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Page 12      Diablo Blue      September, 2001

Much to everyone's displeasure, the User Group Discussion lists have been losing subscribers left and right due to the recent influx of spam.
Spammers have become ultra high-tech, and in many ways are even more sophisticated than the porno sites -- who have always been the first to utilize the most maleficent techniques on the web.
One such technique is trolling the web with email address harvesters carefully configured to capture addresses for subscribing to lists. The spam engines are then programmed for a three-step, automated, spam routine that subscribes the spammer, sends the spam, and then unsubscribes the spammer.
By the time the list moderator discovers the spam, it's too late. Only those lists carefully moderated have had any degree of blocking spam at all. And, moderated lists add anywhere from one to five days before the post is public. For many "announce" oriented lists, that's okay. But for discussion lists, you need an immediate response.
Now, the User Group TALK list, the UG Rumors list, and the UG Announcements list are all PRIVATE. Those wishing to subscribe are required to do so via the online form now in place. The original "On/Off" direct subscribe/unsubscribe have been eliminated.

The 3M™ Renaissance™ Mouse is a new, ergonomically designed input device that helps reduce stress to the nerve in the carpal tunnel and to the muscles in the user's arm. Unlike the traditional palm-down posture of most input devices, the "handshake" design of the 3M™ Renaissance™ Mouse has been clinically proven to reduce the muscle strain and discomfort associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injury. Users can choose the size of the mouse most appropriate for their hand and can work both easily and comfortably for hours. The Renaissance™ Mouse is compatible with PC, Macintosh, and iMac computers with USB ports, and comes with a USB to PS/2 mouse adapter and PC software (though it works with the standard Microsoft mouse driver). Price is about $48.00.

War! Nothing new there, it's been with us forever, but the war front that is relatively new in electronic marketing is the skirmish in the DVD [Digital Versatile Disk] field. I mean, where you can get an affordable DVD writable or rewritable disk drive? You can now get one that will hold 9.4 GB double-sided. Sounds great, so what is impeding the spread of this innovation? "COMPATIBILITY." And cost enters in, too. There are three systems duking it out:                                           
DVD-RAM: Panasonic, Hitachi, JVC, Toshiba, Samsung.
DVD+RW: Dell, Phillips Electronics, Sony, Ricoh, Yamaha Corp.
DVD-RW: Pioneer, Sony.
The latter system was the DVD that Apple's Mr. Jobs was touting at one of his latest "Mac" introductions. Sony is also on board with this one too. Sony is not quite sure which will be a winner, and is riding two ponies at once, DVD-RW and DVD+RW.
This is the general outline of the ongoing foray that has not quite meshed yet, but there are other items that enter in, such as media, types of data, movies, music, etc., but these things overlap so much that they are not quite a major hold back.
So, unless you are rich enough to enter the fray now, you will just have to watch from the sidelines. Like me.