Caught In |
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by Al Massey |
"We, the willing, led by the unknowing doing the impossible for the ungrateful have done so much for so long with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."
A couple of programs I have been using for some time have recently attracted the attention of some pretty big players.
A product developed by Carlsbad, CA-based Forte has been named one of the top computer "shareware" programs of 1996 by Ziff-Davis Publishing. Software editors at PC Magazine rated finalists in business, finance and personal productivity, and editors at Computer Gaming World rated games finalists. Forte's "Free Agent" received two honors, Best Internet Program, and the coveted Program of the Year Award for innovation. The Ziff-Davis Shareware Awards were presented on Thursday, June 27, during the Shareware Industry Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.
On the home front, local developer the ForeFront Group announced that their product "GrabNet" has been licensed by none other than Microsoft. Those of you that attended the July General Meeting will recognize GrabNet as one of the products demonstrated by ForeFront's Bill Nguyen. I have gotten a great deal of favorable feedback on Bill's presentation and look forward to hearing more from those ForeFront tricksters.
"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys."
In the "we still don't get it but we're gonna keep trying" department, the Clinton Administration released a statement on encryption technology recently, only to find rivals sniping at the paper before the ink was dry.
"There's nothing new in there," said Matt Raymond, press secretary to Sen. Conrad Burns, R-MT. "There's no new proposal aside from clinging to this dead key escrow."
The Clinton paper said the White House still wants users of electronic scrambling devices to register electronic "keys" with government-licensed bodies that would hand those keys over to law enforcement when authorized to do so through a court order.
Computer and Internet industry officials have generally opposed such plans, however, saying such schemes would jeopardize US leadership in information technology by requiring foreign computer users to surrender keys to their communications to governmental authorities while other, unencumbered systems from abroad grabbed market share.
The White House statement, titled "US Cryptography Policy: Why We Are Taking The Current Approach," is widely perceived as a prelude to administration testimony expected on Capitol Hill later this summer.
"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."
Superscape Inc. released an ActiveX version of its three-dimensional viewer, in conjunction with Microsoft Corp.'s WorldWide Live developers conference. Speaking of the WorldWide Live developers conference, I attended the event on July 16. Advance press releases proclaimed that everyone in attendance would receive a copy of the next Windows 95 release code-named Nashville.
After attending similar Microsoft functions last year when Windows 95 was getting launched I wasn't surprised when they announced that "because of technical difficulties," they would have to supply Nashville at a later date before the end of summer. Right!
One of the things I always like about these events is the "techno-words" I learn. This time I learned 144 new ways to use "absolutely." Absolutely amazing what you can learn at a software show.
At any rate the Viscape viewer will give users access to 3-D World Wide Web sites created with Superscape authoring tools. The Palo Alto, Calif., company currently provides a Viscape plug-in for Netscape Navigator. Visit them at http://www.us.superscape.com/supercity/news.htm.
"Our credit manager is Helen Waite. If you want credit, go to Helen Waite."
It is a "given" that China is going to mean big business for the computer industry, and that there are great profits to be had and long-term partnerships to be made. But, just when visions of greenbacks start dancing in the heads of our marketing wizards along comes Amnesty International to give them a heaping dose of reality.
Amnesty has identified 75 US-based multinational corporations operating in China 15 from the high-tech industry that it believes may be somehow contributing to human rights violations. Amnesty doesn't want to name names, quite yet.
"We're not presuming they're guilty," says Gerald Lemelle, an executive director. "We want to answer some rumors we've heard, and, if they're true, set up a plan for dealing with the violations."
In the past, Amnesty's activities have been confined to monitoring human rights at the civil and political level. Now the organization is beginning to shift attention to the role businesses are playing, knowingly or unknowingly, to perpetuate human rights abuse. Lemelle believes US companies could be more proactive about making sure their companies are on the straight and narrow. The idea, says Lemelle, is to approach the 75 companies on its watch list, brief them on alleged human right violations being perpetuated by their companies or partners, and then work behind closed doors to come up with a solution for solving these issues.
If the companies don't comply? Then, says Lemelle, Amnesty may go public with their names.
"The idea here is to not be adversarial," says Lemelle. "We know that it's tough to do business in China and that these people don't want to jeopardize their hard-fought positions there."
"The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budgetary constraints."
Not too many moons ago Oracle Corp. was touting its "Powerbrowser" as a World Wide Web "killer app." Well, apparently Oracle is finding the truth that many another Internet related company has found before them. The "killer app" trail leading across the techno-desert of the Web is strewn with the bleached bones of those that have tried to kill off Netscape.
The Redwood Shores, CA., company last week licensed 16,000 copies of Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator browser, causing many to wonder where Oracle's own PowerBrowser stands as a World Wide Web client.
"I always question the wisdom of Oracle projecting itself into every niche of the database software ecosystem," said Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at International Data Corp., in Framingham, MA. "There is a terrible penalty to be paid for trying to be all things."
Oracle licensed Netscape because it is the most popular browser on the market, said Oracle officials, who denied that the company is pulling the plug on its own product. Yada, yada, yada, oopsone yada too many.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member.
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