Byte by Bite

SketchUp – Free 3D modeling program from Google

by Marv Dealy

PC World calls SketchUp “Google’s Latest Cool Free Download,” and it is, according to Harry McCracken “the latest example of a happy, booming software trend: Google or Yahoo buys an innovative small company which makes a for-pay product, and quickly releases a cool free version of its software.” (http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/001942.html)

McCracken adds that there’s a heavy-duty industrial-strength version available for professionals for about $500, and the free version only works on Windows right now but Mac versions are on the way.

I’ve not really fiddled with many 3D drawing programs, but this sounded like it could be interesting, and the free price tag from Google fit my software testing budget. At the Google site (http://sketchup.google.com/) I downloaed the program, all 19.1 MB of it. If you’re on a barbed-wire dial-up connection you’ll want to go to a neighbor or wherever you go to get fast downloads, I’m thinking.

There is a 15-minute (they say) self-guided tour you’ll want to take to learn the basic tools and controls. Naturally, I ignored the tutorial and just started clicking on buttons. Once you’ve learned a few of the tools, find the library of previously rendered buildings, such as the Taj Mahal, the White House and AT&T Stadium. The ability to rotate the 3D images and otherwise manipulate them is amazing. I’m sure this program will turn out to be a real black hole time-wise. Have fun.

Vista Delayed, Again – Reports are circulating that Microsoft will yet again delay the release of the long-awaited replacement for XP. To be called Vista, apparently because its release is too far away to see, reports of additional delays were denied by Microsoft spokespeople.

The update was to have been released in 2005, then 2006, and now some say summer of 2007. In the interim, Apple has released quite a number of important upgrades to its OS. When you combine an aging XP OS with an antique browser such as Internet Explorer, you really are using some old software there, my friend. With fully 1/3 of their revenues stemming from XP sales, one has to wonder what will happen to Microsoft’s overall picture with the continuing delays.

Microsoft to Aquire Yahoo? On the other hand, maybe the reason Vista is so slow in coming to a shelve near you is that Microsoft is busy trying to compete with an ever more aggressive Google, as witnessed by rumors about talks Microsoft has been having with Yahoo about acquiring a major part of the company.

CNNMoney.com reports that as Microsoft has been unable to break into the growing online search and web advertising market on its own, they may be looking to leap frog ahead by acquiring Yahoo. All 23 faithful readers will remember the many attempts Microsoft has made to get its MSN.com to turn into the cash cow that “sponsored links” has proved to be for Google and “sponsored results” for Yahoo. If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em says the man. Read more at http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/technology/microsoft_yahoo/index.htm

No Laptops in Some Classrooms – It’s apparently not uncommon for a student to be sitting in a classroom, apparently studiously pecking away at their laptop, taking notes from the professor’s lecture or working on other projects, when indeed they are using the school’s wireless Internet connection to surf, email, instant message or play online poker. I’ll be danged. You mean students would do that?

Some professors have banned laptops in their classrooms, such as law professor June Entman at the U. of Memphis. According to a story at MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12609580/) law professor Charles Mooney of the U. at Pennsylvania has banned classroom laptops, and Paul Engelking, chemistry professor at the U. of Oregon was disturbed to find his students were gambling online while in his classroom.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that a growing number of schools are blocking student Internet access to students who are in class. (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0504/p16s01-legn.html) Monitor writer Maia Ridberg quotes Professor Don Herzog, law professor at the U. of Michigan: “At any given moment in a law school class, literally 85 to 90 percent of the students were online," Professor Herzog says. "And what were they doing online? They were reading The New York Times; they were shopping for clothes at Eddie Bauer; they were looking for an apartment to rent in San Francisco when their new job started.”

Laptop Comparison – But if you’re going to use a laptop in a classroom (or anywhere else) to play poker during meetings, which one to buy is a good question. The editors at CNET have apparently been watching too much Saturday night boxing, as their comparison between a MacBook Pro and an Acer TravelMate 8200 is staged like an eight-round prize fight. (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6511774-2.html?tag=lnav). The “rounds” cover design, display, features, performance, battery life, software, warranty and support, and price.

I read through the entire review, which includes the inevitable phrase “apples to apples” as in comparing when talking about the Intel-equipped MacBook Pro and the Acer laptop. To save you some time, here’s the scoop: Apple wins in the design, display, and software categories, while the Acer prevails in features, performance, battery life and price. The two laptops tie in warranty and support. PCs still are better gaming machines, by the way, but that gap is closing fast.

The narrow victory for the Acer would have been even closer if Adobe’s universal binary version of its Creative Suite (which includes Photoshop) were available, as the performance of the MacBook Pro running Photoshop on OS X suffered from the fact that it currently uses the Rosetta translation program. Adobe says “in about a year.”

Testers found that when using Apple’s Boot Camp to run with XP and XP-native software they were able to run the same battery of tests that handed the performance victory to Acer and actually got slightly faster results in Photoshop on the Apple. You do have to spend the extra money to get your own copy of Windows XP and a Windows version of Photoshop, not an inexpensive proposition.

While certainly not a “knockout” the Acer did gain a slim victory, although it may be argued that the MacBook Pro’s smaller footprint, elegant design, lighter weight and superior basic software package offsets its shortcomings and higher price.

Firefox Update – If you’re a Firefox user and haven’t updated your browser any time recently, do it now. Mozilla has released 1.5.03 to fix a zero-day vulnerability that could be used to crash the browser or install malicious code. Get information about available updates by starting Firefox, going to Help, and click on Check for Update. Download and install whatever is listed.