really like to get my Ataris on
the net. I tried installing HSModem before and while I did install it I
was never sure if I had done so completely correctly."
Louis tells Martin:
"First off, make sure you get the latest HSModem bunch (version 7 I
believe), then get DRVIN, MFP and SCC in that order in your Autofolder.
Have no clues as to special Falcon related stuff, but that should be in
he docs anyway.
Then, I would opt for Sting (up to v. 1.15, but beware, it may be
necessary to replace TCP.STX by an older version in case you experience
slow speeds). Sting's OK for PPP too. Should be LAST in the autofolder.
Other options are PPP-Connect (commercial, comes with the CAB 2.5 upwards
packages) or the Draconis stack (which up to now is still free for
evaluation but I couldn't get it running from MagiC. TOS was OK. Don't
know how compatible it is for clients based on STIK/Sting).
As a browser I'd opt for CAB (1.5 latest freeware) but the commercial
2.5, 2.6 and now 2.7 have more options and are faster. Demo's available,
but then no online-browsing. Note that for CAB-on-Sting you need CAB.OVL
from Dan Ackerman, CAB-on-PPPConnect uses CAB.OVL from the package).
Other browsers: Adamas (part of the Draconis stuff) but I had nightmare
experiences with it, Wensuite (commercial but simply a laugh; it's a No-
GO).
For E-mail, FTP, IRC, Telnetting there is a broad variety of clients
available. Nice option is Newsie, which does Newsgroups (on- and
offline), FTP, E-mail and basic webbrowsing (no graphics). Oasis was
abandoned and from what I gathered was messy too. No regrets! Best thing
is to check with UK-online users for a correct Sting setup."
Bill Platt adds:
"Use STing for PPP. Use HSmodem(drvn and scc) you do not have to change
any settings. Put drvin then scc then sting in you auto folder. put
dialer.acc in you root directory put the *.cpx in your cpx directory. The
difficult part is setting up the script file. I had a hard time with the
script until I found out that my ISP dynamically sets the IP address. The
only info I needed in the script was the phone number, name and password.
CAB 1.5 works fine with STing and so does Newsie."
Paul Williamson tells Martin:
"I do not know which provider you are using, but I have found zetnet
really good. They have support for Atari users and you should be able to
get sample scripts to help with setting up StinG. Mail me direct if you
want more details."
Bill Platt now posts:
"I need to access a few web sites which have streaming stock quotes. CAB
cannot handle these, actually CAB doesn't seem to be able to login to
these sites with the password. Kinda like it won't log onto Yahoo's
investment challenge. I also need to access servers which use proprietary
software that's only available for Windoze and Mac and Unix. Is Mint a
Unix variant? also Would my Falcon be slower runing mint/linux/netbsd?"
Ronald Hall tells Bill:
"I can't comment on whether or not Mint will help with your CAB problem,
but as to speed...Mint/Naes/Thing is much faster than any other OS I've
tried on my Falcon. (note that I've not tried Magic). For an example,
even though I'm running quite a few more "layers" and apps just to get at
my Thing desktop, its still faster. Programs like Aniplay-give a higher
fps from the desktop than from Neodesk/Geneva I can run the lines program
that comes with Multitos, and its easily twice as fast as my
Neodesk/Geneva setup, and just as fast as single- TOS. This is under GEM.
If you run a Unix port from a virtual console, then the scrolling/general
speed is remarkable. Also, I can run more apps at the same time with much
less slowdown than Neodesk/Geneva or plain Multitos.
Hope this helps some."
Jo Even Skarstein tells Bill:
"MiNT itself won't help you much, but since your problem most likely is
he CAB.OVL you're using the CAB.OVL for MiNT/MiNTnet might."
Well folks, that's about it for this week. Tune again next time and we'll
talk some more about what's being discussed on the UseNet. Remember:
while the John Glenn is in orbit, keep your eyes on the skys. And always,
always keep your ears open so you don't miss what they're saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
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A photographer from a well known national magazine was assigned to
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Best experienced with
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