Hello Laporte-Report subscriber. It seems like the last few messages have been
nothing but bad news. Well here we go one more time.

Today, May 21, at 6p Eastern the last episode of Call for Help will air on
TechTV.

G4, the new owners of TechTV, have decided not to carry Call for Help on the
channel, but
they are shopping it to other networks and I'm hopeful we'll be able to find a
new home. I
will continue to appear in daily 90-second taped segments on The Screen Savers
but as of
right now that's my only involvement with the new channel.

As usual my blog will have updates on my whereabouts and I'll send you email if
there's
anything substantive to report. <http://leo.typepad.com/tlr/>

Thanks for all your support over the past six years. It's been a great run. With
any luck my next message to you will have better news (and early indications are
that it will)!

Leo

Hello Laporte Report subscriber!

After nearly a decade working for TechTV and its predecessors, the time has come
to part
company. My last day working for the channel was April 1 (no this isn't an April
Fool's joke
- I promise).

As you may already know, TechTV was sold to Comcast late last month. Comcast
plans to
merge the TechTV with its channel for video gamers, G4. Coincidentally my
contract ran
out April 1 but I was unable to come to terms with the outgoing owners, Vulcan
Ventures
(you'll find the details on my web blog <http://leo.typepad.com>). I do hope to
find a
place on G4, but we can't talk until regulatory approval of the sale sometime
late in April,
so I'm on the beach until then.

Call for Help and The Screen Savers will continue on without me. I hope you'll
keep
watching. There are lots of smart, hard working, people producing both shows and
they
need your support right now. We've got to convince Comcast that both shows have
a place
on G4.

I will miss coming into your living room every night more than you know. I'll
probably end
up doing "shows" for my wife and kids at around 4p every evening.

Please continue to check my web page for updates. I'll still be on the radio
every weekend
on Los Angeles's #1 talk station, KFI AM 640. Please tune in Saturday and Sunday
from
noon to 3p Pacific time, or listen on the Internet at <http://kfi640.com>. And
if any of you
know of TV producers who are looking for a host, send them my way, will you?

Thank you for your interest and support for the past six wonderful years at ZDTV
and
TechTV. Until then, God bless, and geek on!

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report Subscriber...

I'm back in New York City again for a round of appearances.
Sunday night I tape two segments for ABC's World News Now, one on
the new wireless devices, another on home security. They
typically air the segments around 3am on the first Tuesday of
each month, but check your local listings.

Monday morning, August 11, I'm going to appear on CNN's American
Morning with my old Site-mate Soledad O'Brien. The segment on
wireless networking should be on around 9:30a Eastern.

Tuesday morning, August 12, I'm scheduled to appear on Live with
Regis and Kelly. The show usually airs between 9 and 10a local
time, but check your TV Guide. I'm usually live on this show, but
they occasionally tape the segment for later airing. If they
don't mention me at the very beginning of the show, I'll be on at
a later date. As usual, I've got a bunch of wacky stuff to show
Reeg and Kelly.

I also brought my camera phone with me so I'll upload pictures to
the Mob (might get a chance to demonstrate that on CNN). Check
them out at <http://leoville.textamerica.com>. Expect lots of
behind the scenes pictures from WNN, CNN, and Regis.

Wednesday it's back to TechTV. Call for Help is taking this week
off, but The Screen Savers is live. August 18 everything returns
to normal:

Call for Help, live weekdays at 3p Eastern
The Screen Savers, live weekdays at 7p Eastern

Finally, one more piece of news. The next edition of the Leo
Laporte's Almanac is done and it ships September 5. You can
already pre-order it on Amazon, of course:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735713693/leoville-20>.
Megan Morrone did a wonderful job editing it this year. I think
it's probably the best yet.

As always, thanks for watching. If you don't want to receive any
more of these updates, follow the unsubscribe instructions at the
bottom of this message. On the other hand if you want more
information, there's always my web site: <http://leoville.com>.

Have a great weekend!

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber... This entry was just posted in Leo's
Blog. If you would prefer not to receive these updates, you'll find
information about unsubscribing at the bottom of this email message.

2003-03-03 12:22:20 -0800

TV Day

It's TV Day today on The Screen Savers. The Chair of the FCC's Digital
Television Task Force will explain the planned transition to digital TV.
We'll tell you what digital TV has to offer, how to turn your computer
into an HDTV receiver, and what to look for in your next TV.

We're looking for DTV related questions for tonight, so if there's
something you want to know about digital television and HDTV call
888-989-7879 or fax 415 437-5869 by 6:30p Eastern.

As a side note, I've been playing with the Piano Avanti HE-3200 DLP
projector to get ready for the show today. It casts an 80 inch screen on
my bedroom wall which turns out to be the perfect way to watch The
Sopranos. What I didn't realize is how well it would work with my Xbox.

The Xbox has settings to support HDTV, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i
resolutions. I bought a component video interface to connect it to the
Piano and BAM! Wow! Most Xbox games work in HD. Some of them don't look
great (Sega's World Series 2K2 baseball game, for instance, gets a
little jaggy) but others look spectacular. Spiderman and Munch's Oddysee
are like watching movies. Xbox is surprisingly well prepared for the
21st century. Henry and I can't wait until Rayman 3 comes out March 25.

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber... This entry was just posted in Leo's
Blog. If you would prefer not to receive these updates, you'll find
information about unsubscribing at the bottom of this email message.

2003-02-20 11:57:17 -0800

Fresh help served daily

I've had a chance to spend some time now with our new programming
executive, Greg Brannan. He's a sharp guy who has some very definite
ideas about where to take TechTV. For the most part we're in agreement,
and in the areas where we disagree he's been careful to listen to my
opinion and take it into consideration. I really appreciate that.
There's a noticeably more open feel to TPTB these days, and I think it
will lead to a better channel in the long run.

One of the first tasks Greg has set himself is to rationalize our
programming schedule. He's dividing all the shows into three
categories: Help and Info, Cool Documentaries, and Outrageous Fun.
Call for Help and The Screen Savers are in the first
group. Spy School and Robot Wars are in the second group.
And Marty's new show will be in the third.

Starting at the end of next month, each category will get a block of
time on the channel. All the shows of a given type will run next to
each other. The theory being that it will be easier to find what's on,
and fans of any particular kind of programming will watch longer. In
other words, no more tossed salad program schedule.

The Cool Docs block is going to occupy prime time and Outrageous Fun
will take late night. The Help block will be in early prime. (All times
Eastern.) Greg has reiterated to me the importance of Help to the
channel, and will be adding a Saturday and Sunday Help Block to the
schedule. It will be "best ofs" at first but we've talked about some
ideas for new shows that could go there. Some really great ideas, too.

Call for Help will stay where it is for the time being, as will
The Screen Savers, but TSS will be losing its same day re-runs,
alas. I know that will inconvenience some of you, especially on the
West coast, but most people watch the live broadcast and that's not
changing: 7p Eastern/4p Pacific as always. The next morning re-run will
also remain on the schedule.

Frankly, the change is not unexpected - after all how many networks
re-run their shows the same night? It was always faintly embarrassing
to me that TSS re-ran so much. It seemed a little small time.

There is some good news. Greg and I have had very fruitful talks about
another weekly, or maybe even daily, all-call Leo show for the Help
Block. It will take us a few months to get it going, but I'm very
hopeful now that get going it will.

These schedule changes won't be announced until next month, but TPTB
thought it best to let you know sooner than later (see - they really
are changing) so they have given me permission to "leak" the info now.
As always, we want to hear your feedback, either here, on the Leoville
messages boards, or TechTV's boards. Or email feedback@...<.

And I'd like to know, what's the best time for you to watch our help
shows? Day, night, weekends? Please add your thoughts to the Blog
comments or on the message boards. I've created a thread at
http://leovilletownsquare.com/ubbthreads/
showflat.php?Cat=&Board=TechTV&Number=296150&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&
o=31&fpart=1" target="_blank.

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber...

A last minute programming note. I'll be filling in for Chris Pirillo
today (2/20/03) on Call for Help. Live at noon Pacific/3p Eastern. Tune in and
call in, or Tivo it if you have a day job.

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber... This entry was just posted
in Leo's Blog. If you would prefer not to receive these updates
information about unsubscribing is at the bottom of the message.

2003-02-19 02:24:19 -0800

TechTV Chat

I'm still trying to figure out how to use TechTV chat with Mac OS X.
There's something about OS X Java that chat doesn't like. As usual, the
world caters to Windows users instead of adhering to standards which
would ensure things work for everyone. Grumble, grumble.

"Dual Athlon" Dave Plotts has taken the lead on figuring out how to get
cross-platform Jabber clients working with the TechTV chat. You can read
the results of his research on the Leoville message boards.

He says several TechTV chat hosts are using JabberFox successfully with
OS X. I had all sorts of problems with it on Friday night. The binary
wouldn't download, and when I built it from the source code (which
requires the Cocoa developer tools) it wouldn't log in.

According to Dave's most recent posts, you have to either log-in first
with the Java client, or have TechTV's Interact folks do some voodoo for
you. THEN, and only then, the Jabber client will work. I'll try again on
tonight's show with both JabberFox and Fire. It would be so great to be
able to use a real chat client to communicate with viewers during the
show.


Links:

<a  href="http://cgi.techtv.com/memberservices/chat" target="_blank">TechTV 
chat</a>
<a 
href="http://leovilletownsquare.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=TechTV&Nu\
mber=288015&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1" target="_blank">Dave's
thread on Leoville</a>
<a  href="http://jabberfox.sourceforge.net/index.php" 
target="_blank">JabberFox</a>

Leo

Happy Holidays to everyone on the Laporte Report list! (If you'd
prefer not to get these occasional updates, read the instructions at
the bottom for unsubscribing. Responding to this message does not work.)

I'll be on the Allan Handelman show for half an hour tonight at 10:30p
Eastern time. Listen on one of his many stations or on his web site at
http://www.alhandelman.com

I'm doing the Ronn Owens Show on KGO, 810 AM in San Francisco, Friday,
January 3 at 10am. http://www.kgo810am.com

The Screen Savers are heading to Las Vegas to cover CES January 9-11.
I'll be signing autographs in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas
Convention Center from 4-5p on Thursday, January 9, and from 3-5p on
Saturday, January 11. Cat, Morgan, and Patrick will be there, too, at
various times. We'll also be doing live show feeds for The Screen
Savers, Friday, January 10, at 4p Pacific. You don't need admission to
CES to visit us, so stop by our booth in the main entrance of the
convention center. You know how we love a live audience!

Meanwhile, I've been doing some Tivo hacking during my vacation, with
some interesting (and ultimately disappointing) results. I'll do a
full write up on my blog, http://www.leoville.com/blog , in the next
couple of days.

We're celebrating Christmas at home then Jennifer is taking the kids
to her folks for a few days. That should give me some time to work on
the Tivo more seriously. The goal is to be able to get my Sopranos
episodes onto DVD as a fully digital copy. If I can get it to work,
and I can get the lawyers to say OK, I'll demo it on TSS in the new year.

Thanks for your support in 2002. Best wishes for a peaceful and joyous
2003!

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner for those of us in the US. I'll
be taking a week off to head back east with Jennifer and the kids to
spend Thanksgiving with my mother, sister, and in-laws in Providence
and New Haven. Then it's off to New York to do ABC's World News Now on
December 3, and Live with Regis and Kelly on December 4. Back on TSS
on December 5.

I'm trying to contain my excitement, but I'm getting to pilot a new
show tonight. We'll tape Leo Up Late (only the working title) tonight
after The Screen Savers at about 9:30p Eastern. It won't be on the
air, but you can still help out.

It's going to be an hour and it will be much more like the old Screen
Savers: all calls. Well mostly calls. We will have one guest, Steve
Gibson, but he'll be there to answer calls with me, and that's only
for a couple of segments. Morgan and Kevin will be on the show too,
monitoring the calls and chat room, and they'll both pitch in a
segment each on something they're really interested in. Morgan's going
to show me a new phone. Kevin has some cool new Winamp visualizations.
But the focus will really be on answering questions, and in a more
leisurely manner, so I can be more thorough. I don't expect to get
more than six calls on in the hour. I'll also answer some emails and
faxes, too, though. It's going to be much less produced than TSS. I'm
thinking of something like a call-in radio show, but on TV.

There's some discussion about what level the questions should be, but
I think that ultimately they'll cover the spectrum from intermediate
to advanced. We'll pick calls that are of the broadest general
interest, regardless of how high-end they are. We have some callers
lined up already, and I'm not sure how many more we'll need, but if
you'd like to help out, call during and after The Screen Savers
tonight and let Morgan know you're interested in being on the pilot.

I'm not getting my hopes up. I did a pilot a couple of months ago for
a very high-end show featuring the leading lights of tech (Linus
Torvalds, Larry Wall, Phil Zimmerman, Steve Wozniak, etc.) talking
in-depth about their creations, but that was nixed as "too boring."
Pilots these days have to get past the ownership in Seattle as well as
local management, and that's pretty tough. Marty just completed his
pilot for a late night tech humor show that's more outrageous and fun,
and I expect that will get the green light because it's
"entertainment," and that's the buzzword these days.

I pray that The Powers That Be realize that TechTV needs to air at
least one show a week that focuses directly on stuffs geeks want to
talk about. They have to realize that we find the hardcore tech stuff
most "entertaining." I'm going to give it my best shot and we'll see
what happens.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. See you in December!

Leo

Hello Laporte Report subscribers. I've got a very important security
note for you.

If you use Windows XP your system is vulnerable to a very simple
attack that could let any hacker delete all the files in any
directory by embedding a short invisible command in a web page or
HTML email. I've demonstrated the attack on The Screen Savers and
it's incredibly easy to implement and totally destructive. It's one
of the most serious security flaws I've ever seen.

Microsoft has remained completely silent on this, even though they've
apparently known about it for 11 weeks.The potential for harm is so
great that they and the entire computer security establishment have
kept the hole a secret. It's called "security through obscurity" and,
in my opinion, it's the worst possible way to protect your system.

The short term fix is to delete or rename a file on your system named
uplddrvrinfo.htm. A better long term solution is to install the
Windows XP Service Pack which Microsoft made available yesterday.
It's a fairly big download, over 50 megs on my fully updated system,
but it presumably fixes other security flaws we don't know about.

Steve Gibson has written about this flaw at
http://grc.com/default.htm and it was the subject of a security
bulletin on Bugtraq at
http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/287482/2002-08-10/2002-08-
16/0 .

This is one more reason I'm no longer recommending Windows machines
to my family and friends. Microsoft's security model is so severely
flawed that I believe it's impossible for them to make a secure
version of the OS. Use Mac OS X instead. It's not perfect, either,
but it's much less susceptible to this sort of thing.

And if you use XP, please run Windows Update and install SP-1 as soon
as possible. Now that the word's out I expect to see this exploit all
over the place.

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report subscriber!

Now that my fingers have uncramped I can tell you a little about the
book, "Leo Laporte's 2003 TechTV Almanac" (2002, Que, ISBN:
078972829X).

My deadline was July 1, but I got it to Que at the end of the day on
July 6. Five days might not seem like much, but the schedule is so
tight that it was pretty late. My unflappable editor, Rick Kughen, is
now burning the midnight oil to get the thing out the door in time to
make the all-important September 1 publish date. Thank you, Rick!

I know how he's feeling right now. Doing this in such a compressed
amount of time is something like running a marathon.

We'll do a photo shoot in a couple of weeks for the cover and some
goofy inside pictures. The cover is going to be a take off on da
Vinci's Vitruvian man, with my head and a bunch of different gadgets
in the hands.

I am very proud of this year's edition. It's going to be a lot richer
than last year's. There's a page for each day of the year.

  * Laura did a spectacular job with This Day in History, and every
day has an entry. They're totally fascinating in their own right. I
couldn't stop reading them.

* There's a short article on each page, many of them by some of
TechTV's best guests over the past year including Bert Monroy, Mikkel
Aaland, John Navas, Alex Lindsay, Donovan Keith, Kevin Poulsen, and
others. There are articles from the Screeen Savers, too, including
quite a few of Martin's best Twisted Lists, some knockout articles by
Megan, and even a couple by Chris Pirillo. And I had a little to say
in there, too. ;-)

* Each and every day also has a download of the day and a tip.

There are more than 500 recommended downloads in the book and several
thousand URLs, all of which I checked and validated. I'm going to
have to rebuild my computer this week I installed so much stuff on it.

One criticism about the last Almanac was the lack of organization, so
this year each week has a theme, Online Security, Windows, Linux,
Mac, Auctions, Shopping, Cooking, Pranks, Hardware, Fun Projects,
etc. The pages will be tabbed so you can quickly get to the subject
you want. The focus is on Windows XP and Mac OS X with some
Unix/Linux in there for good measure.

There's also a chapter of stats and graphs, a phone book of
resources, and a pretty killer glossary, one of the best tech
glossaries I've ever seen, and I can say that because I didn't write
it. A very talented freelancer named Mike Miller did the back
chapters. All told the book should be nearly 500 pages and much more
like an almanac than last year. I think there's something for
everyone on nearly every page.

Amazon has already started taking orders for it. I have a direct link
at http://leoville.com/book and I get a little extra if you buy it
through there, thanks to the Amazon associates program. So tell all
your friends to go to leoville.com/book ok?

I really appreciate all the support I've received through the message
boards and in my email. It helped a lot to know people are looking
forward to the book. It also gave me the energy to make every single
page just right. I know it's going to be a valuable resource and lots
of fun to read. This is the book I've always wanted to write.

I'll be back on The Screen Savers on Monday, July 8, as scheduled. I
hope I can remember how to talk again. It's been an exhausting, exhilarating,
amazing five weeks.

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report subscribers!

Some important news. I'm taking the month of June off to write the next
edition of the Almanac. The details are in my latest blog posting:

http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/005525.shtml#005525

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s a beautiful day in New York City, a little breezy but a balmy 75
degrees. I just had brunch with my long time director, Chris Adair, and
her husband Marty. Chris directed both Call for Help and The Screen
Savers for years. She left us last November to take over NewsNight with
Aaron Brown for CNN. She’s doing so well in the Big Apple, like other
former TechTVers, Kate Botello, and our beloved booker, Casey Fisher.
It’s good to see that there’s life after TechTV. In Chris’s case a
pretty good life, too!

After brunch I visited the National Museum of National History – it’s
incredible. I can’t wait to take the kids there the next time I come
out.

I’m in town to do two pieces for World News Now, ABC’s overnight
newscast. I’ll tape both at around 11p tonight, one for air tomorrow
around 3am, the other for a month later. It looks like I’ll be doing
this every other month from now on. I brought some very cool new gadgets
to show including:

Panasonic SV-AV10 mini video camera
http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/ewear/default.asp

Sony, Clie NR70V Palm PDA with keyboard, MP3 player, and camera built in.
http://www.sonystyle.com/vaio/clie/nr70_index.shtml

POGO, Flipster, portable Windows media player
http://www.pogoproducts.com/flipster.html

Good Technology, G100 Blackberry killer
http://www.good.com/goodproducts/g100.html

Motorola, v70 cell phone beautiful new style with swivel cover
http://commerce.motorola.com/consumer/QWhtml/v70.html

Tomy, Bit Char-G mini RC Cars
http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/TechieMon/bitchar-g.html

Wave Industries, Olympia Soundbug turns any flat surface into a microphone
http://www.soundbug-us.com/

Handspring, Treo 270 color PDA/cell phone
http://www.handspring.com/products/treo270/index.jhtml?sub_nav_section=Overview&\
prod_cat_name=Treo270

Logitech, Pocket Digital credit card sized digital camera
http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3384303,00.html

This visit I’m trying a new hotel in the Upper West Side – closer to
ABC, and just across the street from the museum. I picked the hotel
because it claimed to have high-speed Internet access. Hah! Their idea
of broadband is Web TV. There’s no way to hook up my laptop.

Fortunately, I brought a little program along called MacStumbler,
http://homepage.mac.com/macstumbler/ , a port of the netstumbler program,
http://www.netstumbler.com/ . It searches out 802.11b or WiFi wireless
networks. I stuck my iBook out the window and found not one but two,
unprotected connections. You’d be amazed how many of these there are.
I’m finding that I can get online almost anywhere. I’m “borrowing” one
of the connections to post this. I have to sit near the window, but
otherwise it works great. I guess the hotel does have high-speed
Internet access after all!

I’m flying back tomorrow morning, but instead of going to the studio I’m
going home to take a one month sabbatical. That’s right, I’ll be off the
air until July 8! My publisher came to me last Thursday and asked to
move the publication date back two weeks to September 1, which means
they need a completed manuscript by July 1. I told them I could only do
it if I took the entire month of June off, never expecting that to
happen. But it turns out that the book is very important to TechTV, and
they really want to get the benefit of the promotion (and resulting
sales) that can happen if the book ships by 9/1, so they agreed to do
it.

I’ll be using two weeks of my vacation time, and a two-week sabbatical I
earned in 2000 but never took. In order to make the deadline I’ll have
to write about 7,000 words a day. This blog entry is just under 700
words so multiply by 10! Fortunately, I’m seldom at a loss for words
(have you noticed?) and much of the material comes from stuff I and
others have already written for the TechTV web site. It’s going to be
like pulling 30 consecutive all-nighters nonetheless. Come July 8 you’re
going to see a guy very anxious to get back on TV!

Well I’d better post this and give Mr. Hartmann back his WiFi
connection. I’ve got to run out and get a slice of pizza and then come
back and rehearse for my segment tonight. It’s my last day of freedom
before I have to get down to it and start writing. I’ll try to post once
in a while, but you’ll understand if you don’t hear a lot from me until
next month. Wish me luck!

Leo

Hi, Laporte Report subscribers.

The car is coming for me at six tomorrow morning and it's off to St.
Louis for our appearance on Saturday. Paul Block, Screen Savers
Executive Producer, and I are leaving early so we can schmooze with
the cable execs at a Cardinals-Reds game at Busch Stadium Friday
night. I'm so stoked to be able to add another ballpark to my
collection. Patrick (who is not a baseball or schmooze fan) will
stick around to do the show then fly out on a red-eye.

Just as long as he gets to Missouri in time to take me to the
Steak 'n' Shake for breakfast.

Don't tell Jennifer, but there's been big flooding in the area all
week. The Mississippi river crested yesterday at its highest point
since 1927! The current weather report calls for sunny skies for our
appearance at the Ballwin CompUSA Saturday. I am looking forward to
seeing so many of you there.

We had around 800 people show up last time, so get there early.
We're leaving right at 1p to catch a flight back to the Bay Area and
won't have any time to meet stragglers. This is the first time
Paul's been to a Screen Savers appearance, and he's anxious to talk
with as many real viewers about the show as possible. Tell him what
you like, and don't like. It's your best chance to influence the
show.

See you in St. Louis!

Hello, Laporte Report subscribers...

Although there won't be much of a celebration on-air - I'm on
vacation and The Screen Savers are taking a dark day today -
Saturday, May 11, is the fourth anniversary of the launch of TechTV
(and The Screen Savers and Call for Help).

In past years the company has thrown big parties to celebrate, but
this year, in the aftermath of two big layoffs, we're not doing
much. Only half of the original staff members are still around. Many
of the launch shows are gone. We've even lost some key markets in
Las Vegas and New Jersey.

There are some things to celebrate, though. The total number of
subscribers continues to grow. More than 30 million households get
TechTV now, which makes us a viable cable network. And we did very
well in the April ratings book:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9, 2002 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- TechTV, the
only 24-hour cable television network dedicated to showcasing the
impact technology has on our everyday lives and the world at large,
delivers cable's highest concentration of Adults 18-49 and Men 25-
54. Based on monthly data now available from Nielsen Media Research,
TechTV ranked #1 for Men 25-54 and Adults 18-49 in VPVH (Viewer per
1000 Viewing Households) for the month of April. TechTV's VPVH of
870 for Adults 18-49 and of 627 for Men 25-54 ranked it above all
other cable networks in April.

It's not the same as being #1 in the ratings, but it should help us
win some advertising buys.

So happy birthday, TechTV. It's been a long strange trip, with many
twists. I feel a lot older than when I started (and I look it, too).
But I still believe in our core mission: to empower people through
technology. There's a long way to go still on that front, and TechTV
continues to lead the way.

Hello Laporte Report subscribers. Happy Derby Day!

I realized that it's been too long since I've posted here when my
mom complained. OK, mom, and the rest of you, here's what's up with
me.

Mostly I haven't posted here because I've been working on the book.
The first 25% was due on Wednesday and I'm far from done. We have a
hard deadline of July 15 to get the book into stores in time for the
big back to school selling season.

Also I'm just plain lazy.

Lots of things have happened since my last entry. TechTV laid off
another 50 people. We must be down to under 400 employees now. Still
huge, but a lot smaller than our peak. Most of the layoffs were on
the TechLive side, but The Screen Savers suffered, too. We lost
Starr and Fatty Matty, our jibcam operator, a wonderful production
assistant, Allison Pickard, and our director, Miriam. Layoffs suck.
But I understand the need to save money in the aftermath of the tech
crash. I know the people who lost their jobs will do just fine, but
I'm going to miss them.

Fortunately, The Screen Savers is as successful as ever. We haven't
received the ratings from April, yet, but rumor has it they're even
stronger than we had hoped. We're still looking at building a new
set in the next few months - it's about time - and Cat is moving to
Call for Help, but otherwise the show won't change much.

On the home front we're planning a summer vacation in August in
Wyoming's Grand Tetons. I'm taking a week off now and two weeks in
June, but it's not really vacation. It's for the book. That and
Abby's Peter Pan performance next week. I need to be around to
chauffeur her to the long tech rehearsals between now and then.

I've had a good break from all the travelling I did late last year,
but it's about to pick up again. ABC has asked me to do monthly
appearances on World News Now, their overnight newscast. I'll
probably go to New York City every other month and tape two at once.
Since I can tape on Sunday night for a Monday AM airing, I won't
miss any Screen Savers episodes. I'll try to squeeze in a Regis
appearance while I'm out there, too. That will probably start in
early June.

Patrick and I are going to St Louis in a couple of weeks, then we're
booked for Baltimore and Prince Georges sometime in September, and
Lousiville and Birmingham in November. Dates and locations still to
be determined.

Let's see, what else. The goats and lambs are doing great, but
they're not eating the grass on the farm and it's starting to look
like a jungle here, so I'm going to have to break out the weed
whacker, high weed mower, and other power tools to duel to the death
with the tall green stuff. Abby says we should get a horse, because
they eat great quantities of grass. I can't say neigh, so we'll
probably get one sooner or later.

Well, enough procrastinating. Back to the book. Hope you're
satisfied mom... and everyone else. I'll blog again soon. Promise.

Hi, Laporte Report subscribers.

One of the keys to computer security is monitoring key system files to see if
they've been secretly modified. (See the <a
href="http://www.cert.org/security-improvement/implementations/i002.01.html"
target=_blank>CERT note</a> for more information.) To that end I  run a nifty
little utility from <a href="http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/"
target=_blank>Brian Hill</a> called Checkmate on my Macs. Last night Checkmate
found traces of an intruder on my iBook.

Three files had recently been changed: sshd, slogin, and du. The first two are
for secure login to my system, the last is a unix tool called disk usage, used
to check how full the drives are. An innocuous (and little used) system file
like du is a good place for a hacker to store a trojan horse program. Modifying
sshd and slogin is a well-known way to capture the root password (see <a
href="http://206.117.28.84/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=bugs&Number=19\
304&page=&view=&sb=&o=" target=_blank>Mike Chandler's post</a> on the message
boards). I hadn't changed either program recently, nor had any system updates.
The modified files were clear evidence of an intrusion on my system.

There was no evidence of tampering in the system logs (no surprise there - any
hacker worth his salt would have fixed that), but I quickly changed all my
passwords, replaced the affected system files, and checked all my security
settings.

What surprises me is that I have always considered this system to be basically
secure. I run the built-in FreeBSD firewall, ipfw, on it all the time. I used
Brian Hill's Brickhouse (http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/) to configure
it and I'm pretty sure I tightened everything down. At home it's sitting behind
two NAT servers, my Linksys router and an Airport which should make the system
hard to see on the net. At work it's on the firewall protected corporate net (no
idea how secure THAT is however - I know of at least one successful hack on it -
but I have to think it's at least as secure as my own system). My iBook passes
the ShieldsUp test (https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) with flying colors (all
green). nmap (http://www.insecure.org/nmap) shows all ports closed.

The weak link is the Airport wireless network. I can only think that someone got
in through the wireless LAN either at home or, more likely, at the studio.
802.11b security is notoriously weak (http://online.securityfocus.com/news/192).
But I use Airport everywhere and I'm just not willing to stop. (OK I'm a
wireless LAN addict - I admit it.)

I probably should reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch,
but it's just too much work. There's nothing on here that's particularly
private, and the firewall prevents the system from being used in a DDOS attack
(http://www.denialinfo.com/). So I'm just going to continue as before, making
regular backups of my data, and keeping an eye out for other suspicious
activity.

I guess the moral of all this is that, even with reasonable precautions, any
system is hackable. I don't think the average user can be expected to do more
than run a firewall and cross his fingers. And that means that hackers will
continue to have free run of the net. We'll just have to learn to live with
them. Like cockroaches. But it's good to remember that they're out there, and
that there are some things we all need to do to keep them at least a little in
check.

Hi, Laporte Report subscribers.

Here's a new blog entry from Leoville:

http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000317.shtml#000317

The sweetest words in the English language are "catchers and
pitchers report."

Even sweeter, I'm on my way to Scottsdale with my seven year-
old son for Spring Training. OK it's not really for Spring Training,
but I am doing a talk and book signing at the Scottsdale Arts
Festival on Sunday, so I decided to go down a day early to watch
a Giants game (I hope I can get tickets - they're sold out!).

I used to work at the Giants flagship radio station, KNBR in San
Francisco. In fact, I was the president of the station's Giants fan
club when the Giants won the pennant in the earthquake year,
1989. The station did shows from Scottsdale's Pink Pony
restaurant every Spring, but I was always stuck at home. In fact,
I've never been to Spring Training. I can't wait!

Henry's pretty darn excited, too. He's looking forward to the
game, but he's more interested in whether the hotel has a pool
and video games in the room. His idea of a perfect vacation is
room service and Super Mario Brothers.

He is more interested in baseball these days since we
discovered he can really wallop the ball. I've been pitching tennis
balls to him to prep for his coach pitch league which starts next
month and the kid is a natural. Figures. I guess athletic ability
skips generations. My dad was a pretty fair ball-player in college,
and I have no skills at all. But I do love the game and can't wait to
share a warm spring day in Arizona with my boy.

Hello Laporte Report subscribers...

I've decided to try setting up a little Leoville store with a few
items people have asked me for. I've got an autographed mug in
there, boxer shorts, sweatshirts, and so on. I can't put copyrighted
TechTV images on it, so there's no Screen Savers mug - even though
that would be a bestseller - but there's some other fun stuff.

The store is powered by Café Press. They do all the printing and
fulfillment, for which they take the lion's share of the money, but
I'll make a few bucks per item.

Let me know how you like the quality of the items, and if there's
any other Leoville merchandise you'd like to see in there.

The link is http://www.cafepress.com/leoville.

Happy shopping!

Leo

Our new lambs are arriving today. I'll put up the Lamb Cam so you can see them.
(Please keep your eyes peeled for predators, too. They're very small and we're
worried about dogs and coyotes going after them.) The lambs are still on the
bottle. They're bummers - lambs that were rejected by their mothers. These are 
Suffolks and are quite cute I'm told.

After a brief hiatus, it's back on the road for me. Next week I'm going to
Arizona for the Scottsdale Arts Festival
(http://www.scottsdalearts.org/sca/sfa.asp) . I'll be talking and signing books
(if they can get any - they're in short supply) on Sunday.

I'm returning to Scottsdale on April 29 to give the keynote at the ITactics 2002
conference (http://www.itactics2002.com/). If you're a computer training or help
desk professional I hope you'll attend.

And Patrick and I have scheduled a personal appearance in St. Louis on May 18.
We'll probably be at the same CompUSA we went to last year. That was the best
attended event we've ever done, with nearly 2000 fans, so I look forward to some
fun this time. And Steak 'n' Shake, too.

Hi, Laporte Report subscribers.

Happy Valentine's Day Week/Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year/Lincoln's
Birthday!

I've got two new blog postings for you from Leoville...
_______________________________________________________________

http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000295.shtml#000295

February 12, 2002
Darn all spammers to heck!
(11:52 AM)  Category: Leoville

Several of you have emailed me about a spam message you've received
with the subject line:

Fw: http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/

I have also received that spam message. The company sending it out,
www.trafficbbs.com, is spamming - they have nothing to do with me.
Apparently they're harvesting addresses from blog comments. I will
attempt to get them to stop but I don't have high hopes. The company
slogan is:

Offer you great data of 50,000+ search engines & 120,000+ BBS!
Present you to a magic world of instant & effective online
communication!

And there's no phone number on the web page. Just a fax number.

These things happen all the time. The best defense is to not use
your email address anywhere on the web. As long as a page is
publicly accessible, a spammer can harvest the addresses.

Since most of the time they use automated programs to do the
harvesting, it's possible to use a human readable address that
confounds the robots. Something like:

leo at (die spammers die) leoville.com

I'm sorry that that's necessary, but that's the way of the web, alas.

_______________________________________________________________

http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000294.shtml#000294

Saturday, February 09, 2002
Net Facts (09:45 AM)  Category: Links

I was looking at my list of referrals (something new I added to the
front page, http://www.leoville.com/referrals.shtml, mostly as a little Perl
project) and I noticed a link
from NetFactual.com. (http://www.netfactual.com) Turns out they were
probing my site as part of a study they're doing on every first page
on the web!

The site itself is kind of interesting if you like Internet
factoids. Did you know that 71.8% of web sites are active? Or
that .NET is the fastest growing top level domain? Kind of a fun
site. I look forward to seeing the results of their latest survey.

Leo

_______________________________________________________________

((((((((((((((((((((((((( Leoville Blog Update )))))))))))))))))))))))))

                            February  7, 2002


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Can I say it again? I LOVE WiFi.

My daughter has been cast in a community theater production of <a
href="http://www.thetownplayers.com/" target=_blank>Peter Pan</a>. She
will play two roles: Jane, Wendy Darling's daughter, whom Peter spirits
off at the end of the play, and a Lost Boy

Unfortunately, the theater -- and the twice weekly rehearsals -- are in
San Anselmo, about midway between San Francisco and our home in Sonoma
county. Abby is awfully excited about doing it, and Jennifer and I are
both thwarted actors, so we couldn't very well say no, even though it
involves a lot of extra driving. We've arranged it that Jennifer will
drive Abby down and drop her off. Then I'll pick her up on my way home
from work. But she has to rehearse until 9p. I'm pretty good at killing
time, but it does mean a couple of extra hours with nothing to do.
That's where the WiFi comes in.

I brought my iBook to the first rehearsal this evening, and, as usual,
I checked for an open Airport network in the rehearsal building. Lo and
behold, there was one! I'm using it now. I have no idea whose it is,
and I suppose I should try and find out, but it's awfully nice to have
high-speed Internet access while I wait.

I and many others have a dream of free WiFi access everywhere. And,
oddly enough, it's more common than I would have ever thought. I've
been able to use my Airport equipped iBook in all sorts of unexpected
places. <a href="http://www.bawug.org target=_blank>The San Francisco
Bay Area Wireless Users Group</a> maintains a <a
href="http://www.toaster.net/wireless/aplist.php" target=_blank>list of
OpenNAPs</a>, freely shared WiFi access points, all over the area. If
you've never experienced the joy of unexpected, unconnected Internet
access, I can highly recommend it.


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                            February  4, 2002


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Obviously my unwholesome obsession with my book's ranking at Amazon.com
isn't unusual. In fact, there's an entire web site devoted to authors'
unwholesome obsessions with their Amazon ranking. <a
href="http://www.amazonscan.com/" target=_blank>Amazonscan.com</a>
tracks your book, video tape, or tchotchke over time. And even ranks
the top gainers and losers each day. Like a stock ticker.

My <a href="http://www.amazonscan.com/index.cfm?asin=0789726912"
target=_blank>personal page</a> shows the hour by hour ranking of my
book since it shipped on December 5. But that's just not enough. I need
a chart.

<center><img alt="chart.jpg"
src="http://www.leoville.com/mt/images/chart.jpg" width="450"
height="337" border="0" /></center>

I'm guessing the high peaks after Christmas and 1/12 occurred when
Amazon ran out of stock. But I love how it's hovered below 40 ever
since. Hey. I'm not getting any money for this book. I've got to get my
jollies somehow.

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                            February  1, 2002


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The Executive Producer of a TV show is the man in charge. He determines
the direction and style of the show and manages the staff. For a long
time The Screen Savers didn't even have an EP. But for the past year
we've been very fortunate to have Paul Block in charge. He's a TV
veteran who worked for everyone from Johnny Carson to George Hamilton.
And he is one of the few people I'd trust with my show.

We work very well together. While I'm totally oriented toward the geek,
he's a very positive influence to making the show more accessible to
everyone. Under his command we've more than quadrupled our audience.
And I Paul and I both intend to take TSS to the top.

And now I've convinced Paul to start his own blog! I'm hosting it here
on Leoville. I expect Paul will use it to share his thinking about the
show with you and to give you a chance to give him feedback. We're both
really excited about the possibilites and I know you will come to like
and respect Paul as much as I do. Make sure to ask him about his past -
he's got some great stories.

So please bookmark Paul Blog, http://www.leoville.com/paul, and stop by
regularly. I have a feeling it's going to be a really fun place to visit.

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                            February  1, 2002


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Leoville went down earlier today for a few hours. It was out yesterday
for about an hour, too. I contacted my excellent web host, <a
href="http://www.nacio.com" target=_blank>Nacio</a>, and they brought
it back. Here's what they said...

<blockquote><i>
We have noticed that 2 IP addresses are consistently opening and not
closing connections to your website: 12.xx.xx.xxx and 172.xx.xx.xxx.
On average, each IP will have 60 open TCP sessions on a 24/7 basis.
Are you familiar with these IPs?  If not, we may look in to blocking
them, as their irregular activity may be part of the problem.

Also, we have been monitoring the disk usage on your site.  Currently
you are using 1.5GB total--roughly 1.4GB being your discussion board.
As you are on a shared webserver--geared toward smaller 40 - 80MB
sites--we were hoping that you could remove some content from your
site.  Would 500MB be sufficient, or do you need more?
</i></blockquote>

I asked them to block the two IP addresses and that's seemed to help.
I'm going to have to cut back on the disk usage, too. Obviously the
boards have gotten way out of control. I'm pruning older content and
I'll probably cut the max file size to 50kb. Sorry to have to do that,
but I really would like to keep this site running!

On another note, I've been playing with <a href="http://scripting.com/"
target=_blank>Dave Winer's</a> new <a href="http://radio.userland.com/"
target=_blank>Radio</a> blogging software and I have to say it's
wonderful. I'm sticking with <a href="http://www.movabletype.org"
target=_blank>Movable Type</a>, but for anyone who wants to create
their own web site without having to struggle with the tech this is it.
It finally fulfills the web's promise to be the people's publishing
platform. You can read the temporary blog I set up to play with it at
<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0102957/"
target=_blank>Weblog.com</a>. It literally took me 10 minutes to get it
up and running. And it's free for 30 days - $40 for a year including
the web hosting. If you've been thinking about blogging try Radio.

While playing with Radio, I noticed that the link to <a
href="http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=referrer"
target=_blank>referrers</a> is misspelled on the admin page. No blame
to Dave Winer for this. The misspelling dates back to the original <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/HTRQ_Headers.html#z14"
target=_blank>HTTP spec</a> which also misspells referrers as
"referers."

This ancient error caused me endless confusion when I was writing my
own Perl referers routine (it's running on Leoville now. To see the
most recent 20 referring pages click <a
href="http://www.leoville.com/refpr.shtml" target=_blank>here</a>). The
program failed at first because I kept spelling referrers correctly. It
took me a while to figure out where I was going wrong.

But the misspelling poses an interesting problem. Do you perpetuate it,
as Dave has done, in public, or do you continue to spell it correctly
while using the non-traditional spelling inside your programs? I chose
the latter route on the front page of Leoville, but I might be in the
minority.

In fact, this is exactly how a language evolves. I suppose, in time,
"referers" will become the correct spelling, all thanks to a small
spelling error at the W3C.

Even though programmers are notoriously bad spellers, I can't think of
another instance where a misspelling has become enshrined in a spec.
Can you?

And you can bet I spell checked this post before submitting it.


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                             January 28, 2002


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I woke up this morning to screams from the kids. It snowed overnight.
Now for those of you in the rest of the country, there's nothing
unusual about that, but for us Californians this is a real shocker! I
can only remember one other snowfall in 30 years and it was a very
light dusting.  This, as you can see from the picture is several inches.

[click the link above to see the picture]

Everything looks so beautiful. We were having a snowball fight at 5am.
Best of all. No school. It's a snow day. The first EVER. Too bad TV
doesn't take snow days.

((((((((((((((((((((((((( Leoville Blog Update )))))))))))))))))))))))))

                             January 27, 2002

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http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000279.shtml#000279
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It's a long story.

We used to store all our wardrobe at the studios on a little mezzanine
built when we first produced "The Site" for MSNBC. The mezzanine
started as the executive suite, although it could accomodate no more
than 40 svelte execs. More than that and it would tumble to the ground,
crushing the poor producers beneath.

When we rennovated the studio for ZDTV we gutted the executive offices
and turned the mezzanine into an uneasy cross between storage space and
dressing rooms. I had about 20 feet of wacky shirts stored up there and
two well broken in pairs of Doc Martens, one brown and one black.

Those are my shirts on the right. Late last year the powers that be,
hereinafter referred to as TPTB, decided to completely take over the
space for storage. They told all us to take our clothes home. Now I
don't know about you, but I don't have 20 feet of closet space just
waiting to be filled. After a little fussing TBTB agreed to give me
some space at our offices in the Townsend building (a 10 minute ride
away from the studios).

When moving day arrived I grabbed a few shirts and a pair of shoes so
that I'd have something to wear, then everything else was boxed up and
carried over to Townsend. Unfortunately, the "pair" of shoes I grabbed
were both right feet, one brown one black. But I didn't notice this
because I went to do Regis and then on vacation. By the time I got back
the other pair of left feet had been donated to Goodwill. I hope that
the poor colorblind person with two left feet who purchased my old
shoes enjoys them as much as I did.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck without any footwear. Well I've finally found
their replacements today. Introducing my new TSS shoes!

They're on fire. I also got a pair of black wingtip Tredairs but
they're not as photogenic. They're really big though. They kind of look
like black wingtip clown shoes. Just right for the geek image I want to
project. I'll wear them on Monday.

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                             January 24, 2002


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I've concluded yet another whirlwind tour of New York - my fifth
since August. I flew in on Monday night for rehearsal for Live
with Regis and Kelly on Tuesday. I usually stay in the theater
district, but this time I decided to try a hotel within walking
distance of the ABC studios. I stayed at the ultra-trendy Hudson
hotel. This place is so with it there's no sign out front. Just
a big yellow facade with an eternal flame and a doorman in black
slacks, white shirt, skinny black tie, and black pullover. The
room was teensy - little bigger than the double bed - but the
design is exquisite. I brought a video camera to put up a
spycam, but the hotel didn't have the advertised high-speed
access in the rooms, so I didn't set it up. If I had you would
have seen the lovely wood-paneling and the table lamps with
people's faces on them. You would also have seen me trying to
squeeze past the toilet to get to the shower. The bathroom was
the size of my closet at home. Literally. Next time it's the
Tribeca Grand. I don't mind small rooms, but I've got to have my
high-speed Internet access!

The folks at Live neglected to tell me Regis was on vacation. I
guess they have to keep it a secret or guests would bow out. It
was a disappointment, but Kelly was very nice (she kissed me
twice!) and it was interesting to meet her husband, Mark
Consuelos, who was filling in for Reeg. The real disappointment
was that I had 13 items to show and they only gave me four
minutes to do it. I really had to hustle to try to get them all
in, and I still missed a few. But the producers loved it and
said I can come back any time. I think it'll probably end up
being something I do every three months.

The real bonus on this trip was a visit next door to the ABC
news studios. At the last minute TechTV PR had booked an
interview for me on World News Now, ABC's overnight show. I went
over Tuesday afternoon and got a tour of the facility, including
the mailslots where the anthrax was found, the World News
Tonight set, and Peter Jennings's emergency staircase from his
desk to the studio, for breaking stories. The highlight? I got
to meet Peter Jennings and show him a couple of products. When I
was doing Tech Live I studied Jennings - he's the best anchor on
TV - so it was a real thrill meeting him. I tried not to gush.
He sits in a place they call The Rim. It's a big round table
with seats for the upper-level news editors. Each has a computer
workstation behind him. Jennings was sitting there, right out in
the open, working at his terminal. I showed him the Guy keyboard
with keys layed out for hunt and peck typists, and Sony's new
tiny Handycam. He played with the Sony for a while and really
liked it. (Note to Sony: send Peter a camera.)

I taped the interview with WNN's anchor, Alison Stewart, at
around midnight for airing at 2:30am. It was a good interview
and I had plenty of time for the six items I had brought.
They've posted the video on their web site.
(http://abcnews.go.com/onair/popoff/WorldNewsNow/
020123wnn_laporte_popoff/index.html) I think I'll be doing more
with World News Now. They're very interested in tech, and the
Executive Producer is a real fan of The Screen Savers. She even
owned a copy of my book! They gave me a big plug for the book on
the web site. Thanks, Sharon!

I flew back last night and got in late.  Fortunately, no one
noticed the taser in my checked bags. Darci had put a big sign
on the case saying "this is not a toy." I had visions of being
dragged off in handcuffs. I tried to declare it but no one
seemed to know what I was talking about.

These trips are still a lot of fun, but to be honest, I hope I
don't have to go back to NYC for at least a couple of months. I
love New York, but I'm looking forward to staying home for a
little while. I miss my bed, and I miss The Screen Savers!

((((((((((((((((((((((((( Leoville Blog Update )))))))))))))))))))))))))

                             January 19, 2002

Hello, Laporte Report Subscribers!

There are two new postings on the Blog. The first is a pictorial of the Yoshi
Taser incident. The second is a longish posting describing the perl program I
wrote to keep track of the sales rank of my new book on Amazon.com.

Incidentally the book is selling like gangbusters. I'm #10 on Amazon's computer
book bestsellers list and my sales rank has soared to as high as #6. Thanks to
all who have bought the book! I've already started work on the next edition.

Also, I'll be back on Live with Regis and Kelly this week, for the third time in
three months. Tune in at 9am on January 23 to see the best of CES. I should be
on around 9:30a. Check your local listings for the channel.

Leo

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http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000272.shtml#000272

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                             January 17, 2002


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Bulletin: We're going to have a taser on the show tonight. Yoshi has
agreed to take a hit for the show. And it's not even sweeps week!

Tonight on the Screen Savers, 7p Eastern, 6p Central.

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                             January 12, 2002


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http://www.leoville.com/mt/archives/000264.shtml#000264



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Two trade shows in three days. Wow.

It started Wednesday with MacWorld Expo. As mentioned here in an
earlier post, I led a panel with Apple’s Ken Bereskin on Mac OS X
Secrets. The panel went very well with a full house of about 200
people. We got to about half our tips in 90 minutes. Since we didn’t
have a handout of all the tips, I made the mistake of promising that
I would put them up on the web. So I’ll be spending some time doing
that this weekend. And you’ll probably be seeing many of the tips on
The Screen Savers eventually. There were some really cool ones.

We also covered a few key applications we really liked. Ken
introduced me to a little utility for OS X (originally written for
NextStep, OS X’s grandpappy) called <a
href="http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/"
target=_blank>LaunchBar</a>. LaunchBar gives you access to any
program, file, URL, or e-mail address on your computer in just a
couple of keystrokes. Your hands never leave the keyboard. Command-
Space starts the program then you enter the first few letters of the
name of the item you want to open. LaunchBar narrows the options down
as you type. It’s the most efficient way of working with a computer
I’ve ever seen. I wish there were a version for Windows. Wouldn’t be
too hard to write. Hint, hint.

I didn’t get much time at MacWorld Expo, but it was obvious that the
new Macs, a revitalized Apple, and OS X have really awakened the Mac
world. This show was noticeably more exciting than any in the past
five years. More importantly for the company, Apple is winning
converts for the first time in a long time with slick looking
products like the new iMac, leading edge technology like the DVD-RW
Superdrive, and, finally, competitive prices.  OS X is UNIX with a
pretty face – and power users love it.

On Thursday I flew to Las Vegas to catch the last two days of the
Consumer Electronics Show, CES. CES is starting to eclipse Comdex as
the most important technology show of the year. It was huge this
year, filling the one million square foot Las Vegas Convention center
with 15,000 new products. I was struck this year by how digital tech
is changing consumer electronics.

This year, as last, TechTV sponsored the Best of CES awards. There
was quite a battle over the Best of Show award with the judges evenly
split over the <a href="http://www.danger.com/products.html"
target=_blank>HipTop cell phone/PDA from Danger</a> and the <a
href="http://www.moxi.com/home.htm"  target=_blank>Moxi Media
Center</a>.

The HipTop is the size of a deck of playing cards and combines a GSM
cell phone, GPRS data for web surfing and e-mail and a full elegant
PDA with a keyboard and flip up screen. You can synch the PDA with
the web over the GRPS link. It even comes with a tiny camera for
sending still pictures over the network. One of the big cell phone
providers will offer the HipTop this Spring for around $200. Only
AT&amp;T, Cingular, and Voicestream offer GSM in the US, and only
AT&amp;T offers both GSM and GPRS so my guess is that their deal is
with AT&amp;T Wireless, but Danger’s not saying.  The judges awarded
the runner-up prize to Danger, but it was a tough call.

The Best of CES winner was the Moxi Media Center. And rightly so. It
combines all the functionality of a Tivo with a DVD player and CD
ripper. You can store a ton of TV and music on the 80 GB hard drive,
and best of all, with the little wireless remote units you can watch
video or listen to your MP3s anywhere in the house. Moxi uses the new
802.11a wireless networking that can do 20-30 mbits per second.
Echostar will offer Moxis for the DISH network (and presumably
DirecTV if the sale goes through) by the end of the year.

All I can say is that I plan to buy both the HipTop and Moxi when
they’re available later this year.  Very cool.