Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

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Close Chimera download windows automatically: "...all the download status dialogue windows will automatically close themselves when your download is complete." [Mac OS X Hints]

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IBM Working on Brain-Rivaling Computer: "The first supercomputers to approach and even surpass the processing power of the human brain are to be built by IBM, under a $184M contract announced by the US Government yesterday. ASCI Purple and Blue Gene/L will be the fastest and most powerful machines built, with a combined capacity equal to the 500 best of todays computers." [Slashdot]

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DMCA bad for Apple Users: "TidBITS has published a really strong article on the DMCA and on how this is bad for Apple users, with some good links and suggestions for action. The author, Adam Engst, is regularly voted the most influential person in the Mac world outside of Apple, so this is a serious wake-up call to Apple users everywhere." [Slashdot]

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New software key to IBM desktop future: "Big Blue has charted a course to revive its position in the PC market by developing software designed to substantially reduce the costs of managing desktops." [CNET News.com]

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I will be comparing the 1 GHz PowerBook G4 system to an IBM ThinkPad T30. The tested model costs almost exactly the same as the tested PowerBook G4, I was told.

I have been using the PowerBook also while holding the machine on my knees while charging the battery. The bottom of the machine gets a bit warm, but not unbearably so. Typing while sitting in an armchair is a relaxing experience. The noise from the fan is audible, but not disturbing or even noticeable after a few moments.

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Well, now you see why this weblog is titled 'Universal Rule'. Holy Cellular Automaton!: "Kevin Kelly has a great piece in the new issue of Wired called 'God Is the Machine.' The idea is that our universe is both a computer and the output of that computation, and that the simulation is the reality." [Boing Boing Blog]

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iRights writes about Spam Filtering's Last Stand, Part Two: "Two people have now expressed the opinion that I am underestimating the advantage of personalization, and the power of statistics. It's worth replying to, I suppose, since that's two out of three. You can see why I left this out of an already-long weblog post before. [...] First, I have built Bayesian filters before, so I'm not completely ignorant about how they work. I'm not an expert, but then, right now I don't know that anyone is, since there's a lot of application-specific tuning that must be done. Still, I rest my argument on general principles, not specifics."

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I Made The Switch: "Apple's new line of laptops, plus one-step migration software, made a convert out of me." (Business 2.0 via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

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Werblog writes: "Bye bye email. I have an article up on Slate about how spam will kill email as we know it. This morning, it got Slashdotted. And N.Z. Bear has posted some interesting comments."

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What's Wrong With RDF? "I think the major problem is that XML schemas, RDF, and various other meta-data initiatives require the kind of epistemological and ontological thinking most people are not adept for. Who is adept at such thinking? Philosophers, linguists, and - of course - programming language fanatics. This is the essential difficulty. After that comes the syntax, lack of readable documentation and all the rest." [Lambda the Ultimate]

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John Robb's Radio Weblog writes: "Free spam conference at the MIT Media lab. Perhaps there should be a discussion of the Plaxo solution to spam."

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John Robb's Radio Weblog writes: "iSee iSay has some interesting info on the new Firewire spec."

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Apple's 17-Inch iMac: "This difference in the monitor is an important commentary on how Macs are different from PCs and why many Mac users are so fanatically faithful to Apple: Attention to detail." (BetaNews via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

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Supercomputer to Use Optical Fibers: "Highlighting a radical departure in the design of the fastest computers, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology plans to announce on Monday that it will use an optical router..." [Google Technology News]

1 GHz PowerBook G4 review updated -- Comment()
I updated the review of the new PowerBook G4. I described my experiences with AirPort/WLAN connections, and attaching video projectors to the PowerBook. I also added info about installing Unix software on the system.

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Fujifilm announce updated S602 Pro Zoom. : "Fujifilm has today announced the updated FinePix S602 Pro Zoom. The "Pro" notation adds a PC Sync flash socket, Manual (threaded) cable release socket, All-black finish, 4 NiMH AA batteries..." [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

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While testing the new PowerBook G4 I had at first trouble with keeping up the AirPort/WLAN connection while playing a RealOne video at 800 kb/s. I tried the same experiment again yesterday afternoon, and walked round the office floor here. The video worked perfectly keeping up the stream at 800 kb/s for the whole time.

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Nokia predicts 1.5bn mobile users by 2005: "In an interview with the Financial Times, Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive of Finland's Nokia, said that by 2005 there could be as many as 1.5 billion mobile phone users worldwide, 500,000 million more than currently exist. He said that this enormous growth would come from the US, and also from emerging economies such as China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe." [The Register]

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SVG 1.2 Working Draft published (W3C): "The SVG Working Group has released the first public Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2. Potential areas of new work identified in SVG 1.2 include integration with other XML formats, and text wrapping, printing, streaming, painting, rendering model, and DOM enhancements." [IBM DeveloperWorks: XML News]

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Apple Powerbook G4: "Why the Mac is Popular with Photographers, A Hectic One-month Whirlwind Review of the Apple PowerBook G4." (Rangefinder via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

The semantic web: what for? -- Comment()
XML and the Semantic Web from 10,000 Feet by Eric Hanson: "A nice quick overview of what the semantic web might mean, probably much more readable than any academic paper I've seen on the topic." (Xtof via Gilles) [Seb's Open Research]

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Apple details security updates in OS X 10.2.2: " Apple has posted details of the security issues resolved in Mac OS X 10.2.2, including two different local user privilege elevations, a NFS vulnerability, an IP Firewall problem, remote access to CUPS printing Web administration, a NetInfo vulnerability, a TCP issue in RPC, and others." [The Macintosh News Network]

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Future of the Notebook: "Strange and wondrous hybrids will hit the market, too, but most will quickly disappear or find niche applications. But whatever type of portable PC they prefer, users will be the winners because they'll see more choices, more capabilities and lower prices." [Tomalak's Realm]

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I decided to install the X Window System on the 1 GHz PowerBook G4. Previously I have used Fink for installing Unix software on Mac OS X, but because this is a test system, I decided to use the XonX version, and the OroborOSX window manager. Then I added SSH Keychain for making it easier to maintain several ssh connections.