Remember Gopher? The Internet protocol for retrieving files that preceded the World Wide Web isn’t dead, writes Cameron Kaiser, but surviving (where else?) underground. Glenn Fleishman notes new capabilities for the Pando file-sharing service that drastically cut the costs of hosting large, popular files such as podcasts. Also in this issue, Adam notes a New York Times program that gives free TimesSelect access to higher-education faculty and students and points to interesting new research about why hard drives fail; Andy J. W. Affleck records the praises of Freeverse’s Sound Studio 3.5 update; and Jeff Carlson passes on news of Mark/Space’s public beta of The Missing Sync for BlackBerry. Finally, Apple last week released Mac OS X 10.4.9 and Security Update 2007-003, as well as bug-fix updates iTunes 7.1.1 and iPod Reset Utility 1.0.
Last week Apple updated Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to version 10.4.9 and provided a security update for Mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther. The security update is incorporated into the Tiger update, and could have been labeled "Fixes for the Month of Apple Bugs," a project we have written about before (see "MoAB Is My Washpot," 2007-02-19)
A few months ago, Glenn Fleishman and I wrote a feature article for Macworld about using smartphones with the Mac (see "Get in Sync" in the January 2007 issue)
Apple has released iTunes 7.1.1, an update that "addresses a stability issue and minor compatibility problems in iTunes 7.1," according to Apple. The update is available via Software Update or as a 28 MB stand-alone download
After all my puzzling over how to create permanent links to articles in the New York Times (see "Easier New York Times Linking," 2007-02-26), I was amused to hear from a friend that the New York Times is now making TimesSelect free to any student or faculty member with a valid college or university email address
Freeverse has released Sound Studio 3.5, which adds many new features of interest to all users of this excellent audio editor and recorder. Sound Studio has long been my favorite tool for editing audio files, whether I'm producing a podcast, trimming a file in my iTunes library, or recording my son's funny snore one night (and later removing the laptop fan noise from the recording - it's important to have high quality embarrassment material for when he's a teenager)
The file-distribution system run by Pando has opened itself up to developers and podcasters (for more information about Pando and related services, see "Secure Transfer Using Civil Netizen and Pando," 2006-08-21)
[Editor's Note: Some of the URLs in this article use the gopher:// scheme rather than the familiar http:// scheme. These gopher URLs can be viewed directly in Camino or Firefox, but if you are using Safari, which does not support the Gopher protocol, view these pages using the HTTPgopher proxy
Nike+iPod Only for Fitness Runners -- Adam's article about the running device elicits discussion of stride lengths and the variation in the Nike+iPod's readings