MacFormat 1996 October/MacFormat CD Edition MF42 (October 1996).ISO/mac/Shareware City/Info/Tidbits/tidbits-328.etx

Text File | 1996-05-27 | 29.2 KB | 605 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

TidBITS#328/13-May-96
=====================

This issue brings you news of new products being released in
   conjunction with this week's Apple World Wide Developer
   Conference and an timely essay about software development phases
   and the meaning of the word "beta." We also cover recent Internet
   provider arrests in France; review Mail Drop, an IMAP email
   client; and note an upcoming live talk by Don Norman, and new
   versions of FreePPP, StuffIt Expander, DropStuff, MacDNS, and
   AOL's client software.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <[e-mail]>
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: <[e-mail]>
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- <http://www.halcyon.com/>
   Providing access to the global Internet. <[e-mail]>
* Power Computing -- 800/375-7693 -- <[e-mail]>
   Now shipping... The Award-Winning First MacOS Compatible!
   Press comments! <http://www.powercc.com/News/quotes.html>
* America Online -- 800/827-6364 -- <http://www.aol.com/>
   The world's largest provider of online services.
   Give Back to the Net -- <http://www.aol.com/give/>
* EarthLink Network -- 800/395-8425 -- <[e-mail]>
   Providers of direct Internet access for Macintosh users.
   For eWorld refugees: no setup fee! <http://www.earthlink.net/>
* DealBITS: New deals on Macs, tools, software, and more!
   <http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/> -- <[e-mail]>

Copyright 1990-1996 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Information: <[e-mail]> Comments: <[e-mail]>
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/13-May-96
    French Internet Providers Arrested
    WWDC Ware
    Mail Drop, the Eudora Alternative
    Waiting with Beta'd Breath

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1996/TidBITS#328_13-May-96.etx>


MailBITS/13-May-96
------------------

**FreePPP 2.5 Released** -- On Sunday, the FreePPP Group released
  version 2.5 of their free PPP client. FreePPP 2.5 is a major step
  up from the previous 1.0.5 and contains more features than MacPPP
  2.5, Apple's version of the same code. Make sure to read FreePPP's
  documentation for a list of bug fixes and known conflicts. [ACE]

<http://www.rockstar.com/ppp.shtml>


**StuffIt Expander 4.0.1, DropStuff 4.0** -- Last week, Aladdin
  Systems released new versions of their popular utilities StuffIt
  Expander and DropStuff with Expander Enhancer. StuffIt Expander
  4.0.1 - which decodes and decompresses a variety of online file
  formats - continues to be free, and now offers much better
  performance on Power Macs and better handling of split and
  segmented files. DropStuff with Expander Enhancer enables users to
  compress and BinHex files and significantly augments StuffIt
  Expander's decoding abilities (including handling most PC and Unix
  file formats). DropStuff 4.0 also offers improved performance on
  Power Macs and better handling of segmented files. DropStuff is
  $30 shareware, and (though the documentation doesn't seem to say
  anything about it) registered users of previous versions of
  DropStuff can apparently continue to use their registration
  numbers. Aladdin's sites have been hard to reach, but the
  following URLs should be accurate, and the software should appear
  on Info-Mac mirrors in the near future. [GD]

<http://www.aladdinsys.com/>
<ftp://ftp.aladdinsys.com/>
<ftp://ftp.scruz.net/users/aladdin/public/stuffit_exp_40_installer.hqx>
<ftp://ftp.scruz.net/users/aladdin/public/dropstuff_w_ee_4_installer.hqx>


**Don Norman Speaks Live on the Net** -- Don Norman, Apple Fellow,
  former Apple User Experience Architect, and expert in the field of
  human interface design, will give a talk via the Internet at the
  KMi Stadium on Wednesday, 15-May-96. The talk will take place at 5
  PM British Summer Time (noon on the east coast in the United
  States; 9 AM on the west coast). To participate, I recommend
  dropping by the KMi Stadium Web site before the talk and trying
  out one of the previous presentations. The Web site has links for
  locating RealAudio (which you need) and for CU-SeeMe (which is
  optional). I assume you'll also be able to play back the talk
  after Don's live appearance, though you must attend the talk live
  in order to be one of the lucky few who get to ask Don a question.
  [TJE]

<http://kmi.open.ac.uk/stadium/welcome.html>


**DNS on Macintosh Heats Up** -- Apple has released version 1.0.2
  of MacDNS (its DNS server software) for free. (DNS software maps
  the names of Internet machines to their IP addresses; before Macs
  had DNS capabilities, they were forced to rely on other platforms
  for DNS service.) MacDNS is included in Apple's Internet Server
  Solution package, and while it seems to function relatively well,
  it has been criticized for not providing recursive or secondary
  name service.

<http://cybertech.apple.com/MacDNS.html>

  Not to be out-done, Men & Mice of Reykjavik, Iceland, released the
  results of performance comparisons between MacDNS, Unix BIND, and
  their QuickDNS Pro product. Though QuickDNS Pro costs about $300,
  it does provide recursive and secondary name service, and appears
  to out-perform other DNS options significantly. Men & Mice has
  also made their test methodology available.

<http://www.menandmice.com/QuickDNS/Comparison/>

  Glenn Anderson's free DNS server for the Mac, MIND, has been
  useful for a number of Mac Internet sites, but it suffers from a
  set of known problems and, according to Ric Ford's MacInTouch, no
  further development of MIND is currently planned. [GD]

<http://www.macintouch.com/>


**AOL 2.7** -- America Online released version 2.7 of its client
  software last week. The new version fixes a number of outstanding
  bugs and offers an improved Web browser, although Web performance
  through AOL's network still seems quite slow (although that's not
  the browser's fault). [GD]

<ftp://ftp.aol.com/aol_mac/>


French Internet Providers Arrested
----------------------------------
  by Richard Erickson <[e-mail]>

  On 06-May-96, under orders of a judge investigating pedophile
  circles in France, French police seized computer equipment and
  arrested the heads of two Internet service providers for allegedly
  allowing their services to propagate Usenet newsgroups that the
  judge considered to contain elements such as "pornographic
  photographs of minors." The distribution of such material is
  illegal in France. [And in many other countries, including the
  U.S. -Tonya]

  Two days later, during a professional Internet exposition held at
  La Defense [near Paris], the French Association of Internet
  Providers (AFPI) held a news conference to denounce the judicial
  act. Francois Benveniste, director of major Internet provider
  Calvacom and spokesman for the group - one of whose founding
  members was jailed - said, "We are all guilty."

  Benveniste was referring to Usenet; a portion of the online world
  that contains as many as sixteen thousand discussion groups that
  carry information on a wide variety of topics. Mr. Benveniste said
  that, under current law, there was no way for a French operator to
  provide access to these groups, because the law assumed the
  provider was responsible for the content. However, given the
  volume of Usenet, no operator could possibly monitor the contents
  of more than 100,000 electronic documents daily. Benveniste called
  upon authorities to sit down with operators to formulate an legal
  statue that would permit them to operate legally - without fear of
  being jailed.

  Together with two other heads of the AFPI - Patrick Robin of
  Imaginet and Jerome Lecat of Iway - Benveniste announced the
  immediate closure of all newsgroups until 15-May-96 as a symbolic
  gesture. National operator France Telecom, which provides the
  backbone service "Transpac" and has recently started its own
  "Wannadoo" service, is moving in concert with the private
  operators, since the same laws apply to all.

  For this week, there will be only one newsgroup,
  <fr.netware.internet>, generally available to the estimated 80,000
  to 100,000 private Internet subscribers in France.

  What remains unanswered is why these two particular operators were
  chosen out of about 48 in all, when practically all of them
  (including state-owned France Telecom) carry the same newsgroups.
  These two providers are among the larger providers in France:
  Francenet was one of the first, and Worldnet was one of the first
  to have "popular" prices.

  Another unanswered question is why this action has come at this
  time, when the operators' association has been holding talks with
  the Minister of Telecoms Francois Fillon for some time, and was
  recently assured no access provider would be held responsible for
  content.

  Meanwhile, after considerable confiscation of equipment, the two
  men jailed have been released, but remain under judicial
  authority.

  [This ends the news portion of Richard's report, which was
  originally published in "Metropole, Paris Online." Below, I've
  included some of Richard's informal comments which further
  illustrate what's happening in France. -Tonya]

  Although the majority of subscribers are aware that Internet
  providers are not responsible for content, the same cannot be said
  of TV news. The 08-May-96 main 20:00 CET edition of state
  television France 2 news gave the distinct impression that
  Worldnet originated the illegal content. Statements made by a
  Francenet spokesman were largely buried under a cascade of images,
  from Playboy's home page to outright porn (though no kiddie porn).
  I saw more flesh in news reports about the arrests than I have
  seen in 18 months of Internet use.

  As a content provider myself, I have to think about covering a
  subject such as Paris, where much public art and many billboards
  include representations of the unclothed human body. My site could
  end up with an X rating even though it is part and parcel of the
  public (and even state-sponsored) atmosphere here.

  Both at the press conference and in some TV news reports, there
  were mentions of software that users can use to filter suspect
  content. I think it is in our interest to promote such "monkey"
  software: hear no porn, see no porn, speak no porn. Well, maybe
  not the last one - pornography is a legitimate form of expression
  and has been since people were drawing in caves. Such "monkey"
  software would leave a virtual warning sign at the cave's
  entrance.

  Additional reports on this topic may be found at the Metropole Web
  site.

<http://www.groundwork.com/metropole/>


WWDC Ware
---------
  by Geoff Duncan <[e-mail]>

  Each year, Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference in San Jose
  spawns a host of product releases and announcement and, as usual
  with any trade show or conference these days, the emphasis is on
  the Internet. This article highlights a few products that shipped
  "just in time" for WWDC.


**Cyberdog 1.0** -- Apple has released version 1.0 of Cyberdog,
  its currently free, integrated Internet client software based on
  OpenDoc. Interestingly, it appears Apple plans to continue calling
  the product Cyberdog - although having a product name with the
  word "dog" in it will no doubt ignite a flurry of quips from Apple
  nay-sayers, the name "Cyberdog" has been publicly associated with
  this product for a year and changing it now might lose points in
  the Macintosh community. (I wonder what this might bode for
  Copland.) Cyberdog requires a Power Mac, QuickTime, and OpenDoc.

<http://cyberdog.apple.com/>
<http://opendoc.apple.com/dload/OD-install.html>


**Marionet 1.1** -- Allegiant Technologies has announced version
  1.1 of Marionet, its faceless background Internet protocol server
  for authoring environments including SuperCard, HyperCard,
  Director, and AppleScript. Version 1.1 includes a number of
  enhancements (especially to HTTP, email, and AppleScript support).
  Owners of Marionet 1.0 can get a free updater to 1.1 from
  Allegiant, and a trial version of Marionet 1.1 should appear on
  Allegiant's sites shortly, along with revised demos and examples
  that highlight new features.

<ftp://ftp.allegiant.com/Marionet/>


**BBEdit 4.0** -- Bare Bones Software announced BBEdit 4.0, which
  adds syntax coloring to its bag of tricks. BBEdit now
  automatically colors keywords for easier reading in any of its
  supported languages, including HTML, C, C++, Pascal, and even 68K
  assembler; BBEdit 4.0 also offers Java support and deeper Web
  serving and authoring integration with UserLand Frontier (see
  below). Existing users may update for $39 after 01-Jun-96, or for
  free if they purchased BBEdit 3.5 after 31-Mar-96. BBEdit's
  suggested retail price is $119.

<http://www.barebones.com/>


**Frontier 4.0** -- Almost a year ago, Dave Winer turned the
  high-end Macintosh scripting system UserLand Frontier loose on the
  net in the form of "Aretha," a codename for a net-savvy version of
  Frontier. (See TidBITS-279_.) Last week, Dave did it again, with
  the "official" release of Frontier 4.0.

<http://www.scripting.com/frontier/>

  It's not much of an exaggeration to say Dave lives for scripting,
  and once again Dave has re-purposed and re-targeted Frontier, this
  time squarely at Web publishers and service providers. Frontier
  4.0 provides extensive hooks into WebSTAR, FileMaker, Netscape,
  Internet Explorer, and other applications to facilitate creation
  of custom content and Web publishing solutions. Moreover, Frontier
  4.0 now offers Web site management capabilities - the basic idea
  is that your "source" files for a Web site reside within Frontier.
  When you want to change your site, Frontier "renders" and exports
  the HTML for you, even to the extent of uploading the files to
  your Web server. Frontier can make it easy to create and manage
  vast, consistent Web sites, and Frontier extensively ties in with
  BBEdit 4.0 for HTML processing and authoring. Moreover, for CGI
  developers, Frontier offers native, multi-threaded performance,
  and Frontier's UserTalk is still an OSA language, so AppleScript
  developers could even think of Frontier as a giant set of OSAXen.

  Frontier still isn't for the faint of heart: Frontier scripts can
  be indecipherable to non-programmers, and even experienced
  developers have historically had problems diving into Frontier,
  even with the free Aretha releases. Frontier 4.0 goes some
  distance toward addressing these concerns, with an entire Frontier
  Users Guide now available online, along with various Frontier
  tutorials and walk-throughs contributed by users, covering CGI
  scripting and other topics. Also, the Frontier user community can
  be extremely helpful - check out the Frontier-Talk mailing list if
  you're interested in learning what Frontier can do.

<http://www.scripting.com/frontier/docs.html>
<http://www.scripting.com/frontier/mailinglists.html>


Mail Drop, the Eudora Alternative
---------------------------------
  by Peter Hinely <[e-mail]>

  Few people know about Mail Drop, a great freeware mail client for
  the Mac. Mail Drop is an IMAP email client being developed by Carl
  W. Bell as a Baylor University project. IMAP is a protocol for
  remote mailbox access, along the lines of the POP3 protocol used
  by Eudora. The IMAP protocol is different from POP3 though, and
  offers a significantly extended paradigm for remote mail
  retrieval. The POP3 protocol is a simple protocol with very
  limited options for managing mail on the server. When a POP3
  client connects to a mail server, it can basically say two things:
  "give me all my mail" or "give me all my mail and then delete your
  copy". If you always read your mail using the same POP3 mail
  client on the same computer, this is fine, but if you have ever
  tried to access your mailbox from different client machines, you
  will be familiar with the synchronization problem that occurs.

  An IMAP client, however, can request specific information about
  messages. With IMAP, mail is always stored on the server until you
  command the server to delete it. For people who check their mail
  from multiple computers or for access to a shared mailbox, IMAP is
  ideal. IMAP also enables you to transfer messages between mail
  boxes on the server, and save sent mail on the server. For more
  information about the IMAP protocol, please see:

<ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/imap.vs.pop.brief>

  Mail Drop, which enables you to access an email account on an IMAP
  server, is intuitive and easy to use. When you use Mail Drop to
  connect to your mail server, instead of retrieving messages in
  their entirety, Mail Drop downloads selected information about
  each mail message (the message's date, subject, sender, size, and
  whether the message has attachments) and displays it in a list. To
  read a particular message, double-click the message's listing, and
  then (and only then) will Mail Drop download the message's body to
  your Macintosh. If the message has an attachment, it will be
  indicated in the message's window. You can direct Mail Drop to
  download the attachment, or tell Mail Drop to delete the
  attachment from the server. (This feature is especially handy if
  you receive email via a modem connection.)

  Mail Drop has been steadily gaining features, and the latest beta
  version supports such niceties as drag & drop from an address book
  to recipient fields, drag & drop of files from the Finder into the
  attachments list, and drag & drop files between folders on the
  mail server. Mail Drop supports AppleDouble, AppleSingle, BinHex,
  and true MIME. If you receive a particularly long message, Mail
  Drop can only show you the first 32K of the message, but you can
  immediately save the entire message for reading in another
  program. Mail Drop is also URL-aware: if you command-click on a
  URL in the message's body, Mail Drop opens the URL with the
  appropriate helper application.

  If you are interested in Mail Drop, you can download the latest
  beta version from the following URL. Please note that you _must_
  have access to an IMAP mail server to use Mail Drop; though many
  Internet providers only provide POP3 service, some sites support
  both POP3 and IMAP. If you aren't sure about your situation, check
  with your Internet provider or system administrator.

<http://ackmo.baylor.edu/files/Mail_Drop/info.html>


Waiting with Beta'd Breath
--------------------------
  by Geoff Duncan <[e-mail]>

  It's funny, but at TidBITS hardly a day goes by that we don't hear
  about some new piece of "beta" software. Maybe it's a utility
  program, a Web browser, a plug-in, or a major commercial
  application. Whatever the product, it's in "beta" and someone
  wants us to write about it - as a service to our readers, of
  course.

  Before the widespread popularity of the Internet, "beta" software
  was a mysterious and fabled thing. If you knew the right people,
  got on the right lists, and went to the right trade shows, someone
  _might_ quietly ask you to test some forthcoming software. More
  often than not, you had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and
  you certainly weren't allowed to talk about the software until it
  was officially released. "Public betas" were virtually unheard of,
  and even long-standing power users had never head the term.
  "Beta?" they'd ask. "What's that mean?"

  With the advent of the Internet, however, the "beta" stage of
  software development is being redefined, and frankly, I'm not
  happy about it. What does "beta" mean, and why are so many
  software developers racing to distribute software they admit isn't
  finished, and may be unstable and dangerous to use? What's going
  on here?


**What Beta (Really) Means** -- Although there's no universal
  methodology for software development, serious software products
  generally go through a series of development phases. As you might
  expect, there are as many variations on these stages and terms as
  there are software development efforts. However, an average
  application goes through these basic stages:

* Design and prototyping: In this stage, the program's designers
  decide upon the purpose, specification, functionality, and
  interface of a product, along with its basic feature set,
  interface, and technology. Will the product use Apple Guide? What
  Macs will it run on? Questions like these are addressed, and some
  "proof of concept" programming usually begins. This phrase can go
  on for months, or be essentially indistinguishable from the next
  stage.

* Development releases (or builds): In this, usually the longest
  portion of a product's development, the major features are coded,
  assembled, tested, and fixed. Usually, these releases are numbered
  and may be referred to as development releases ("d7" or "dr7"),
  test releases ("tr7"), or simply builds ("build 7"). The numbers
  assist in tracking which release contains a particular problem,
  fix, or feature. Products usually have several - even hundreds- of
  development releases, depending on the product's complexity.

* Code complete (or alpha): Definitions vary, but the "alpha"
  phase of software development usually indicates that _all_ a
  program's features have been coded and are testable. Although a
  button or menu item might move, appear, or disappear, no major
  features remain to be implemented. During alpha, developers focus
  on fixing bugs and making the product as stable as possible. A
  product may go through dozens of alpha releases, depending on its
  complexity and the nature of problems found.

* Beta: When a program reaches the beta stage, its developers have
  found and eliminated all known, severe bugs (note that it may well
  be impossible to fix - or even find - all severe bugs). Remaining
  bugs might be isolated - for instance, only occurring under System
  7.0.1 on a PowerBook 100 running an ancient version of
  CopyDoubler. Remaining bugs may also be out of the developer's
  control, possibly because they are caused by another program or
  the operating system. The goal of the beta phase is to see if the
  product runs in a stable and reliable fashion on a wide range of
  machines; to achieve this, the release is distributed to a wider
  audience than development or alpha releases. During beta, bug
  fixes or code changes should be carefully considered before being
  implemented in order to avoid accidently de-stabilizing the
  program. Theoretically, programmers should mostly sit on their
  hands during beta, while the software testers do everything
  conceivable to break the product. Also in theory, a product should
  have few beta releases.

* Release: The final phase of the development process varies
  widely. Some products enter a Final Candidate ("fc") phase after
  beta, where the product is frozen for a pre-determined period of
  time and continues to undergo rigorous testing. If any problems
  are found that must be fixed, the Final Candidate process begins
  all over again. Some products ship once a sufficiently stable beta
  has been achieved, and that beta becomes the shipping product.
  Some development teams use a combination, where the final beta
  becomes the "golden master," which is sent for manufacturing, but
  may be withdrawn if any must-fix problems turn up prior to actual
  distribution.

  From this, it follows that a beta release theoretically has the
  following three properties:

  1) The product's technology requirements (both hardware and
  software) are fixed, and have been for some time.

  2) The product is code and feature complete. No features remain to
  be implemented, and all features are present and testable.

  3) The product has no known severe outstanding bugs the developers
  plan to fix or work around.

  Take a moment to think about beta releases of products you may
  have used recently, and compare them to the three points above.
  Notice anything different?


**What Beta Means Now** -- I'll be the first to admit the
  development cycle outline above is idyllic, and doesn't account
  for many complicated forces affecting software development.
  Competing products often force changes in feature sets, and
  marketing or distribution deadlines may cut short any of the
  phases above. Similarly, there are inherently unknowable factors:
  I once worked on a product whose lead programmer wasn't able to
  work for nearly three months due to a case of pneumonia.

  Nonetheless, in many cases - particularly with Mac Internet
  software - "beta" doesn't mean anything close to what it used to.
  We've seen programs in public beta that not only contain
  innumerable known bugs the developers are aware of and plan to
  fix, but also accumulate major new features through subsequent
  releases. Similarly, we've seen products that change fundamental
  system and technology requirements during beta - details which
  should have been etched in stone long before. Beta often means
  what "alpha" or even "development build" used to mean.


**The Race to Beta** -- The emergence of an Internet software
  industry (and the Internet itself) are changing the beta process
  in two fundamental ways First, Internet betas are fast,
  widespread, and (often) cheap. Conducting a beta using traditional
  media - floppy disks or CD-ROM - is comparatively expensive and
  (more importantly) time consuming. Master disks must be duplicated
  and physically delivered to a list of testers, who may not even be
  representative of the product's potential users. In contrast,
  conducting a beta test via the Internet eliminates time delays as
  well as duplication and delivery costs, but more importantly
  reaches a wide range of users. In many cases, it also simplifies
  communication with beta testers (who all presumably can use
  email). Handled properly, a public Internet beta _can_
  significantly contribute to the quality of a product, even though
  it requires more person-hours to process the higher volume of bug
  reports and feedback. Done well, I think a public Internet beta is
  in the best interest of both software developers and end users who
  feel the need to explore the bleeding edge.

  However, there's a flip side. Public betas usually receive a lot
  of attention, particularly on mailing lists and newsgroups, as
  well as computer industry publications including Macworld,
  MacWEEK, Wired, and, yes, TidBITS (we often feel pressure to
  report on beta releases being talked about online before we
  consider the products worthy of real consideration). What's more,
  beta releases are usually subject to less scrutiny than a shipping
  product: severe bugs in a beta are often played down or set aside,
  while new features and capabilities are hyped. Bugs - even
  flagrant, long-standing bugs - are excused because the product is
  "just a beta - what did you expect?"

  This situation is a marketer's dream come true. Marketers used to
  approach the Internet community with "I don't care what you say
  about me, just get my URL right." Now, it's "Here's my URL, and it
  doesn't matter what you say about me - it's just a beta!" Not only
  do the products get publicity, but the company doesn't have to
  take as much heat about bugs and incompatibilities.


**Beta Backlash** -- The problem with using public beta testing
  for promotional and visibility purposes is that _quality_ of the
  product is compromised. Many products labelled "beta" today are
  still in active, even furious development, with their programmers
  adding and removing features, changing the interface, and doing
  serious work to underlying, fundamental code.

  I hate to say it, but that's _not_ beta. It's not even alpha.

  Careful readers will note this article hasn't used the names of
  _any_ specific products or companies. It certainly could have. The
  point here isn't to criticize particular companies or products, or
  to praise others. The goal is to point out that the process of
  software development is undergoing a fundamental change, and users
  affected by this shift should be aware of the competing (and often
  conflicting) dynamics behind that change. In the next year, I
  expect the term "beta" will fade from usage, to be replaced by
  various phrases using the word "preview." My advice is to think
  seriously before using pre-release software for which developers
  and companies assume no responsibility, and to back up your data
  early and often.

  And the next time someone says "It's a beta, what did you
  expect?", tell them: "software that's feature-complete and has no
  known serious bugs." That's what beta means.


$$

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