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November 20, 2005 |
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Remember Nisus Writer Express?Nisus Writer Express is a Mac-only word processor that won’t compete with Microsoft Word when it comes to high-end features, but might be exactly what you need -- depending on the kind of work you do. It’s not a “suite”, so you don’t get a spreadsheet program, an e-mail application, and a database manager. You do get a decent word processor, though, and if you own any previous version of Nisus Writer Express, the upgrade to the current version is free. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Nisus Writer. It’s currently at version 2.5 and the last time I reviewed the application, it was probably around version 1.0, so a lot has changed for the better. And one thing for the worse. First, turn off the auto-complete function unless you want the program to drive you to distraction. This is something that may have seemed like a good idea, but it’s a major annoyance. When it’s turned on, Nisus tries to figure out what you’re going to say and complete the word for you. It does this by displaying a drop-down list. If I type “expr”, it may display “express” and several other words beginning with those 4 letters. When I get enough of the word typed that Nisus knows what I want and highlights it, I can press enter. This sounds like it could save keystrokes, and it can. But the constant motion on the screen is distracting. By the time I look up at the list two or three times, I’ve wasted enough time that I could have just typed the word. I’m not the world’s fastest typist, but I can work faster without this feature. What’s worse is this: The headline is “Remember Nisus Writer Express?” I would get to the end of “Express”, press the “?” key, and watch Nisus Express delete the “?” and insert “ed”. The only way I could get “Express?” was to allow the program to type “Expressed”, type the “?”, and then delete “ed”. This is helpful? Maybe this is a new feature. If so, it’s not ready and shouldn’t be in the application. But much is good, too.Among the unusual features is Nisus Writer Express’s support for right-to-left languages. And it’s a native (Cocoa) OS X application, so the look and feel are correct. Nisus took some heat for starting from scratch instead of porting their classic version to OS X. It’s taken a while for them to get to where they are, but I think the wait has been worth it.
This version of Nisus Express adds user-defined styles, footnotes, and endnotes (section or document). The usual suspects are all present: Smart quotes, the ability to save a file as a PDF, automatic hyphenation, tables, and such. Also worth noting is Nisus Writer Express’s continued support for RTF (rich-text format) as the default file format. Because the application doesn’t use its own proprietary format by default, any word processor (Mac, PC, or Unix) will probably be able to open the file. One unusual feature in a word processor is the ability to select a column of text. This is a pointless ability in a text document, but it can be quite useful if you have columnar text and need just the information in a single column. Unicode support and the ability to save files in Microsoft Word format are helpful. Nisus Writer Express also supports both AppleScript and Perl macros. And unlike most word processors (but true to Apple’s new Unix-based operating system) it offers 3 variations of Find and Replace, including Regular Expressions. Add to all this a reasonable price ($70 for a new license or $110 for 3 licenses) and an even more reasonable upgrade policy (any version 1 or 2 owner can upgrade to version 2.5 for free and owners of Nisus Writer Classic can upgrade for $45) and Nisus Writer Express is a most attractive choice for Mac users.
Can it get any worse for Sony?Sony finally (about a week too late) released an application to remove the rootkit-based protection software from its CDs and announced that it is recalling all such CDs that are in stores. The problem is that the "fix" makes things worse and Sony has yet to apologize to its customers. This is a situation that should never have happened. It was technologically stupid, legally stupid, and ethically stupid. In last week's Nerdly News, I described a copy-protection scheme that Sony was using to keep people from illegally copying their CDs. The digital rights management software installs as a rootkit, meaning that it is hidden from Windows, has no Registry entry, and is difficult to find or remove. Worse still, removing it may render the machine unable to boot. Worse still, in less than 3 days, somebody developed some malware that was able to use Sony's DRM software to leapfrog onto any computer that had been used to play a protected Sony CD. Sony has some fairly sharp technology folks on staff. I imagine they also have a legal staff and a public relations staff. All of these should have been sounding alarms about the plan Sony implemented.
Nice! Will there be any response by consumers to Sony's actions? I hope so. Legal action? Probably. Attorneys like class-action suits because the generate a lot of money, most of which the class-action attorneys get to keep. In this case, I don't care. A suit that extracts a large amount of money from Sony, even if the attorneys get to keep most of it and the people who bought Sony CDs are left with 30 cents per CD, such a suit might teach Sony -- and other companies stupid enough to try a boneheaded move like this a lesson. The point is this: Copy protection won't stop pirates. They will be able to extract the contents, re-encode it, and create pirated copies no matter what Sony does. Period. All that copy protection does is make it difficult for people who bought Sony's products to make additional copies for their own use. I don't know which artists are on the Sony label these days, but I do know that I won't be buying anything from Sony anytime soon. Sony's spin doctors now say that the company "shares the concerns of consumers" over the discs. Those "concerns" should have surfaces long ago -- before Sony embarked on what what an astonishingly stupid journey. Has Sony yet identified the moron who gave the corporate OK for this? Which CDs have this crap?According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, here is a partial list of CDs to watch out for:
Sony lists more than 50 CDs that shipped with the rootkit installed and that, if played on your computer, will make it vulnerable to malware. Sony's list is here. Sony BMG says it will no longer use the rootkit method of copy-protecting its CDs and that it will stop shipping all of the existing CDs that included the idiotic software. The company will also remove an estimated 3 million discs on store shelves and it will recall 2 million CDs that have been sold, paying the postage both ways. If you have one of the CDs listed above, check for details at Sony's website. And finally -- more than a week later -- Sony finally posted this statement on its website: "We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we are committed to making this situation right." Will I be buying anything with Sony's name on it in the near future? Don't count on it! Who approved this idiocy? I don't know and Sony isn't saying. Perhaps a letter to the chief executive officer, Andrew Lack, would be appropriate:
Sony's phone number is 212-833-8000, if you'd like to let them know what you think. Be polite. WinZip hits double digitsThe most durable compression utility for Windows is now at version 10 and, for the first time, upgrades are no longer free. At some point, if you're going to continue to improve your product, you do have to charge for it. The new version offer "upgrade assurance", though and this is a good way to assure that you'll get the next version for a small fee. The annual Upgrade Assurance Plan (about $10 per year) means that you'll receive the latest version of the application -- not just minor updates and bug fixes. I've been expecting something like this from WinZip for several years. True to form, what they've done provides an income stream for the company without unduly burdening loyal users. (Compare this to the previous Sony story.) This time around WinZip is available in two versions -- WinZip and WinZip Professional. The professional version adds several features that will be of interest to -- well, professional users: The ability to define and store backup jobs, to create custom automated jobs, to schedule jobs, to upload files via FTP, and even to zip and then burn a CD or DVD (only with Windows XP). New features available in both the pro and standard versions include improved compression, attachment management support, a new view that looks like the Windows explorer, and more.
The pro version include the ability to create and save jobs that define what you want to compress, where the compressed files should be stored, when the job should run, and how files should be compressed. Define a job and you can run it by double-clicking the icon or by scheduling it to run automatically. Why? For one thing, this is a way to automatically back up files. CLICK IMAGE FOR A FULL-SIZE VIEW. To get you started, WinZip includes several pre-defined job files for compressing the contents of common folders and files (My Documents, for example.) You can use these as provided or modify them.
Nerdly NewsWithout (additional) commentIT Vibe is a British publication that follows computer topics. One of the main topics this week has been Sony's copy protection program that uses a "rootkit" which exposes users' computers to all sorts of nastiness. This is what IT Vibe had to say this week:
Google has the Earth, your blog, your photos and ... ... ... what else?If you trust Google to do the right thing, this is a good situation, but some folks are beginning to wonder where Google is headed. At the company's current rate of expansion, it will soon own everything digital. Good? Bad? Or who cares? I've been a fan of Google, for the most part, but lately I've noticed that Google will sell advertising space to anybody who wants it. As a result, you'll see numerous links for "free" Ipods if you search for anything Ipod related. The same is true for Xbox or any other common device. The trouble with this is that most of the links that offer "free" items are, by any standard, deceptive and possibly fraudulent. And Google doesn't seem to care. If you report a website that's advertised deceptively, you'll receive a nice e-mail from Google. I know because I've received several of them. I understand that Google cannot pro-actively judge ads that appear, but I do feel that the company has an obligation to investigate reports of misleading and deceptive ads. Google: All your base are belong to us. Google Base could be a newspaper killer. Already newspapers are suffering from online classified websites such as Craigslist, which has had a significant impact on the San Francisco Chronicle. Google Base allows anyone to submit anything for indexing, for free. The index is searchable and offers items up in blocks based on what Google calls "labels" and "attributes". If you're a newspaper person, this may sound familiar. Its the way newspapers organize classified advertising pages. And that's just the beginning. Google Google is located in Mountain View, California -- out past the San Jose airport, past Sunnyvale, and about halfway to Palo Alto. The Mountain View City Council this week unanimously approved a plan that gives Google access to city-owned streetlight poles for the placement of wireless access points for a city-wide WiFi network. Google will install the hardware for free and the city could receive more than $12,000 per year (from Google's petty-cash fund.) Mountain View city councilman Tom Means said, "There's little downside for us. Google wants to see if they can do it, and they're going to pay us." The agreement covers only city-owned poles, not those owned by Pacific Gas & Electric. Google says it hope to gain access to the PG&E poles. The objective is to show that Google can provide city-wide WiFi access to the 72,200 people who live in Mountain View. Google already provides WiFi access in some areas of the city. Attention Mountain View city council: There is no such thing as a free lunch. American Electric Powerless: Extended period of extreme calm causes power outageI've mentioned before the AEP black hole that I live in. Power fails for no apparent reason. This week, for example, on Thursday evening, the weather conditions included:
American Electric Power provided:
When the power came back on Thursday evening, I sent a message to American Electric Power asking about the problem. As with most companies that are too big and important to answer the phone these days, that's the only way anyone can communicate with them. The response arrived on Friday evening, shortly before 10pm:
The phone number, of course, is the one I had called on Thursday. It's an automated attendant: "Press 1 to be disconnected immediately, press 2 if someone has been electrocuted, press 3 to move to a sub-level of the menu, press 4 to hear these instructions in Old Church Slavonic .... If I lived in a remote rural area, I would understand the power outages. If power failed as the result of a blizzard, I would understand. If service was disrupted during a strong storm, I wouldn't complain. What I don't understand, however, is an ongoing series of power failures when no apparent causes exist. I live in an area that has been settled since at least the mid 1960s. The area that routinely loses power is surrounded by an area that almost never loses power. This suggests, at least to me, that the reason for frequent power outages is somehow related to the circuit (or maintenance thereof) within this small residential area. If your lights routinely winked out during periods of extreme calm, would you wonder why? Would you be satisfied to know that the utility company wanted to apologize for the problem? Let us know what you think. Write to:
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Nisus supports LinkBack, a technology similar to that used by Microsoft to allow users to embed, for example, a piece of an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document. LinkBack is an open source framework for Mac OS X that allows users to paste content from any LinkBack-enabled application into another and reopen that content later for editing by double-clicking it. Changes will automatically appear in the original document. The number of LinkBack applications is quite limited now, but the project looks promising. For more details about LinkBack, see 
7 CATS: Nisus Writer Express is a good application that keeps getting better. It doesn't have all the features of Microsoft Word, but its a solid performer that does what it's supposed to do. If you haven't looked at it lately, make sure you visit the 
But then Sony decided to do the right thing and make it possible for people to remove the rootkit the company should never have installed in the first place. But security experts
say Sony's attempt to remove its copy-protection
causes more security problems than
the original application. According to experts at Princeton University, the Sony uninstaller makes it
possible for a hacker to create a website that can install any application the website owner wants to install on the user's computer.
The Explorer-style view is version 10's key enhancement. It allows users to see the structure of a zip file at a glance. The tree-structured view allows users to drill down to the items in folders that they want to work with. The zip file acts just like a folder in that you can create new folders within the zip file and add new files and dragging them in. This also makes it easy to drag individual files or folders out of the zip file.
9 CATS: No more free upgrades, but the asking price is reasonable and the subscription model treats both the company and the subscribers well. This has always been one of my favorite applications and it still is. Visit the 
