UltraEdit: Both Parts of the Name Still Ring True
UltraEdit has been my favorite text editor and binary editor since sometime in the 1980s. Back then I used it to make changes to binary files; changes that couldn't be made with any other editor. That's when the application was in early single digits. Now it's at version 14 and use it to touch up HTML documents, to write TechByter Worldwide articles, and to make text obtained from Word files safe for applications such as Dreamweaver. That's just the beginning.
If you need to perform any of those tasks and you're using anything other than UltraEdit, you're working too hard.
Version 14 adds "environments" that allow the application to display features that are most appropriate for the way you use it. These include settings for using UltraEdit as a Notepad replacement, to develop Web application, by a technical writer, as a power user, as a programmer, or as a system administrator. The application remains the same in all cases, but the icons and menus change. If none of those fits your needs, you can design your own interface (windows, toolbars, menus, and templates).
For power users, UltraEdit offers the ability to encrypt and decrypt files and an astonishingly powerful Find and Replace dialog that includes regular expressions that is capable of searching the current file, open files, or all files in a directory or on a disk. Sorting isn't a new feature, but UltraEdit allows users to sort a list starting at any column and to eliminate duplicate lines in a file.
A new WebSearch Toolbar allows users to search for a highlighted term from within the editor, but I've found that when this feature is used under Vista, it causes Internet Explorer to crash. I removed the UltraEdit toolbar after less than half an hour. Unfortunately, installing this feature is the default. It should be an option, not the default.
Version 14 adds a dockable named bookmark list, a dockable ASCII table, and an improved insert color dialog that includes hex, decimal, HTML, and RGB standard colors. There's also an improved "save" function that will save all or discard changes in all files (at your option) when you close UltraEdit.
One Tool I'm Never Without
With rare exceptions, everything I write for TechByter Worldwide begins in UltraEdit. The main exception is when I'm working on a Mac-based project and then I start writing in TextWrangler. In large measure that's because these are fast applications that edit just text, so I don't get hung up in formatting. There's no as-you-type spell checking, which means that I get the thoughts down first and then go back to take care of problems on a second pass. Our minds operate in one of two modes: writing and editing. Trying to mix the modes often means that you'll do a bad job of both.
UltraEdit is a tool that can edit anything—Windows, Mac, or Linux/Unix text files, html documents, Perl, Javascript, C++, and a dozen or more other programming languages, plus binary files if you need to change something at the byte level. This will give you an idea of the application's versatility.
Plain text: This is the view I see the most. There's directory listing on the left, the main text editing window in the middle (note the tabs above the window to organize multiple files). On the right, there's a list of available macros and text snippets I've put on the clipboard.
Programming (Javascript on the left and Perl on the right): When UltraEdit recognizes a file type, it color codes the programming language so that reserved words, variables, constants, tags, key words, and the like are clearly visible.
Hex editor: If I need to make a change inside a binary file, UltraEdit's hex editor is the right tool. Twenty years ago, the need to make changes inside executable files was the main reason I purchased a copy of UltraEdit.
Web Developer environment (raw HTML on the left and a preview on the right): Any text editor can edit HTML because HTML is just plain text, but version 14 of UltraEdit has a built-in preview mode!
Tech Writer environment showing the selector. You've seen the Tech Writer and Web Developer environments above. UltraEdit offers several other options and you can design your own environment for access to whatever tools you use the most.
System Administrator environment: This one has that largest number of icons. One of them may activate the ejector seat that belongs to the sysadmin's most annoying and troublesome user.
Just kidding. I think.
Bottom line: I will not own a Windows computer that doesn't have UltraEdit installed. This is one tool that I cannot omit.
If you need to work with plain text files, this is the best tool you'll find. It's quick, easy to use, adaptable, and up to date. The development team (it used to be just one guy in southern Ohio) release a new version about every year and I almost always say that they can't do anything to improve it. They keep proving me wrong. And if you write for a living, you might want to try writing initial drafts in UltraEdit; it will free your mind.
For more information, visit the UltraEdit website.
Toshiba's HD-DVD Fiasco (Or Was It?)
Andy Marken is a PR guy, but not a hack. He works closely with the DVD industry and, following Toshiba's decision to scrap HD-DVD and accept that Sony's Blu-ray has won the high-def prize, he wrote to say that he has stepped away from the normal "let's beat up on Toshiba" approach to take a more realistic assessment what this means. "Settling on one standard really hasn't changed the total picture that much. The difference is now the Blu-ray folks won't be able to blame Toshiba for holding back the success of high-def disc sales. Now they have to really get their hands dirty and work. There's a lot of work to be done." Let's consider what Andy has to say.
Clashing technologies are fraught with obstacles and dangers. HD-DVD had Toshiba, the DVD Forum, and a few studios that were kinda, maybe, sorta on their side. And Microsoft. Blu-ray had Sony and its string of content owners, Panasonic, the CE industry, and a lot of financially grateful production houses. Everyone except Toshiba was certain Blu-ray would hold the winning hand more than a year ago, but at the recent CES the end was in sight.
Warner Brothers issued their announcement (they had warned Toshiba) that they were going Blu-ray.
HD-DVD cancelled their press conference.
The next steps happened quickly and have been documented:
- Best Buy swung to Blu-ray
- NetFlix signed on
- Blockbuster wasn’t going to be left out
- Target went Blu-ray
- Wal-Mart threw its billions behind Blu-ray
- Universal – oh what the heck!
That left Circuit City and RadioShack uncommitted.
Some say Microsoft muddied the waters, spending money to slow progress for both, with plans to make it up on the Internet download backside. That story plays except with the people who have actually tried to download HD video. Most people still prefer to have a disc in their hand, in their library. The percentages may shift, but people still like physical things.
According to Pew Internet research, only 51% of the homes in the US have broadband networks and we lag behind 10 other nations: Japan has 65% broadband penetration, for example and South Korea 94%. If you want to download a true high definition movie, you’ve got a long wait even with what passes for "broadband" in this country. (At 2Mbps, you'll spend about a day and a half to download a movie.) On dial-up, forget it! So to make the download tolerable, the quality is scaled back to the point that it's “a little better” than DVD.
Blu-ray’s biggest challenge isn’t going to be holding back the flood of on-line movies but convincing folks they need to upgrade to new players. HD movies are better than standard DVDs, but 97% of the American households already have a working DVD players and upgrading will cost $300 to $500. And let's not overlook the people who want to make copies. Just about every computer made today has a DVD burner and media costs 30 to 50 cents per disc. You don't want to know what a Blu-ray burner will cost you and the discs are still more than $10 each.
Truth is, people are going to buy what’s readily available, cheap and has tons of “good enough” viewing/burning choices. This is the lesson that Sony learned when it offered Beta to counter VHS. The VHS tapes didn't have Beta's quality, but they cost less and recorded more. End of story.
Blue laser players have been slow to gain sales with anyone but the normal early adopters (you know who you are.) Industry analysts like to blame the standards scuffle for the problem. But it could be the slow adoption of HD TV sets, limited availability of HD TV shows, high cost, and maybe even the lack of decent content.
Predictions are for sales of 7 to 10 million units worldwide in the next 2 years. This is a market that's not going to move as fast as CDs or DVDs.
"No matter how you spin it, there’s a huge delta between the cost of today’s 'old-fashioned, good-enough' DVD burners and players compared to the new Blu-ray standards. And that’s only the device. Next comes the upgraded, new and improved media and the software." (Source - IDC)
Is that crisper image worth the upgrade?
Lots of folks like to beat up on Toshiba, saying they would have saved $100MM or more if they had thrown in the towel 8 or 9 months ago, but the decision was made quickly for a large company such as Toshiba. And if any early adopters feel that they were "taken", sorry, but you knew you were gambling. And remember how you bragged to friends, neighbors, anyone who would listen about your being the first in line for the player and the movies?
There are going to be some great bargains out there soon for players, burners, movies.
You can add them to your Laserdisc collection!
Stupid Spam of the Week
This week we have a stupid come-on that leads to a click-fraud scheme. "Every year, millions of rebates are handed out to customers, and companies are in desperate need of people to process them." The message goes on to explain how you could take home $225 per hour for a few clicks of the mouse and it directs you to a website where you can learn more about this "limit-less" opportunity. Before looking at the bogus part, I'd like to address the "business proposition" the scam is based on.
Anyone with even a small amount of common sense will recognize this as fraudulent: "Students, new moms, travelers, and retired persons. You need no prior experience, you can work from anywhere, and work as much or little as you please." If people with no experience could earn $225 per hour legally, there would be no need for anyone to advertise to fill the jobs.
The message says that the job involves "processing rebates", a task which takes 3 or 4 minutes per rebate. "If you process 1 rebate every 4 minutes, and you do that for 60 minutes, that generates 15 rebates in 60 minutes. The average amount you make per rebate processed is $15. With daily payouts, your potential income is limit-less, and is completely up to you!"
How can you earn $225 per hour? Here's what the spam suggests (my comments follow each point in bold):
- "Reason #1: Companies are starving for more people to process rebates from home. When the demand surpasses supply, wages are high. It's the economic Law of Supply and Demand working in our favor and there's an insatiable demand for this job!"
Totally false. Rebates are little more than legalized theft. Many companies offer rebates instead of reducing prices because it gives the appearance of reducing the price without actually doing so. Companies know that many consumers will simply forget to apply for the rebate. And those who do apply for the rebates will often find an interesting series of rules: You must provide the original UPC cut from the box (after which the device may not be returned, of course) along with the original receipt and 3 tail hairs from a wombat. The rebate form must be filled out in Old Church Slavonic by Serbian monks and mailed in a 6x9 envelope to an address in Minnesota. If you manage to follow all of the rules, the company in Minnesota will mail your rebate check in an envelope that's designed to look like something you'll throw away unopened. By the time you realize that you haven't received your rebate, the time limit for asking about it will have expired and besides, most rebate forms say the company is not responsible for "lost or misdirected" mail. So no, companies are NOT starving for more people to process rebates from home. - "Reason #2: If companies were to hire employees to do this job, they would need to spend a new fortune on hiring, buying new office space, management, and all the many expenses that come with it It would cost them too much and, they would have to pay people small wages to keep this profitable for them. The alternative is having people work independently from home. Companies are saving millions of dollars, and they can pass many of these savings on to you."
That's right, companies don't hire people to process rebate forms. They hire companies known as "fulfillment operations" to process the forms. And if you ask any fulfillment company if the manufacturer is willing to pay $15 per form processed, the head of the company will stare at you and shake his head. - "Reason #3: Companies experience huge increases in sales because of these rebates. Rebates make them millions of dollars every year. But without people to process them, companies cant offer them. So basically, you can make great money because its worth it for companies to pay you a lot to motivate you to process lots of rebates. Sure, for you its a lot of money youre getting paid but in the eyes of the company where millions of dollars are at stake, it's a small investment that reaps them enormously greater financial rewards. To sum it up for you and me, it's almost like being able to ethically take advantage of all these Companies extra money and to finally be able to get a good piece of it, the easy dollars every year. But without people to process them, companies cant offer them. So basically, you can make great money because its worth it for companies to pay you a lot to motivate you to process lots of rebates. Sure, for you it's a lot of money you're getting paid but in the eyes of the company where millions of dollars are at stake, it's a small investment that reaps them enormously greater financial rewards.To sum it up for you and me, it's almost like being able to ethically take advantage of all these Companies' extra money, and to finally be able to get a good piece of it, the easy way!"
Big companies are focused on the bottom line. If a company can find a way to save 23 cents on a $30 thousand dollar car, they will. Every penny counts. No manufacturer will throw away $15 to have somebody process a rebate form. Period.
What's the Real Point?
You may already suspect that the real point of the spam it to make somebody rich, but that somebody isn't you. Where would the bogus link take me if I clicked it?
Initially, it would take me to the site it promised ("YourGroupMedia.info") but that seems to be a front because it would redirect me to an organization called Clickbooth.
Wikipedia has an article about Clickbooth, which may be just another victim of the scam. I've written previously about pay-per-click scams and that's possibly what's going on here.
The Bottom Line
No matter what you do, you're not going to get signed up to collect $225 per hour for doing some light mouse work at the computer.
Nerdly News
Apple Invented the MP3 Player, Right?
In a word, no. The MP3 player was invented 10 years ago this month by a small Korean engineering firm that was acquired by Diamond Multimedia. Diamond used the MPMan as the basis for its Rio PMP300. Before being acquired by Diamond, the MPMan was marketed, but not very well, by SaeHan Information Systems, another Korean company. Or may be the lack of sales had something to do with the price. The MPMan held no more than 10 files in its 32MB of flash memory and cost $250 in 1998 dollars. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a small (256MB) MP3 player for taking to the gym. It cost $10.
The MPMan's inch-wide LCD screen (see a picture here) was hard to see. For another $80 or so, you could double the memory, but you had to send the unit back for servicing. It weighed about 2 ounces. When Diamond took over the product, the company added the ability to use Smart Media, so users could expand the device. There's still an MPMan website, but you'll need to learn Korean to read it.
The Rio PMP300 brought the RIAA out from under its rock. The syndicate managed to get the PMP300 banned, but the ban lasted for only 10 days when the RIAA fled back under its rock when Diamond filed suit.
Sync Those Calendars
How many people use an Outlook calendar at the office, but keep family members' information on the Web-based Google Calendar because users may share what's on their calendars? Probably a lot. And how many carry around a Pocket PC (or whatever they're called these days) that synchronizes, but only with Outlook? If you want to synchronize all those calendars, Google has a solution.
I couldn't sync Outlook at home to my portable device because it doesn't work properly with Vista (Thanks, HP, for letting me know that only after I bought it) and I'm not about to enter the same information on Outlook at the office, on Outlook at home, and in the Google calendar. And even that would leave out the notebook computer, which has Outlook and has access to the Google calendar.
This week I noticed on the Google Calendar a note that it can now sync with Outlook, so I downloaded the sync manager at the office and synced the office version of Outlook to the Google calendar (bi-directional) and then set it to update every 10 minutes. I had to remove some of the repeating events that I'd entered on both Google and Outlook, but when I'd used exactly the same words on both sides, I didn't even have to do that. It was about a 15-minute lunch hour project.
That put Outlook at the office in sync with the Google calendar. Then I synced the pocket PC to the office copy of Outlook. Three calendars were then in sync. At home, I downloaded the sync tool and ran a 1-way sync (Google to Outlook) on the desktop and then I did the same thing on the notebook.
I think that I can set this up as a bi-directional sync at home so that anything I enter on Outlook 2007 at home will eventually make its way back to the office version of Outlook 2003. I haven't tried bi-directional syncing on multiple calendars yet because that was guaranteed to create a disaster with Palm devices. Windows devices are supposed to be able to handle multiple-syncing, but if you try it and Outlook explodes, don't say you weren't warned.
Google Calendar Sync seems to handle alarms and repeating events reasonably well, so this looks like a very cool solution to an vexing problem. Google Calendar is here.
The Weekly Podcast
Podcasts are usually in place no later than 9am (Eastern time) on the date of the program. The podcast that corresponds to this program is below. The most recent complete podcast is always located here.
Search this site: Looking for something you remember hearing about on TechByter Worldwide? Search me.
Subscribe to the newsletter: Subscribing to the podcast: I recommend Apple's Itunes for podcasts. Itunes will also install the latest version of QuickTime. The program is free. Need instructions?
Privacy Guarantee: I will not sell, rent, loan, auction, trade, or do anything else with your e-mail address. Period.
How the cat rating scale works.
Do you use a pop-up blocker? If so, please read this.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
Feed the kitty: That's one of them on the left. Creating the information for each week's TechByter requires many hours of unpaid work. If you find the information helpful, please consider a contribution. (Think "NPR".)
