EvangeList Digest Wednesday, July 22 1998 Volume 01 : Number 1238
In this issue:
Tidbit - LAMG debuts USB4Mac Site for iMac Peripherals PR - WebChecker 1.2.0 is Available Tidbit - Big Mac On Campus Tidbit - the Signature Spot Is Updated PR - Perial Releases MacLiving $$ - New Audio Measurement and Video Motion Software Released Followup - RC5 Contest Update (Long) Job - LAN Support Specialist (University Of San Diego) $$ - Computer Admin 1.4 $$ - New Ambrosia CD 20% Off
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Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 16:50:26 -0700 From: Guy Kawasaki <Kawasaki@garage.com> Subject: Tidbit - LAMG debuts USB4Mac Site for iMac Peripherals
This tidbit is from:
Tom Geller, <tom@svpr.com>
The Los Angeles Macintosh Group (LAMG) announced today the premiere of USB4Mac.com, a Web site dedicated to helping Macintosh users take advantage of Universal Serial Bus (USB) products. USB is the cross-platform connectivity standard that Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will first adopt with its upcoming iMac, a consumer-focused computer due on August 15.
The iMac made its Southern California debut at an LAMG meeting in June, where it met with an enthusiastic response. As the world prepares for the release of the iMac, the LAMG site <http://www.USB4Mac.com> will become a valuable source for information on iMac peripherals such as floppy drives, scanners, keyboards and printers. The group is working together with manufacturers of these devices to provide current drivers and links to company sites.
For more info contact LAMG at (310) 319-1821, <http://www.USB4Mac.com> or <http://www.lamg.org>.
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Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 16:18:14 -0700 From: Guy Kawasaki <Kawasaki@garage.com> Subject: PR - WebChecker 1.2.0 is Available
Keyword: Market by market, Internet
This announcement is from:
Jeremy Kezer, <jbkezer@kagi.com>
Do you have web pages you check frequently? WebChecker will help you!
WebChecker is a utility program designed to help you manage web pages you check frequently. It will check to see if a web page has been modified, and will notify you - or even automatically launch your favorite web browser - when it detects any changes.
WebChecker then monitors the web pages you visit with your browser, and marks them as "Visited" if they're part of WebChecker's list.
WebChecker requires Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer and an internet connection using either Open Transport or "Classic" Mac TCP/IP.
Version 1.2.0 has the following changes:
- - Fixed crashing bug when parsing very large web pages. - Fixed importing of bookmarks from previous versions. - Added extended checking method.
Shareware; $15 registration fee suggested. It can be downloaded from:
<http://www.kezer.net/shareware.html>.
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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 02:07:02 -0800 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Tidbit - Big Mac On Campus
This tidbit is from:
Brian J. Matis, <bmatis@calpoly.edu>
Some of you may remember when "Big Mac on Campus," the news and views site for the collegiate Macuser, was launched on May 19th with the help of the Evangelist. Well, besides a month long hiatus to recover from another busy school year, the site has been busy! Just this week we've posted the following articles:
An after Macworld update on the status of Mac OS X for non-G3 computers:
Plus there was Noda Kouniakis' most recent "Breaking Windows!" article. ("Breaking Windows!" is a regular column about the ongoing saga of one student's migration from Wintel to Mac.) This time Noda discusses why he feels the G3 Artemis is such a great deal for education users:
If you're a college student interesting in writing for Big Mac on Campus, let me know! If you're not a college student, stop on by anyway! There's plenty of useful information and great articles for anyone that cares about the Mac!
Brian J. Matis "Big Mac on Campus" <http://www.calpoly.edu/~bmatis>
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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 02:07:05 -0800 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Tidbit - the Signature Spot Is Updated
This tidbit is from:
Bill Zink <wzinc@earthlink.net>
The Signature Spot
<http://home.earthlink.net/~wzinc/>
The Signature Spot has been updated! I would like to thank all of the people who submitted signatures. I've used many of them! Of course, you can still submit your own signatures.
What is The Signature Spot? Well, it's a collection of...email signatures. (I think that it's the only one of its kind!) You know those sayings or quotes that are at the bottom of people's email. The Signature Spot is dedicated to Mac related and funny signatures. Come on by!
MacLiving, distributed in the form of a small downloadable Director interfce, offers a clear, concise way to get your information while having all of the fun of using the Macintosh. From the time you double click on the MacLiving icon and see the happy Macintosh icon staring at you, you will be hooked. As soon as the desktop emerges, you will be free to click around and discover all that MacLiving has to offer. A magazine has never been so simple or interesting.
Aside from offering great information, MacLiving is also a strong supporter of Kaleidoscope. MacLiving will feature a new, interesting interface each month. For each issue, the winner of our Kaleidoscope scheme artist contest will provide these new interfaces. This month, you can get the skinny on Kaleidoscope 2, the most revolutionary interface enhancer ever! For this month only, you will be able to sample the newest magazine on the block for absolutely nothing! That's right, not one red cent. Stop by the MacLiving website to get your free trial with no obligation right now!
Just in case you need some convincing to get over to the the MacLiving web site, Perial has decided to sweeten the deal. Subscribe now, and you will be entered in a drawing to win one of two new iMacs, the new space age computer from Apple. With subscriptions for only $10.95 per year, you can't lose.
A magazine this revolutionary hasn't come by in years. Get it now, while it's free, and keep getting the new editions for a mere 11 bucks! Stop by www.macliving.com right now!
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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 02:07:04 -0800 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: $$ - New Audio Measurement and Video Motion Software Released
This special offer is from:
<swmark@channld.com>
Channel D released at MACWORLD Expo 98 New York new (2.0) versions of its software products. We are providing special discounts for Evangelistas, for a limited time, in celebration of the release.
Mac the Scope, our audio frequency spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope and signal generator package, adds new features in response to feedback from users, for audio RTA analysis (including 1/1 - 1/12 octave RTA, mic calibration, reverberation decay testing, and more). Sonogram displays include horizontal or vertical format time records, respective of the standard format used in vocalization studies. Mac the Scope uses Macintosh high quality built-in sound input and output capabilities (no additional sound input board is needed).
DeltaVideo, motion detection and motion tracking software, adds new features, a faster file format, and has been rewritten to better support the Apple Sequence Grabber API. DeltaVideo includes a variety of motion sensitivity, frame rate optimization, motion monitoring hot spot, frame stamping and frame export features.
Both packages, if ordered directly from Channel D, carry a 20% Evangelista discount, if ordered within two weeks after this notice is posted to this mailing list:
Mac the Scope: Regularly $399; with discount, $319 (+ $13 s/h, FedEx 2 day) DeltaVideo: Regularly $149; with discount, $119 (+ $7 s/h, FedEx 2 day)
Academic prices for this discount period will be $299 and $99, respectively, for purchase orders placed from educational institutions.
Please provide order code AE07020, to obtain these discounts. This offer will not be repeated elsewhere.
Channel D Corp. <http://www.channld.com/software.html>
I think we've been fighting this war with a hobbled foot. I switched RC5 contest clients from version 2.0001 to 2.7 to compete in the DesII-2 contest. The only difference between the two, I thought, was the fact that one has a GUI interface (2.001) and the other is text based. Boy was I wrong.
To test differences between the versions, I used a different e-mail address for the two contests so that the statistics compiled between the two clients weren't mixed up. When I saw the results turned in from my first day running the text-based client, I thought there was an error so I let it run another day just to make sure I wasn't getting statistical errata in my results. The next day, everything switched back to RC5 and it took two more days for their records computers to catch up, but when they finally did this morning, I had the same performance on RC5 as I had had on DesII.
(If you don't understand PPC processor naming schemes, now would be a good time to skip to the conclusion, this part is a little bit more technical than the rest :-)
- ---------
For the past few weeks, I've been running the cracker on three machines, an upgraded 7500 with a 220mhz G3 processor, and two 266 minitowers. I started the contest on the 7500 with a 604/120 upgrade and turned in only modest performance -- the client itself was showing my maximum keyrate at about 400 keys per second compared to the minitower's 800 but it brought me up a few thousand places in the stats and I was quite happy about that. After I added the third minitower to the statistics, I only went up a few hundred more places which I thought was understandable given how many G3 machines there must already be out there hogging the top slots ;-) so I was satisfied when my average keyrate stabilized at around 250 kkps (it fluctuates from day to day).
DesII-2 comes along, (I'm still mad that they didn't tell us it was going on) and I switched to the faceless client because the GUI version doesn't crack DES blocks. DesII concluded on the third day and the faceless clients automatically began collecting and cracking RC5 blocks again. I expected the performance I had seen with the new client under DesII to vanish, but lo and behold my RC5 update came in this morning and this is what I saw:
under <admiral@dogbert.sca.ncsu.edu> my average rate was 205.65 kkps (old client) under <admiral@sma.sca.ncsu.edu> my average rate was 1634.12 kkps
It's been that way for the past week, and I'm still shocked at the change.
- ---------
The moral of this story: based on what I've seen over the past few days everyone running a PPC machine should upgrade to the text-based client as soon as possible. It switches between the Des and Rc5 contents automatically and performs up to eight time better than the GUIed version. Not having the more friendly performance graphs takes awhile to get used to, but the advantages more than make up for the loss of these features.
You have to go through the setup yourself, and these are the settings I've been using. (It would really help if knowledgeable people with internet connections that differ from mine would post their settings to the list)
Running on a direct connection:
- ---------
Client Settings:
The menus under configure are extremely cryptic, but I've done a little research and played around with them enough that I've figured out what the best settings for those relevant to my machines are. I'll briefly explain what each setting is and give you what I've found to be the best general setting -- your mileage may vary.
When you open the configure window, you'll see several iconic options but the first you should pay attention to is the e-mail address. Set it to your own rather than <evangelist@apple.com>. The new statistics collection scheme allows you to assign your blocks to your team of choice from the webpage, see <www.distributed.net> for more info on this.
General menu: Set blocksize to maximum 2^31, it keeps the distributed.net network from bogging down with block requests.
The two boxes that follow determine how many blocks you download from the server each time your computer accesses it. If you're not using a dialup, meaning your computer spends most of its time connected to the internet, this setting really is inconsequential but I set mine to 10 because that was the default. If you're not connected directly set this number to around 100 (maximum is 1000) or so. The RC5DES client will keep working while you're not online and this will ensure it has blocks to work on.
Output should be equal to whatever you set as input.
Leave the hours setting at zero, this setting tells the client to work for however many hours you put in that box and then shut off. Zero disables the feature.
Print percents makes it show how much of a given block the client has completed in the log window. Turn this on, and you'll be able to see the progress it's making as it processes.
Files: If you don't know how to configure these settings yourself, you don't need them (that's why they were left blank apparently).
Processor Type: If you don't know what your processor type is, leave these settings alone. The client will pick the correct one automatically. If you do, everything should be self-explanatory. Just remember that 601 was the first generation of the PowerPC chip and is up to twice as slow as the others.
Network: Use the same settings here you used on the older clients. If you're new to the game and connected via ISP you'll need to consult the distributed.net website for network instructions.
MacOS Client Settings:
Responsiveness should be set to high if the computer you have processing blocks is going to be used often. This stops the client from using so much of your CPU that all other programs you may be trying to run at the same time slow to a crawl. If the computer won't be used often, on the other hand, set responsiveness to low so that the cracker will have as much of the CPU for its own use as possible.
CPU utilization is something you want to set for overnight hours when your computer most likely won't be in use. Begin time tells the client that after the machine hasn't been used for five minutes to start taking more and more CPU time to process blocks. Maximum time determines how long this "acceleration" period will last before the cracker is using as much CPU code as it can to process blocks. I set it to Start out at 5, max at 10.
Set automove to 5 minutes. This determines how long after you've stopped typing or moving the mouse before the client becomes the front-most application and begins taking more CPU time. Notice how I've timed these functions so that CPU utilization starts as soon as automove brings the client to the front.
Leave the use all fonts box unchecked.
Check the autoresume box. This tells the cracker to automatically start processing blocks as soon as it's launched.
- ---------
Again, some of these settings you'll have to adjust depending on what kind of computer and internet connection you have, so your mileage will definitely vary. If everyone helping out in this contest were to switch to the new clients, we could probably push Team Evangelista well into untouchable range and show those wintellians out there where true computing power lies. Just be sure to download your client and help out, every single block is one more step toward victory for the Macintosh platform!
__________________________ Digital Guy Sez:
The reason I didn't advertise the DESII contest was that I knew it was going to be a quick kill -- as you note, it took only three days. The EvangeList is like a really big ship: Powerful and swift, but a bit sluggish in steering. A long term project like RC5 is fairly easy to work with, but the short term stuff would be over before even a tenth of you finished downloading the client.
Besides, I think it was a good thing the Electronic Frontier Foundation cracked it using a single machine... it scared the heck out of a lot of people. :-)
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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 02:07:02 -0800 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Job - LAN Support Specialist (University Of San Diego)
This job announcement is from:
Jerry Stratton, <jerry@acusd.edu>
At the University of San Diego, we are looking for a "LAN Support Specialist". You can see the job posting at
This position works heavily with the Business and Nursing school, who are mostly on Novell; there are a few Macs in that area. Job titles at USD are generally not reflective of what you actually do. In this position, the real job is on-site support of any computer related problems in the building which happens to house the Business and Nursing schools. Knowledge of Novell and Windows is going to be the main requirement. I would personally not mind if someone who put the user's concerns over tech support's were to get this position... but I have no more than advisory capacity, so push your Windows and Novell experience.
CG Software is happy to announce Computer Admin v.1.4 for Macintosh.
Computer Admin is a database application used for tracking computers, software packages, serial numbers, maintenance history and other information. This package is useful to anyone with a computer.
Store all your serial numbers (for hardware and software) in one searchable database. Keep track of when you last performed regular disk maintenance such as defragmenting your hard drive or rebuilding the desktop file.
Features include the ability to track users personal contact information, purchase orders, warranty information, repair history and more.
Computer Admin is $20 shareware however for a short time is being offered for $15 for Evangelistas!
Get more info view screen shots and download your copy at:
<http://206.65.80.10/cadmin> and register online at <http://order.kagi.com/?6PQ>
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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 02:07:04 -0800 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: $$ - New Ambrosia CD 20% Off
This special offer is from:
Jason Whong, <jason@ambrosiasw.com>
Ambrosia Software, the undisputed champion of Macintosh shareware gaming, celebrates Apple Computer's third consecutive quarterly profit with a special deal for Evangelistas! For the rest of July, Evangelistas can get the NEW Ambrosia CD-ROM for 20% off!
The CD-ROM contains unregistered versions of Ambrosia's award-winning games and utilities. No more long downloads! In addition to being a great timesaver, it also doubles as an Evangelism tactic. Just install any of our games on an otherwise idle Macintosh, and watch the crowds form. It really works!
The CD-ROM, which is normally $10, or $5 with registration, is available for $8, or $4 with registration to Evangelistas.
To take advantage of this special offer, visit:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Ware/> if you want the CD alone for $8, or,
<https://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Registration/Register.html> to register any product and get the CD at $4
In the comment section of the order form, *tell us that you're an Evangelista*, and would like the 20% discount on the CD.
Help us keep the Macintosh cool! Order a bunch today!
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End of EvangeList Digest V1 #1238 *********************************
