Mac Expert 1995 Winter/Mac Expert - Winter 95.iso/Les fichiers/Tidbits/Tidbits 201 à 280/TidBITS#220⁄04-Apr-94

Text File | 1994-04-05 | 29.1 KB | 599 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

TidBITS#220/04-Apr-94
=====================

This week's late breaking news comes in the form of yet another
   ugly virus (INIT-29-B). We also share comments about hard drive
   reliability, muse further on the state of mergers in the
   Macintosh world, and take a look at the perceived lack of women
   programmers in programming-based discussions online.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- [e-mail]
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: [e-mail] <------ new

Copyright 1990-1994 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Automated info: <[e-mail]> Comments: <[e-mail]>
   --------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/04-Apr-94
    Hard Drive Reliability
    Yet Another New Virus
    Comments On Acquisitions
    Microsoft And Apple?
    Female Macintosh Programmers? Not Online
    Reviews/04-Apr-94

[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-220.etx; 30K]


MailBITS/04-Apr-94
------------------
  I'm extremely pleased to announce that Tonya has resigned from her
  position at Microsoft to devote more time to TidBITS and other
  projects, including books and Internet adventures. Perhaps the
  most obvious indication of her change in hats will be that from
  now on we will share some of the email that has swamped me
  recently (I receive upwards of 3,000 messages a month). And, of
  course, we're looking forward to the freedom to spend a little
  more time away from the Macs and the nets. So, if you send a note
  to me and Tonya replies, that's why. If you wish to send her mail
  directly, her address is <[e-mail]>. Oh, and for the
  cynics in the crowd, this is not an April Fools Day joke, although
  Tonya's first day away from Microsoft was April 1st. We especially
  liked the chronological importance of the combination of April
  Fools Day, Good Friday, and the weekend including both Easter and
  the Daylight Savings Time "spring forward" day (which Tonya has
  always hated with a passion, since she'd rather lose an hour in
  the middle of Monday afternoon than an hour in the middle of the
  weekend).


**IBM and Motorola** have announced a 100 MHz version of the
  PowerPC 601 chip that is the current mainstay of the Power
  Macintosh line. The added speed over the existing 80 MHz chip will
  no doubt be welcome if Apple decides to use it, perhaps late this
  year, but we can't help but think that the announcement is merely
  the latest salvo in the "Mine is bigger than yours" marketing war
  between Motorola and Intel.


**Rick Holzgrafe** <[e-mail]> notes that we
  implied last issue that the Drag Manager's functionality (dragging
  text to the desktop to create a "scrap" file, for instance) will
  appear "automagically" in existing applications. It does not;
  applications must be re-written to take advantage of the Drag
  Manager. We also are flagellating ourselves for talking about the
  Drag Manager in the future tense, since it exists already and is
  supported by utilities such as Dayna's ProFiles. I can't wait for
  its functionality to appear in Internet applications including
  Fetch, Anarchie, TurboGopher, and Mosaic.


**Paul Westbrook** <[e-mail]> and others tell us
  that Applied Engineering has gone out of business. It appears that
  a slow market for accelerators was the death knell for the
  fifteen-year-old company.


**PC Pursuit** long distance services from Sprint were
  discontinued as of 01-Apr-94 (no April fooling). The services
  provided fixed rate charges on long-distance calls, offering a
  useful way to regularly dial long distance to online sources.
  According to the message from Sprint, fewer customers were using
  the service, and Sprint wants to focus on providing local dial-in
  access to online sources. I wonder if other carriers will step in
  and offer a similar service. Although large online sources often
  have local access numbers and an increasing number of Internet
  providers are popping up all over, people who don't live near a
  major town with access numbers or Internet providers will be
  around for a long time. Thanks to Jeff Fischer
  <[e-mail]> for forwarding the information.


Hard Drive Reliability
----------------------
  A number of people disagreed with my statement about all hard
  drives being approximately equal in reliability. I based that
  statement on my experience and on the fact that when I looked at
  the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) ratings for modern drives,
  all stood between 150,000 hours and 500,000 hours - 17 to 57 years
  of non-stop service between failures. People who had problems with
  drives in the past have a point, since MTBFs used to be around
  10,000 hours, or just over a year of non-stop service. If the
  drive is a file server, 10,000 hours is not enough, but if you
  power on the machine for just a few hours each week, 10,000 hours
  should last quite some time. I'd like to know exactly how a
  manufacturer determines MTBF ratings - I know of no empirical test
  that condenses 57 years of non-stop service into a few months.
  That's not even taking into account additional wear from being
  turned on and off repeatedly and other environmental stresses.

  A low MTBF could be balanced by a generous warranty period.
  Standard warranties range from ninety days to five years, and
  frankly, I'd recommend that you go for a longer one, at least two
  years. Five years is great, but if the drive dies in the fourth or
  fifth year, you may end up discarding it anyhow to buy a new one
  that's far larger or faster. Five years ago I used a home-
  assembled 30 MB Seagate 238R (5.25") hard drive in a case that
  sounded like an airplane and had room and power for four half-
  height drives. Now I use a 1.2 GB Quantum (3.5") that's far faster
  and more spacious. If I still had that 30 MB drive, I doubt I'd
  use it seriously even if its warranty was still good.

  As an additional warning, David Stodolsky <[e-mail]>
  writes:
  The exact same drive model obtained from different sources may be
  of substantially different reliability. When Quantum sells drives
  to Apple, Quantum knows that the drives must pass rigid
  requirements and will be tested by Apple and sent back if they
  fail (perhaps with hefty penalties and cancellation of the
  delivery contract). The same drive from La Cie, wholly owned by
  Quantum, may be one that did not meet Apple's standard! (I got
  four bad drives in row from La Cie.) Even worse, Quantum has
  released new models under the same model number. In some cases,
  manufacturers have been known to swap parts among drives not up to
  spec to get a drive that then passes (barely). Ehman was found to
  be shipping used drives as new. This is outright fraud, but it can
  happen, as I found out with one of my drives.

  Apple tests different drive models before approving models for its
  machines. Some aren't approved, and if you buy one of these drives
  you may have trouble, especially if you run A/UX or some high-end
  multi-media applications. Know your drive supplier and the specs
  on the mechanism if you want to avoid trouble. For the average
  user, a reliable supplier with good service in case a drive must
  be returned is of paramount importance.


Yet Another New Virus
---------------------
  A variant of the INIT-29 virus was recently discovered, according
  to an announcement from Professor Gene Spafford at Purdue. The new
  virus strain, dubbed INIT-29-B, behaves similarly to the original
  INIT-29, which appeared in late 1988. It alters applications,
  system files, and documents, and may cause unexpected program
  failures or system crashes on any Macintosh, under all versions of
  the System. Both strains spread quickly and widely if not checked.
  John Norstad's announcement for Disinfectant 3.5 adds that there
  are only minor differences between this new B strain and the
  original strain, now referred to as INIT-29-A.

  INIT-29 viruses alter and infect almost every type of file,
  including documents, though infected document files don't spread
  the virus. Infected applications and system files can and will
  spread the virus; a file need not be opened in order to be
  infected.

  One likely sign of an INIT-29 infection (either strain) is that if
  you insert a locked floppy disk into the drive, your Mac reports
  that "The disk 'xxxxx' needs minor repairs" and offers to repair
  it.

  The latest existing versions of Gatekeeper (1.3), Rival, and
  VirusDetective (5.0.11) are already effective against this new
  strain. (In Rival's case, you need to have the INIT-29 vaccine
  installed.)

  John Norstad has released Disinfectant 3.5, an update to his free
  utility that provides scanning, repair, and protection
  capabilities. It's available on most online services and via
  anonymous FTP at:

ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/disinfectant/disinfectant35.sea.hqx

  Updates for Central Point Anti-Virus and SAM (Symantec Anti-Virus
  for Macintosh) may be obtained from their respective publishers on
  popular online services and via anonymous FTP at:

ftp://rascal.ics.utexas.edu/mac/virus/

  (This archive typically offers updates for most of the commercial
  utilities, as well as the latest versions of the free utilities.)

  Datawatch has released Virex 5.03, which will be sent
  automatically to all Virex Protection Service subscribers, and
  will be available to other registered owners. Datawatch has also
  provided the following code that users can add to their software
  to allow it to detect INIT-29-B:

UDV Code for INIT29-B
Guide Number = 15753664
1: 0302 3000 1276 0000 / 57
2: A9F0 303C A997 A146 / 9D
3: 2028 FFFC 8180 9090 / 4C

  Spaf's announcement also mentioned that version 1.3.1 of
  Gatekeeper, designed to handle the INIT-9403 virus announced last
  month, is still unfinished. Using the latest version of the
  Disinfectant protection INIT along with Gatekeeper 1.3 should
  provide satisfactory protection.

  Information from:
    Gene Spafford -- [e-mail]
    John Norstad -- [e-mail]


Comments On Acquisitions
------------------------
  Our articles on the recent corporate acquisitions and mergers
  generated numerous comments and a great deal of discussion.

<[e-mail]> writes:
  I'm sure you will receive various messages commenting on your
  comments on monopoly in the computer arena and wishing for a model
  more like that of the entertainment (movie) business. Sorry to
  bust your balloon, but the movie industry is as consolidated and
  monopolistic as is the computer industry. The Reagan
  administration ignored the anti-trust laws and today studios own
  production, distribution, and increasing amounts of exhibition
  space. The independent cannot be truly independent as they must
  rely on the largest companies to get films out to the marketplace.
  Everything is in a mode of merger and consolidation with all the
  attendant difficulties, such as small, valuable projects falling
  between the cracks.


**Alastair Sweeny** <[e-mail]> writes:
  I like your analogies for software productions, but I think what
  is really happening is that software will become more and more
  commoditized.

  We now see shareware that is the equal of the $500 programs a few
  years ago. For example, for photo work, I use the excellent
  Graphic Converter conversion program by Thorsten Lemke from
  Germany plus NCSA Image, both of which have all the features of an
  early Photoshop and more. [And for your FTPing pleasure... -Adam]

ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/grf/util/graphic-converter-178.hqx
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mac/Image/

  My point is merely that there will soon be free and shareware
  produced by generous hackers that provide the average user all the
  features they ever need.

  Where will this commoditization of software leave Microsoft and
  Novell? Content. That is why they are moving into providing
  information [note Microsoft's multimedia titles like Encarta,
  Bookshelf, and Cinemania -Adam] and building global satellite
  networks that would seem to be out of their focus.


**Dan Neuman** <[e-mail]> notes:
  I wanted to make a slight correction to your note about Teledesic
  in TidBITS #219_. According to a Reuters and New York Times
  report, Microsoft has specifically stated that they are not
  officially involved in this project. Bill Gates owns 30 percent of
  Teledesic, Craig McCaw owns 30 percent, and McCaw Cellular owns 28
  percent. Although the project is estimated at $9 billion, most of
  the funding will come from outside sources, not the owners.


**Nicholas Sturm** <[e-mail]> writes:
  What worries me the most about the mergers of the biggies (and the
  swallowing of all the independents) is what I saw happen to the
  textbook publishing industry over the last decade or so. Companies
  that knew little of book publishing bought the decreasing number
  of publishing companies and soon we had a mass of almost-correct
  books. What was an error here and there? After all it was less
  that one percent incorrect. By modern business standards that was
  sensationally accurate - much better than the U.S.P.S.'s, "We get
  over 95 percent of the mail there in two days." But what happens
  to that remaining five percent?

  Where I once selected a book by looking for quality; I now select
  by reviewing the parts I feel I know best. Then I assume the
  errors in the parts where I need the author's help will be no
  worse than that where I can count the errors. Unfortunately - for
  my students - I can give them the "correction list" only for the
  parts where I'm confident of the best correction. They are left
  memorizing (and perhaps I'm left propagating) the mistakes in the
  other parts.


**Pythaeus** writes about Borland:
  The rumor that I'm hearing is that Novell wants to buy Borland,
  but Borland's bookkeeping is so bad that Novell can't figure out
  what the company is worth. Supposedly Borland has been working
  with an accounting firm for close to a year to straighten out
  their books. My guess is that Novell, in its attempts to become
  Microsoft, will buy Borland as soon as feasible. These rumors come
  from a recent Novell conference.


**David Lawrence** <[e-mail]> passed on the following
  comments (originally from his Online Tonight radio show) regarding
  the Aldus and Adobe merger. In relation to my comment about how
  many graphic designers I know use both FreeHand and Illustrator,
  David wrote:

  You couldn't be more on target. At a press conference following a
  CEO round-table at the Federal Office Systems Exposition here in
  Washington last week, I asked Dr. Warnock that very question: who
  wins here, Illustrator or Freehand? His response echoed your
  supposition; he said that the new company recognized that most
  serious illustrators use both products for different things, and
  that he foresaw no change in the lineup of either half of the new
  1,200 pound gorilla.

  I also asked him if there would be any attempt to bring in and
  further develop third-party translation software (such as Altsys's
  X-Change) and he responded with definite plans of either
  purchasing those product lines and relabeling them under the new
  company's banner or developing a new product in house.

  As an aside, Michael Dell was also on the panel and spent most of
  his time pooh-poohing the importance of the PowerPC chip as used
  in the Power Macs. "With 93 percent of the market Intel based, why
  would we worry about what's happening with the other 7 percent?
  It's good for Apple as it extends the life of their line, which
  they sorely needed, but it's not a market for us."

  Much of the press conference was spent on the issues you brought
  up regarding mergers. Someone asked if the panel saw mergers as a
  continuing trend; most responded with the shake-out potential as
  being high. In fact, much was made of the fact that Ad Reitveld,
  CEO of WordPerfect, was not on the panel as billed. His press
  people noted "issues revolving around the Novell deal" as keeping
  him away.


Microsoft And Apple?
--------------------
  Those of you who read about the Apple/IBM alliance in detail no
  doubt remember that then-CEO John Sculley proposed that IBM buy
  Apple outright at one point. I'm sure such a move would have gone
  over badly in Cupertino, but the rumors I heard toward the end of
  last week put the IBM purchase to shame. Aldus merging with Adobe
  has nothing on this deal, and Novell's purchase of WordPerfect and
  Quattro Pro pales in comparison.

  It's quite simple. Can you say "Microsoft?" What better way for
  Mr. Bill to prove that Microsoft is 100 percent behind the
  Macintosh?

  Yes, that's right. Microsoft is seriously considering purchasing
  Apple, and although Apple is doing well enough financially, of all
  the companies in the industry, Microsoft alone has the resources
  to carry off the takeover. With cash reserves of several billion
  dollars and a strong stock position, Microsoft may have come up
  with an attractive enough offer to sway Apple's Board of
  Directors.

  Let me explain why such a deal makes a good deal of sense for
  Microsoft. As we all know, Microsoft is interested only in the
  bottom line, and what better way to ensure profits than to control
  not only the most popular applications that run on a platform, but
  also the hardware itself? Windows has made a great deal of money
  for Microsoft because Microsoft controls the game, so to speak.
  But Microsoft has seldom ventured into the cutthroat PC hardware
  market, and never at the CPU level. By acquiring Apple, Microsoft
  suddenly controls not only an operating environment, but a
  hardware platform that commands 15 percent of the market and that
  has the recently released Power Macs as a seductive new technology
  for businesses.

  Other benefits abound. Microsoft would pick up Claris in the
  process, which means that Microsoft Works can fade into the fossil
  record in favor of the snazzier ClarisWorks. Claris also has a
  number of programs like Claris Impact and the cross-platform
  FileMaker Pro that have no competition in the existing Microsoft
  lineup. As Lotus and Novell enter the software suite game,
  Microsoft stands poised to change the rules by creating multi-
  level, cross-platform software suites, all connected via OLE 2.0
  for true mix-and match compatibility. Should the deal go through,
  I'm sure the FTC will have a long look to ensure that Microsoft
  doesn't take advantage of its position as the maker of both
  Windows and the Macintosh environments.

  And remember, with Microsoft's emphasis on cross-platform tools,
  how much farther down the road can a core-code version of Chicago
  (the successor to Windows 3.1) be? With all of that research put
  into core-code development for Word and Excel, why not use that
  cross-platform technology at the operating system level? Such an
  operating system could leave behind the worst of the Windows
  limitations held over from a senile DOS, and improve in many of
  the areas where the Macintosh has always led, without fear of a
  lawsuit. And everyone wondered why Microsoft was happy to license
  the Windows source code to Insignia for SoftWindows - there won't
  be any competition from SoftWindows on the Macintosh once Chicago
  for Macintosh appears with the capability to run all Windows
  programs at native speeds on the Power Macs.

  What's in this for Apple? Well, money, of course, but there's
  something more - power, and the insanity that set Steve Jobs apart
  from the rest of the computer industry, an insanity that lives on
  at Apple. As hard as they try, and as cool as the Power Macs are,
  Apple's executives have realized that they will never gain more
  than perhaps a 20 percent share of the personal computer market.
  That hurts, and although some Macintosh fanatics will liken the
  sale of the company to selling one's soul to Lucifer, Apple sees
  it as its best chance to change the world, to mold the world as
  only Apple could do. An Apple/Microsoft juggernaut, combining
  Apple's creativity and desire to make a difference with
  Microsoft's marketing might and attention to the smallest of
  percentages would result in a company that could easily dominate
  the entire computer industry. I suspect that appeals to Michael
  Spindler.

  Finally, perhaps the best part about this entire deal, should it
  ever go through and slide by the anti-trust laws, is that it's
  complete and utter balderdash. Allow me to wish you all a belated
  April Fools Day.


Female Macintosh Programmers? Not Online
----------------------------------------
  by Susan G. Lesch -- [e-mail]

  This article takes a look at the apparent paucity of female
  programmers participating in technical computing areas online. We
  know that women do program on the Macintosh, and some suggest that
  despite traditional role models and some arguable odds against the
  possibility for success, women always have numbered among the most
  brilliant computer analysts, designers, engineers, and authors.
  Even so, women rarely appear on the nets in technical computing
  areas. Such a statement is not only difficult to suggest without
  sounding sexist, but also nigh impossible to document. Still,
  let's see what we can find out.


**Commercial Online Services** -- For discussion's sake, take the
  current figures of 1.5 million CompuServe members and 700,000
  America Online members. Programming support for developers centers
  around the Macintosh Developers Forums, the area of our interest.
  Personally speaking, I spent three years primarily answering
  questions in CompuServe's Macintosh Systems and Developers Forums.
  As my skills grew, I still looked with awe at my colleagues who
  could correct code and doctor arcane resources. For over four
  years, between 1989 and 1993, I logged the message boards, looking
  for female peers, and found they did not exist. Message summaries
  came back with evidence of 99 to 100 percent male first names. How
  wonderful it would have been to have found role models back then!

  David Ramsey, a programming sysop in CompuServe's Macintosh forums
  says, "Yeah, it's true: programming is still male-dominated... I
  don't think it's an issue of whether or not women are accepted in
  the field - all the ones I've talked to said they never felt
  intimidated or condescended to by their male colleagues - it's
  just a reflection of current gender roles in society, where men
  are expected to be more outgoing than women."

  Some may argue that an electronic address allowing only eight or
  ten characters to identify a person is not gender-specific.
  Perhaps it would help to point out that the Mac forums of
  CompuServe require real names and have the luxury of long name
  fields, which influenced my conclusion. Although
  "[e-mail]" could be either a male or a female, "Chris,"
  "Kelley," and "Bob and Pat" all turned out to be males in
  CompuServe's Mac Developers Forum when I checked. I must admit,
  though, that the means to make a truly empirical argument elude
  me.

  Brian Novack, Forum Assistant on America Online's Macintosh
  Developers Forum, was kind enough to explain the difficulties
  surrounding determination of gender. "There is no way to
  accurately gauge such a value. America Online does not ask members
  to provide proof of gender when issuing a new account and/or
  screen name. Therefore, unless you conducted a survey of every
  America Online member who enters the Macintosh Developers Forum by
  personally contacting them, there isn't any way to find the value
  you seek in terms of gender. Sorry, it just isn't valid." Maybe,
  maybe not.


**Usenet Informal Survey** -- To get the big picture, I recently
  did an informal survey on Usenet, asking people the question, "In
  your own experience, how many females [sic] regularly answer
  programming and technical questions in this newsgroup?" I posted
  this question to comp.programmer and comp.sys.mac.programmer. I
  proposed a 1,000:1 male to female ratio as a starting point. This
  was quickly corrected by an observer who suggested that figures be
  limited to people of both sexes who regularly participate - by his
  count, perhaps fifty.

  Responses came from people at Apple's Developer Technical Support,
  Apple's Newton Team, Taligent, Claris, an ex-Microsoft employee,
  and companies and universities in the United States, United
  Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and
  Australia. One European discredited the survey outright, and
  another thinks 1,000:1 is close to correct. One pessimist
  suggested a ratio of 10,000:1. American male respondents said 40
  to 50:1 might be accurate. One American, of the four women who
  replied, seemed to think there were more women than the men did.
  Avi Rappoport and Jutta Degener were both mentioned, but most
  respondents could not or did not name a female programmer online.
  I think now, as was suggested by one respondent after poring over
  a day's posts to comp.sys.mac.programmer, that 150:1 might be
  close to accurate.

  To arrive at a ratio of _any_ number to one, we need at least one!
  And that one is rare indeed. Male after male respondent wrote
  saying Amanda Walker of InterCon is the only female participant in
  comp.sys.mac.programmer. Although this may be a minor
  exaggeration, for 1,000, or 100, or 50 answers by men, Amanda
  Walker is holding up the other end of the fraction. She was
  generous with her comments about the male to female ratio in
  comp.sys.mac.programmer, saying her postings are "almost
  overwhelmingly answers, not questions." Fortune Magazine (07-Mar-
  94) interviewed Ms. Walker in a feature about the Internet. I
  would like to thank her for this clear and simple answer to my
  question above, "Well, there's me."

  "My guess would be that it's somewhere in the several hundred to
  one range, but I'm not sure where. Because of the social dynamics
  on the net, women are not often accepted in technical newsgroups
  unless they truly are at the top of their field. Even I myself,
  with my mind full of random trivia, exercise care to only post an
  answer when I'm dead sure it's right. Even so I'm occasionally
  wrong, but it serves to keep my baseline reputation pretty high."

  Walker continues, "An interesting comparison would be to take a
  look at, for example, the proportion of women at the Apple
  Worldwide Developer Conference. My experience is that there are
  actually quite a lot of women involved in Macintosh programming,
  but they tend to maintain a low profile, especially on the net."


**Conclusions**
  Peter Lewis, author of Anarchie and other shareware for the
  Macintosh, said in response to my Usenet survey, "It's a sad state
  of affairs, maybe it'll change one day." With the advent of
  Women's WIRE, the Women's Information Resource and Exchange
  (TidBITS #212_), I think it time to point out a little joke we
  have picked up in all the talk about "building" an information
  superhighway. In large measure, these highways already exist. Both
  casual and habitual users know the ropes, and they are quickly
  passing along instructions to new members of online services
  during the fastest period of their growth in history.

  Why do we find such a lopsided situation? Answers tip-toe around
  sexism, with some suggesting that women avoid areas that allow
  flaming. It was also suggested that women do not like the
  intangible qualities of electronic text. But we know that neither
  theory holds, as there are thousands of women online in areas
  other than Macintosh programming. I was also surprised to find the
  notion that the under-representation of women in technical
  computing online arenas is thought somehow to be men's fault. I
  should hope there is no need for either sex to coddle women
  programmers into participating in online exchange on equal terms
  with men.


Reviews/04-Apr-94
-----------------

* MacWEEK -- 28-Mar-94, Vol. 8, #13
    Farallon Replica 1.0 -- pg. 39
    Helios netOctopus 1.2 -- pg. 39
    usrEZ cypherPad 1.2.1 -- pg. 43

* InfoWorld -- 28-Mar-94, Vol. 16, #13
    NetDistributor Pro -- pg. 96


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