page 15 from 10/08/01 Second MONDAY SECOND at 5:51PM, 10/07/01 by amq

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2001
TECH
TECHNOLOGY FOR INDIVIDUALS
** PAGE 15

end
the
end A Pocket Full of Power
user Microsoft System Upgrade Invigorates Handhelds
By David Pogue nections. At $650 for the whole kit, it is a

L
A voice for the consumer New York Times Service pretty sweet deal.
HP’s Jornada 565, with a built-in flip lid,

Software Spies
ast week was a big one for handheld has sculptured curves suggesting the fine fit
computing nuts, with the debut of and finish of a Lexus. Other goodies include a
Pocket PC 2002, Microsoft Corp.’s Compact Flash slot, a bonus eight megabytes
next-generation operating system for of backup memory and a left-side thumb
pocket computers, as well as the introduction switch for scrolling lists.
Programs to Help You Keep of several palmtops that run it.
Their makers — Compaq Computer Corp.,
The Jornada really shines in the power
department. Its battery not only outlasts its
Toshiba Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. — rivals but is also removable, meaning that you
Track of Hard-Drive Cookies have much to celebrate: They have succeeded
in thinking small. But Microsoft continues to
can travel with a spare when you will be away
for more than a day or two. Unfortunately, you
think big, which is not always a good thing in pay handsomely for these advantages: $600
By Lee Dembart machines with three-inch screens. for the 32-megabyte model, $650 for 64

P
International Herald Tribune The Compaq iPaq once held the crown for megabytes, although a mail-in $50 rebate is
the industry’s best color screen. Now every available until January.
ARIS — As you no doubt know, while you surf the Pocket PC maker uses the same reflective Compaq’s iPaq 3600 has been, by far, the The New York Times
Net minding your own business, many Web sites put technology, which looks spectacular both in- best-selling Pocket PC. On the new 3800, the Making their debut,
‘‘cookies’’ on your hard drive so they can recognize doors and in direct sunlight. speaker is no longer weirdly built into the from left: The Toshiba
you when you come back. These cookie files have These 65,000-color screens still guzzle navigation pad. Instead, it is a shiny black Genio, Compaq iPaq
created a lot of concern about privacy, but the fact is that juice, however. Do not expect to go for weeks grille on the iPaq’s forehead. A black wrap- 3800 and the HP
most of them are useful and harmless. between battery charges, as you can on a gray- around plastic sleeve adds some bulk but Jornada 565.
Then there are ‘‘spyware’’ programs that snoop around scale Palm. Still, the new devices offer some blesses you with a smoky, translucent screen
among your cookies, watch where you go and report on your battery improvement. According to the man- cover. Decked out in this militaristic high-
Web-browsing habits. Advertisers say this allows them to ufacturers, the new Toshiba Genio E, Compaq tech armor, the iPaq could easily be mistaken graphics, and sort your address book by com-
tailor their messages to you and tell you about things that iPaq and HP Jornada can run for 8, 12 or 14 for Darth Vader’s hamster. pany name.
you’re likely to be interested in. hours between charges, respectively. Unfortunately, the iPaq is still expansion- But the biggest new features are aimed at
I’ve never been thrilled about this practice, and one of the Otherwise, the specs are nearly identical. challenged. It now comes with a Secure Di- corporations, where Pocket PC sales enjoy the
reasons I stopped buying books from Amazon.com (besides Each has a speaker and a microphone for gital slot, but you still need to buy a bulky, $50 most momentum. If you buy a modem, you
the fact that you can almost always get the book cheaper voice notes, a headphone jack for MP3 files slide-on sleeve if you want to use Compact can use something called Virtual Private Net-
somewhere else) is their much-vaunted ‘‘service’’ of sug- and audio books, and a connection cradle that Flash cards. working to dial into the office network via the
gesting books you might like based on what books you’ve keeps your address book, calendar and e-mail The iPaq goes for $600, or $650 with a Internet. And using something called Ter-
bought. I’m uncomfortable when somebody is keeping synchronized with Microsoft Outlook on a built-in Bluetooth transmitter, which will let it minal Services, you can even use your tiny
track of what books I buy, though many friends, no less Windows PC. Except as noted, each has a communicate in wireless mode with Pocket PC screen as a scrolling porthole to see
committed to civil liberties than I, tell me they’re happy to 206-megahertz processor, 64 megabytes of Bluetooth laptops or printers, if in fact any and control what is on the larger screen of
hear about books they would have missed otherwise. memory and a mouth-drying price tag of ever reach the market. Note, too, that you can your PC at the office. All of these features
Here’s the trade-off: In exchange for something useful — $600. Casio’s new Cassiopeia E-200 will be save $100 by buying last year’s model, now require setup by a network administrator.
Amazon.com calls your attention to books you’d like to introduced at $600 this autumn. renamed the 3700 and loaded with the new Not all the changes are good, however. The
read; your bank’s Web site ‘‘recognizes’’ you, so you don’t Toshiba’s Genio is the smallest Pocket PC operating system. Today screen — a summary of appointments
have to sign up for online banking from the beginning each ever, about the size of a Handspring Visor or and to-do items — shows blue text super-
time — you give up a bit of privacy. The Web is not
anonymous, which on the whole is probably a plus.
A few months ago I installed Adsubtract (www.ad-
Palm III. At $570, it is also the least expensive
new model. Maybe the flimsy plastic stylus
and the considerable omission of a screen
S o what does the new Pocket PC 2002
software gain you? Some of the changes
are designed to woo Palm owners. For ex-
imposed on a photo, which you can replace
with one of your own, using a free program
from Microsoft’s Web site. As you can imag-
distinguish important everyday functions
from glitz that nobody outside the trade-show
circuit would use. Sure, you can now conduct
subtract.com), a clever bit of software that blocks ad- cover account for the savings. ample, Pocket PCs can now beam data to and ine, the result is very difficult to read. multiple chat sessions simultaneously, but
vertisements from appearing as you surf. Unfortunately, it Yet amazingly, the Genio is also the most from Palm devices via infrared. In addition to Worse, Microsoft has piled on new features just shifting an appointment by half an hour is
doesn’t block all the ads, expandable new Pocket PC. It has two ex- the traditional Jot handwriting-recognition al- without cleaning up the old ones. You still a five-step process.
but it does stop lots of them, pansion slots: one for postage-stamp-size Se- phabet, Pocket PCs now understand the cannot write an appointment directly onto You can watch streaming video from the
and I am a satisfied user. cure Digital cards, which are useful for adding Palm’s Graffiti alphabet, but, for some reason, your calendar screen, as on a Palm; you must Internet on your palmtop, but you still lose
There is a free version, but memory, and another for Compact Flash with far lower accuracy than on Palms. tap New, open a dialog box, write the ap- style sheets, font choices, headers and footers,
the Pro version for $29.95 cards, which can serve as modems, wireless Better yet, Pocket PCs also understand, pointment’s name, open a menu, tap a starting links, tables and other information in Word
is better and well worth it. networking cards, GPS receivers, and so on. with imperfect but still surprising accuracy, time, and then tap OK. And to find a particular files copied from the PC.
Among other things, Ad- You can also buy this device labeled as the ordinary cursive handwriting — what Apple program, you still have to check as many as The new Pocket PCs themselves are out-
subtract Pro keeps a list of AudioVox Maestro. The difference is that it Computer Inc.’s old Newton palmtop was three places: the Start menu, the Programs standing technical achievements, particularly
all the Internet ads it has has 32 megabytes of memory instead of 64 — supposed to do but could not. There are other screen or the redundant Home screen the HP Jornada, with its superior battery life,
‘‘subtracted,’’ and the cu- and comes with a tiny AudioVox cell phone enhancements: You can now check your provided by each Pocket PC manufacturer. flip lid and Compact Flash slot. Computer
mulative figures are star- and a connecting cable, which give the spelling in Pocket Word, read copy-protected No single screen lists all programs. professionals in particular will probably adore
tling. For me, the program palmtop slow but sure wireless Internet con- e-books, download Web pages without the Nor have Microsoft’s designers learned to the new fall line.
blocks several hundred ads
every few days.

SVG: Web Images True to Form Even on the Tiniest Screen

In addition, Adsubtract
also has a very useful cook-
ies feature. It displays all of
the cookies on your hard
drive, color-coded to show
the ones you like, which are By Jeffrey Selingo with extensions such as bmp, .jpeg and .gif — are not going

E
in green, and the purely New York Times Service away soon, as photographs on the Web will still require the
commercial ones put there format. But for other kinds of images, vector graphics may
by ‘‘spy’’ programs like xploring the Web on a cell phone may seem like a become the format of choice.
Doubleclick or Radiate good idea when you’re constantly on the run, but with Because vector graphics are text descriptions, they are
(formerly Aureate), which sites bursting with graphic images, it’s certainly not compact, unlike bulky bitmap images, which tend to crawl
are red. It lets you get rid of Mark Weber/IHT easy. You’re likely to find yourself staring, say, at a through dial-up Internet connections. And SVG images offer
the bad ones without touch- part of a giant logo unless you can find special scaled-down another advantage for Web users: They are more interactive.
ing the good ones. Absubtract is the easiest anti-cookie versions of Web sites that many developers have created for ‘‘You can manipulate the data in a graphic, and it displays
program I have used. The others I’ve tried get rid of all the wireless users. immediately,’’ Mr. Lilley said. ‘‘There’s no more lag time
cookies indiscriminately, which you are reminded of the first Now help is on the way. Last month the World Wide Web while it goes back to the server to get a new image.’’
time you go back to what had been a familiar Web site. It Consortium, which promotes Internet standards, recommen- Because the technology was only recently approved, few
doesn’t know you any more, and you have to sign up again. ded a graphic technology that is designed to make many Web Web sites offer SVG images. Users of the Netscape Navigator
Adsubtract solves that problem. It lets you pick and images fit any screen, including the tiny displays on wireless or Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browsers may need to
choose among the cookies, and its color-coding suggests phones. Known as Scalable Vector Graphics, or SVG, and download a free plug-in from Adobe (www.adobe.com/-
which ones to eliminate. developed with contributions from leading software and hard- svg/viewer/install/main.html) to view the images but should
For Mac users, Magic Cookie Monster (down- ware companies, the format is text-based. This allows the first check to see whether they already have it, as the plug-in
load.at/drjsoftware) offers similar features. It’s free. graphics to load faster and enables search engines and screen was included with Acrobat Reader 5.0. The need for a plug-in
If you’d like to see which spyware programs are sitting in readers to locate printed matter in images. may at first limit the spread of the technology. Steve Snell, a
your computer’s memory and reporting on you, there is an Most graphics on the Web are created as bitmaps, collections senior marketing manager at Adobe, said the company would
excellent free program called Ad-Aware that will scan your of tiny pixels plotted precisely on a grid that when sent to your prefer that SVG technology be included in browsers but said it
hard drive, tell you what’s there and, at your request, remove computer generate a whole image. When resized to fit a was ‘‘an issue beyond our control.’’ Alison Ashwell
the ones you don’t want. It comes from Lavasoft and can be monitor’s screen, however, bitmap images lose much of their
downloaded from their Web site, www.lavasoftusa.com. original composition. But vector graphics draw images based
Here, too, you should be aware that letting the spyware
watch and report on your surfing is the price of using the
on mathematical descriptions of the length and position of every
line and the tone of every color. When an SVG image is resized LANGUAGE
‘‘free’’ software that it is attached to. by a Web browser to fit a particular screen, it redraws the

The Terrorist Attack Lacks a Universal Label

Gator, for example, which I wrote about a couple of graphic based on the same data, scaled up or down as needed.
weeks ago, doesn’t use cookies but is nonetheless flagged ‘‘People are accessing the Web with a wider range of devices
by Ad-Aware as spyware. Gator fills in your name and that all want a different-size display,’’ said Chris Lilley,
password at Web sites that require them, and in exchange, it chairman of the SVG working group of the World Wide Web
keeps track of the things you seem to be interested in and Consortium. ‘‘But users don’t want to have to go to a special By William Safire ignation will appear for the disaster CIA: ‘‘We are on a mission to make
sends you advertising pegged to those interests. version of the site for handhelds. They want to go to the same New York Times Service that struck an unsuspecting nation now sure that freedom is enduring.’’
If you disable the spying feature, Gator will no longer do site as everyone else.’’ Bitmap images — in the form of files seeking a return to normalcy. ‘‘There is a double meaning to ‘En-
its trick with your passwords.
Many free programs are supported by similar advertising
and marketing arrangements. There is a list of 850 programs
W ASHINGTON — The surprise
attack on the U.S. fleet in 1941 is
remembered by the name of the place
‘‘I was taught that normalcy was a
nonword,’’ writes Floyd Norris, chief
financial correspondent of The New
during Freedom,’ ’’ objected Franz Al-
lina in a letter to The New York Times.
‘‘Enduring means ‘tolerating’ as well
that contain spyware that is maintained by Gilles Lalonde of editor's Best Web bets, where it happened: Pearl Harbor. The York Times, ‘‘a poor substitute for as ‘persevering.’ ’’ Other e-mail and
Laval, Quebec, at available on the Web at www.in- from a personal bloodiest day in all American wars is normality invented by one of our worst faxes flew in to make the same point.
foforce.qc.ca/spyware/enknownlistfrm.html.
So all computer users must decide for themselves how
CHOICE point of view also identified by its locale: Antietam
creek (though Southerners often
presidents, and that educated people
avoided the word. So I have been sur-
Not so. ‘‘He’s taking the root mean-
ing of the verb,’’ replies Fred Mish,
much privacy they are willing to give up in exchange for a identify that battle by the nearby town, prised to see it used so frequently in editor in chief of Merriam-Webster’s
goody. In a sense, this issue was inaugurated by the wide-
spread use of consumer credit cards, which enabled mar- Keeping Your PC in Fashion Sharpsburg, Maryland). The shocking
murder of a president is known by its
The Times since the Sept. 11 attack.
When did President Harding win the
10th Collegiate, ‘‘and transferring it to
the participial adjective. A verb can
keters to keep track of people’s spending habits. But the victim: the Kennedy assassination. language battle? Or were my mother have many meanings, but they don’t all
much greater scope and reach of the World Wide Web and Jessica Michault, who helps produce the IHT’s style But what label is applied to the hor- and my teachers wrong all along?’’ carry over to the adjective.’’ The in-
its much greater information-gathering abilities heighten pages, finds that working in fashion means a lot more rific (more horrid than horrible, per- They were. Norris is a colleague transitive verb endure, rooted in the
the potential rewards and dangers. than just keeping up with the latest trends. Here are some haps because of its less frequent use whose sober market advice we all Latin durus, ‘‘hard,’’ has many senses:
The purveyors of spyware programs readily point out that of the Web sites she likes: and similarity in emphasis to terrific) should have taken throughout the re- ‘‘to last,’’ or ‘‘to remain firm under
their privacy policies are posted online and all users must events of Sept. 11, 2001? cent irrational exuberance, but he was adversity,’’ but a different meaning
agree to the terms and conditions, which are spelled out at the www.enokiworld.com Because the calamities occurred al- swept up by a previous generation’s when transferring action: ‘‘to suffer,
start. Of course, few people read all the fine print, and even Look no further for the crème de la crème in vintage most simultaneously in two cities, they Harding-hooting. Last week the eco- tolerate, countenance.’’
if they do, it’s not always clear what they’re agreeing to. clothing. Surprisingly based out of St. Louis, Missouri, this could not adopt the name of one locality nomics columnist of The Washington Does that difference carry over
One of the overarching annoyances about cookies is that Web site is worth a visit just to read the or single structure: Taken together, they Post, Robert J. Samuelson, used the when the verb endure adds an -ing and
virtually all Web browsers by default accept them without fantastic write-ups and fashion tips the are not written about in shorthand as the word that is out-usaging normality 3 to becomes a participial adjective? No.
asking the user’s permission. That should be reversed. page’s designer, Madeline Meyerowitz, twin towers destruction or the bombing 1: ‘‘We are now slowly returning to Enduring is almost always used to
Browsers should ask first, and Web sites should ask before gives for each first-class fashion gem. of the Pentagon. (And bombing is a ‘normalcy,’ though we don’t know mean ‘‘lasting, permanent,’’ as in ‘‘en-
sending cookies to your machine. The default condition www.designerexposure.com misnomer, since no bomb was dropped.) what that means — and can’t know.’’ during friendship’’; occasionally it
throughout the Internet is to send and accept cookies, and Offers an extensive collection of high- Attack (or Assault) on America has been I know. It means normality, coined means ‘‘durable,’’ as in ‘‘an enduring
the user has to ‘‘opt-out’’ to stop them. quality recycled designer clothing and a frequent usage, but it seems too gen- by Edgar Allan Poe in 1848. Nine years substance’’; only once in a blue moon
Marketers fear that if they give people the option, many accessories at reasonable prices. The site eral, since Pearl Harbor was also an later a couple of mathematicians used does it mean ‘‘tolerating.’’
will not understand the choice and say no. is supplied by nabobs around the world attack on the United States. an equally logical extension of normal, ‘‘The meaning that comes to mind
The European Parliament is considering legislation that who wouldn’t be caught dead in the Terrorist massacre is accurate, since preferring -cy to -ity. The two forms with most people,’’ says the lexico-
would require opt-in, but there is much debate on the must-haves from last season. massacre means ‘‘indiscriminate competed, normality in the lead, until grapher Mish, ‘‘is the meaning Rums-
subject, and nothing is likely to be done soon. In the United www.fashionwiredaily.com killing of large numbers,’’ but that Harding made the alliterator’s hall of feld probably meant.’’ That meaning is
States, several class-action suits about cookies are making For your daily fashion fix, check out this phrase has not been widely adopted. fame in 1920 with ‘‘not heroics but ‘‘lasting,’’ using enduring as a mod-
their way through the courts. comprehensive site. Filled with the very The recent tragic events is euphemistic healing, not nostrums but normalcy, not ifier. The other meaning would be
latest news, gossip and fashion reports from around the and antiseptic, and the catastrophe in revolution but restoration, not agitation close to an abnormality. (Abnormalcy?
world, it’s a must-read for the industry movers and shakers. New York and Washington too long. but adjustment’’ and (my favorite) No such word.)
www.modeaparis.com
CONNECTING . . . This is the bilingual (French/English) Web site for
We may settle on using the date. Just ‘‘not experiment but equipoise.’’ Are we engaged in anti-terrorism or
ITech wants to hear from you. If you have letters as FDR vividly identified Dec. 7, 1941, When mocked by users of -ity, the counterterrorism?
France’s fashion governing body, the Chambre Syndicale. as ‘‘a date which will live in infamy,’’ president told his critics to look it up in Anti-terrorism, according to the De-
to the editor, comments about our technology articles The site has fashion calendars for all of the haute couture
or suggestions for future coverage, write to us many journalists use ‘‘ever since Sept. the dictionary — and there it was, in partment of Defense Dictionary of Mil-
and ready-to-wear shows that take place in Paris. Also 11’’ as shorthand for this new date of Merriam-Webster’s. The populace was itary and Associated Terms, is ‘‘de-
(please include a daytime telephone number). very useful for those going to the Paris fashion shows this
Letters appear the last Monday of the month, in the infamy. (A further shortening is 9/11, bullish on normalcy. Which leads to fensive measures used to reduce the
week is the in-depth catalogue of fashion houses and as in ‘‘The New York Times 9/11 another miscorrection: vulnerability of individuals and prop-
BizTech section. designers who show their collections in the City of Light. Neediest Fund,’’ which is also a play The Defense Department junked the erty to terrorist acts, to include limited
By e-mail: [email protected] www.londonfashionweek.co.uk on the number punched on a telephone name Operation Infinite Justice for its response and containment by local mil-
By fax: The official and well-thought-out site for the biannual keyboard for emergencies.) campaign against terrorism. New title: itary forces.’’ Counterterrorism is ‘‘of-
To the attention of Technology Editor, (September and March) London Fashion Week, it answers In time, however, the nation’s Operation Enduring Freedom. ‘‘En- fensive measures taken to prevent, de-
331-4143-9338 all questions one might have about the ready-to-wear event. choice of the date of Dec. 7 was re- during suggests that this is not a quick ter and respond to terrorism.’’
By post: www.hintmag.com placed by the location of the disaster, as fix,’’ said Defense Secretary Donald How to respond to Sept. 11? Doves
Technology Editor, IHT For the best in fashionista dish, click on ‘‘ChicHappens.’’ Americans ‘‘remember Pearl Harbor.’’ Rumsfeld. President George Bush em- prefer anti-terrorism; hawks plump for
6 bis, rue des Graviers The writing is catty and calorie-free. On that analogy, perhaps a new des- braced the phrase in a pep talk to the counterterrorism.
92521 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France