commodore.ca | Modern PC News For the week Ending Nov 3 2002

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

...Service Pack 1 for Windows XP and SP3 for Windows 2000 -- contain new license language that gives Microsoft the right to silently revise your operating system (see "Sneaky service packs").

This upsets many companies whose PCs can't be allowed to morph at will. But those who are worried the most are IT pros in the health care field. They must comply by April 14, 2003, with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Among other things, the law requires "a compliant technical information infrastructure." All systems must ensure the security and privacy of medical records online. (See http://www.hipaadvisory.com/regs/HIPAAprimer1.html.)

Let's set aside for the moment whether today's Windows can ensure security of any kind. Let's also note that, except for XP's Media Player and digital rights management, Windows doesn't silently do all that much yet.

Here's the question: Since Microsoft may start using its new rights any time, won't it soon be against federal law for health care providers to rely on Windows to handle patient records?

"The EULA [end-user license agreement] change has really got me worried," writes Peter Clark, the owner of PClark.net Consulting. "I think the new SP3 license terms are in direct conflict with HIPAA. Either I don't install the service pack -- and am therefore running an OS with known security holes, which HIPAA frowns upon -- or I do install the service pack and thereby install a new security hole, which allows for automatic changes of the software configuration."

..."Our procedures sometimes involve surgery to place over 100 recording electrodes in the patient, sometimes on the surface of the brain," says Dr. Bob Webber, a systems manager at a teaching hospital. "These PC-based systems use Microsoft Windows [because all but one vendor of these systems use Microsoft operating systems] and multimedia programs to capture the patient's data."

Webber asks, "If, after a Microsoft service pack is applied to overcome a security weakness in their operating system, and the service pack also secretly breaks the multimedia software and/or revokes access to our patient's data, thus damaging our patient care, who is responsible?"...

If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do math and run faster than your kids. So being that my skills are obviously superior to those of children, I've taken the liberty to judge art work done by other kids on the internet. I'll be assigning a grade A through F for each piece. Check: http://maddox.xmission.com/irule.html and http://maddox.xmission.com/ for some funny stuff!

The "premier release" of Xandros, formerly known as Corel Linux, is being released today at the Xandros.net Web site. Individual users can pick up a copy for $99, and corporate/enterprise users will see a discount price for multiple licenses. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Xandros to play around with. This distribution is Linux through and through, but it could just be the Linux that will truly snag a market that is looking to escape from the confines of Windows.

Xandros came in a real box, with a real 220-pages long user guide, and a single installation CD. As Roblimo would say, I popped the CD into the beverage tray. The first thing that came up was the Xandros Installation Wizard. "The wizard will help you to install Xandros Desktop."

Next was the license agreement. It was one of those (quickly-becoming typical) EULAS that mention the GPL stuff and then the proprietary stuff. Interesting about this license: There was no license to read BEFORE I opened the box, no shrink wrap or seal on the package, and yet the final paragraph of the EULA states that if I don't agree with the license and haven't broken the seal on the software I can return it for a refund. Oops! Too late. Of course, this is a review copy -- perhaps yours will be shrink-wrapped with a copy of the agreement on the outside.

The next screen presented a choice between an express install and a custom install. I chose the custom just to see what I could fiddle with. This brought up a screen that lists all software available, with check marks next to the defaults. These include Crossover Office and Plugin, plus all the usual included-with-your-distro software, including OpenOffice, games, Palm utilities, editors, and Adobe Acrobat reader. I simply left the defaults in place.

Next I could choose whether to use the free space, take over the disk, resize a Windows partition (including NTFS and FAT 32), or "manage disks and partitions," something Xandros recommended for experts only. I ultimately told it to take over the disk, but peeked into the expert mode and found a disk druid like utility that would allow me to resize current partitions, delete them, reassign them, and choose to either format them or leave them as is.

Next I was asked to choose the root password, or administrator account, as Xandros calls it. There are also options to "enforce strong passwords" and "make user home folders private," all things that should make most security-conscious Linux people happy.

Then, just as in most Linux graphical installs, I was given the option of creating user accounts. Xandros recommends creating at least one user account. Even without strong passwords enforced, it still required a six-character password for a user account.

Next was the installation summary, and because I had opted to "take over disk," Xandros gave me a blinking red warning that all my data would be destroyed. I noticed that Xandros thought I had no network interfaces, though my PCMCIA NIC was firmly in place and plugged into my network. I clicked on "Finish," and Xandros went to work installing the files needed.

After 16 minutes, Xandros said it was done and I restarted the computer. While it is booting up, the messages look just like the Lindows start up messages, an eery reminder of the history between Xandros and Lindows and Crossover, a current partner with Xandros.

Then came the login screen. I typed my name and password, and the KDE desktop, with a Xandros logo substituted, booted. The desktop is familiar graphical Linux stuff. A "First Run Wizard" greeted me and led me through most all the options you'd normally fiddle with when installing Linux, such as setting which hand I would use the mouse with, setting the time and time zone, and setting up a network connection. Now, my network card was recognized, and connecting was ever so simple. I just accepted all the defaults and was online in about two seconds.

Then I could set up my printers, tell the desktop which Operating System to simulate: UNIX, Windows, Apple MacOS, or KDE (which isn't an operating system, but it was an option nonetheless).

UNIX looked just like a standard KDE desktop to me; Windows didn't look much different; Apple MacOS was cool. I flipped it back to the default for the purposes of this review, but would probably go with the Apple look if I decide to keep running this distribution.

Conspicuously and happily missing was the X configuration stuff, which is almost always a pain in the rear, especially on laptops. Xandros just detected the hardware and employed what it considered to be the best settings. Works for me.

Next was the registration screen. You'll have a choice to register online or skip it. That was it for the "First Run Wizard."

One really, really interesting feature of Xandros is the ability to switch users mid-stream, or to have two users logged on to the same computer simultaneously, simply by selecting "Switch User" from the launch menu.

This option can be set so that you have to re-enter your password when switching back to your desktop, or you can leave it so that no password is necessary. For family groups using the same computer, this will be a very convenient option for a quick email check -- no need to log out, just switch users.

And being that Xandros is based on Debian, you're still able to run apt-get from the console to pull down any applications you want or need.

Of course, with Crossover Office and CrossOver Plugin installed by default, you'll also be able to install your Windows programs. Let me tell you: Internet Explorer 5.5 runs beautifully in Xandros. I've used Crossover to install Explorer on Mandrake and SuSE, with only partial success. But everything about Explorer is right this time: the fonts, the javascript, the layouts, the speed -- everything.

In fact, everything that Crossover has said is solid in its products is also solid in Xandros. You won't have any problems installing MS Office, or Quicken or Lotus, or any of the myriad plugins Crossover normally supports.

Having said that, you need to know that Crossover is not supporting the version that comes with Xandros. For support, you'll have to pay extra. The nice thing is, you probably won't need any support. "It just works," is what Xandros CEO Michael Begos told me. Now that I've had the chance to install Xandros and run it, I have to agree.

Xandros is touting the control center, which looks just like the control center in Windows, including the display setting options, and the fact that users can access Windows files and share printers with Windows on a network.

The menus are grouped logically; there's a "Launch" button where the "start" button usually is in Windows; the default taskbar icons are helpful: switch user, volume, the typical Windows-like connected computers icon for when you're online, the Mozilla browser, logout and lock screen buttons, the file manager, and mail. Everything that is installed works.

The only problem for Windows users I would foresee is the lack of a major graphics manipulation application like The Gimp. They're probably not going to know how to get a copy of that and install it; and CrossOver Office doesn't support any graphics apps like that yet.

Xandros seems to be what Lindows could have been if it had stayed true to its Linux roots, both product-wise and philosophically. I like Xandros; I like the ease of use combined with common-sense security options and configurability; I like that it reaches out to Windows users without alienating the Linux community; it may just end up becoming the main distribution in my house.

Beta testers of Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 on Monday received invitations from Microsoft to join the Windows 2000 SP4 beta program. ...Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 was released on August 1

...The new computers are made by HP and run the new Windows XP Media Center Edition, a derivation of Microsoft's flagship operating system. The Windows XP hybrid sports a second interface for accessing digital media features, including a digital video recorder (DVR) for recording TV shows to the computer's hard drive.

..."This is a product that is an experiment for Microsoft and HP. Microsoft wants to find more ways into the living room, and HP does as well," said NPDTechworld analyst Stephen Baker.

...The difficulty, Baker said, is that the companies are moving into a new product category with new features whose appeal may not be readily apparent, like the second user interface and the specialized DVR features that, like TiVo's namesake device, let consumers replay "live" TV or save programs to a hard disk.

...Pricing could be another problem. In the year to date, the average PC price at retail, where the bulk of Media Center PCs are expected to be sold, was $824, according to NPDTechworld. PCs priced over $1,500--the same range as two Media Center PC models--accounted for about 3 percent of the retail market.

...Most of these features are available on standard PCs, but without the remote control or special interface. Some computer companies insist there is no real market, at least right now, for TV watching or recording on PCs. Dell Computer, for example, stopped shipping TV tuner cards with new PCs about a year ago, citing lack of demand.