Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Thursday, November 6, 2003

-- Comment()
Supercomputer in a box: "Virginia Tech is planning to release its novel supercomputer technology in a 'supercomputer kit' sometime early next year. The homemade installation -- built around off-the-shelf components -- has just taken its place among the top-performing supercomputers in the world. [...] The Virginia Tech installation was assembled in 10 days by 165 members of the college's student body and faculty. When it is placed in active service, the installation will be used for research on chemistry, aerodynamics, nanoscale electronics and other academic fields of study." [via MacSurfer]

-- Comment()
Why viruses plague Windows: "Because Linux and OS X offer superior security, and because Microsoft's security efforts have not produced better defaults, Windows will continue to be a prime virus target." [via MacSurfer]

-- Comment()
Here is a nice report on the G5 supercluster at Virginia Tech.

Writing about moral, ethics, Linux, and Windows -- Comment()
Today in the print version of the MikroPC magazine appeared my new column titled "Friends of Linux and the Microsoft antipathy" (in Finnish, "Linuxin ystävät ja Microsoft-vastaisuus"). I gave viewpoints from IT history, and tried to write clearly about the moral and ethical positions which come into play in this controversy. I still think that this column is one of the best texts I have ever written. But who knows, perhaps nobody can understand what I tried to say.

-- Comment()
Apple releases Backup 2.0 utility for .Mac: "Apple posted a final version of Backup 2.0, its backup utility for .Mac users. Version 2 lets you select any folder on a hard drive as a backup destination, including FireWire hard drives, network servers, iPods, and other mounted volumes. It also offers support for support for third-party CD and DVD Drives and lets you schedule backups to iDisk and hard drives--with support for incremental backups (i.e., copying changed files only). It requires Mac OS X 10.2.6 or later and requires a full .Mac account." [The Macintosh News Network]

-- Comment()
Jobs: Apple could port to Intel, but won't: 'Apple says the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system could easily run on Intel chips, but CEO Steve Jobs said today that the company has little interest in changing processors. "It's perfectly technically feasible to port Panther to any processor," Jobs said at a meeting with financial analysts. "Right now we don't see a compelling need to switch processor families," Jobs said. "We have all the options in the world, but the PowerPC road map looks very strong."' [The Macintosh News Network]

Getting Cisco VPN 4.0.2C to work on Panther -- Comment()
It seems that you have to make a complete re-installation of the Cisco VPN client on Panther to make it work.

After the installation, I did not restart the machine. Instead, I executed in Terminal the startup script:

sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN start

Before starting the client you have to copy your .pcf configuration file to /etc/CiscoSystemsVPNClient/Profiles/. After this the client seems to work properly. And the first connection starts up much faster than on Jaguar.

-- Comment()
How to secure your e-mail: "A little known feature in Panther's Mail.app is its ability to support certificates for signing and encrypting email. For a long time I've been a big supporter of encryption in email, but so far there's been no really good solution for it. Previous certificate based solutions sucked." [via MacSurfer]

I tried the instructions and they seem to work. Excellent!

How fast is Panther compared to Jaguar? -- Comment()
Geek Patrol writes: "A new version of Mac OS X usually means a more responsive version of Mac OS X. Since there's been a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests Panther is faster than Jaguar, we though we'd put it to the test. UsingXbench on four systems spanning a time frame of about two years, we see just how much of a performance increase Panther provide."