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Monday, July 8, 2002 |
EFF looks for ISPs that encourage Wi-Fi sharing
80211b News notes that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is looking for ISPs that encourage sharing connections: Lodrina Cherne, an intern at EFF, wrote on behalf of an effort by EFF "to compile a list of ISPs whose service agreements would support sharing of bandwidth via a WAP....
"Hopefully, once compiled, a list of these ISPs will help users to make informed choices about who they buy internet access from and show that there are a lot of good (and local!) providers out there." Email her if you know of such resources or are, in fact, an ISP that encourages this! [80211b News]
7:15:02 PM 
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Top 10 iPhoto tips
O'Reilly Networks' Derrick Story, one of the authors of a new book about iPhoto, offers his Top Ten iPhoto Tips.
Yes, at first glance, iPhoto appears deceptively simple. But there's a Unix-compatible database lurking beneath that beautiful Aqua surface. This article gives you five "data in" and five "data out" tips that will help you get the most from this very cool iApp.
His tips seem to be right on the money, with the exception of the tip to always use your fill flash. Many people, including me, feel that the flashes on most digital cameras should only be used as a last resort, since the difficulties introduced by using a poor flash - red eye among others - are greater than the advantages of using the flash. There are times though that the flash cannot be avoided.
Derrick's article should be required reading if you use iPhoto though. I am still avoiding iPhoto because I don't want to deal with the awkward photo library management required to keep iPhoto 1.1.1 running decently on my G3-based PowerBook.
6:42:54 PM
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More on companies black-listing writers
Amy Wohl: "We've had at least one vendor this year (not Apple) who failed to invite us to an important briefing 'because we wrote negative things about them.'" [Scripting News]
6:27:54 PM
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Olympus previews C-4000
MacCentral notes the preview of the Olympus C-4000 Zoom digital camera, a sub-$500 4 megapixel camera that is supposed to be available starting next month. The camera has a 3x optical zoom lens and it uses SmartMedia cards for storage.
Dig through the user comments at the end of the story to see how MacCentral's readers react to the specs of the new camera. By and large, I cannot take any digital camera that uses SmartMedia seriously. I need something with CompactFlash, or better yet with support for the IBM Microdrives...something with higher capacity to hold uncompressed images.
5:32:43 PM
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I guess this makes me a thief too...
Newhouse: "To the cable TV company that provides his high-speed Internet connection, Tait became a thief when he installed a home wireless network in his Manhattan apartment." [Scripting News]
The most ridiculous notion in this article is that you could be breaking the law set by some ISPs simply by using your wireless connection outside your home or apartment. Thankfully, I don't have cable modem service through AT&T or any of the other big players in the ISP business. But even so, I cannot see the problem with, for instance, sharing my connection with folks living in the houses around me in my neighborhood. Sure, if they were running Internet services it would cause a major drag on the bandwidth on this node of the cable network, but that is not the real point of allowing free wireless access to those who happen by my network. All I and most people want to do is offer an easy way to pop online and check email or something like that.
Just like in the music business, the big companies in the ISP business are being short sighted in their crackdown on free wireless access, and until they get serious about fighting the movement, the whole issue is nothing but hot air...
4:36:16 PM
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Unpacking an Xserve
Chris Barrus is documenting his experiences with a new Apple Xserve that he unpacked and started using Friday. Check out his photos of unpacking the machine and his initial impressions on this page, or check out more in-depth info on his Weblog.
8:30:13 AM
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FileMaker Pro 6 dubbed a 'significant upgrade'
MacCentral notes that FileMaker Pro 6 has been announced by FileMaker, Inc. There are some interesting new features in this upgrade, including the ability to easily import a large number of images into FileMaker and the added capability of importing images directly into FileMaker from a digital camera. FileMaker Pro 6 will also have XML support, with the ability to import and export data in XML.
The new XML capabilities are backed up with FileMaker XML Central, a resource profiled here by MacCentral that offers templates for XML documents...
8:18:12 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
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