Universe’s Tech Blog

A friend of mine and I were shooting the … breeze (freaking ‘G’ ratings for blogs) and he was asking me when the next version of Office was coming out. Now being the wise Microsoft spin doctor that I am, and having spent numerous hours being brainwashed by marketing, p.r. and some guys in black who look like Jessie Ventura and Alex Trebek (anyone get that reference?) I looked him square in the eye and asked, “How many lines of code are there in Mac Office?”

Not to be caught off guard, he stared right back and asked, “You’re going to kill me after you tell me, right?” I smiled that Cheshire cat smile I have and said, slowly, “Maybe ….” I let the pause go on for a bit longer than normal and then laughed.

So I changed the subject to movies and after a bit he asked me, “How many lines of code are there in Mac Office?” I looked him and asked, “Do you really want to go there? ” He nodded as he moved his lawn chair a little out of arm’s reach.

About 30,000,000 lines of code make up the current version of Office that we are developing. That’s no typo; in fact, I had to figure that out because of a research project I was working on … if I told you what it was, I would definitely have to … oh, yeah, ‘G’ ratings … anyway back to the train of thought.

It’s really mind blowing when you think about it. Each developer is responsible for, on average, about 428,000 lines of code. Some people have more areas, some have less, but if you just think of that number, that’s a tremendous amount of responsibility per developer. Consider for a moment also that there are probably 10x (yes ten times) or more developers on Windows Office, although I don’t know the exact count.

Just to throw another mind-numbing number out at you, there are about 40 lines of text on the page of an average paperback book. That means one developer is responsible for about a 10,700-page book. Or if you break it down smaller, if the average paperback is 300 pages, that means each developer is responsible for about 35 or more paperbacks on his desk. Imagine trying to find a single typo in all those books — that’s what most bugs are, don’t ya know!

Rick might have a better guess, but from what I have seen the average life of the code (before this version), was about 12 years, meaning most of the code was written back when 68k and 386 processors ruled the world. A5 bring back any memories for people? What about segmented memory? Why is this important? Read on.

The final killer number that I think is important in answering my question is 50%. What does that number mean? It represents the amount of turnover we have had in our developer organization in the past two years. Let that sink in for a bit: during these past two years we started the move to XCode, then started the move to Intel, brought on about a bunch of new people and asked each of them to learn somewhere on the order of 400,000 lines of code. Most of which was written before some of these new hires started high school! Either that, or they started work on a brand new feature and we pushed all the responsibilities of that code onto people who never saw it before or were already working on other things.

I guess the short answer to my friend’s question is that the next version is coming out as fast as we can develop it. Everyone in the MacBU, developers, testers, UA, PM, Loc, and managers are trying to make this the best version of office for both PowerPC and Intel based Macs. But as we have said before on this blog and will continue to say, we’re making progress, staying on track and hoping to get this puppy wrapped up and shipped off to you as soon as possible. But for now we’re all trying to get through our 35 books trying to find those blasted typos.

Oh, and for the record, I think I have about 50 or so books on my desk … some are written in OLE …

Rapidshare has been an excellent tool for sharing large files. Recently users have discovered ways of bypassing the download limits and skipping the waiting time. Here are a description of these methods.

Update: Two new methods of bypassing download limits have been posted. These are more advanced and may require additional software or hardware, but you should check them out when you are done with these easier methods:

Rapidshare traces the users IP address to limit each user to a certain amount of downloading per day. To get around this, you need to show the rapidshare server a different IP address.

Here are some methods for doing this:

1. Short-Out the JavaScript:

1. Goto the page you want to download
2. Select FREE button
3. In the address bar put the following: javascript:alert(c=0)
4. Click OK
5. Click OK to the pop-up box
6. Enter the captcha
7. Download Your File

2. Request a new IP address from your ISP server.

Here’s how to do it in windows:

1. Click Start
2. Click run
3. In the run box type cmd.exe and click OK
4. When the command prompt opens type the following. ENTER after each new line.

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
exit

5. Erase your cookies in whatever browser you are using.
6. Try the rapidshare download again.

Frequently you will be assigned a new IP address when this happens. Sometime you will, sometimes you will not. If you are on a fixed IP address, this method will not work. To be honest, I do not know how to do this in linux/unix/etc. If this works for you, you may want to save the above commands into a batch file, and just run it when you need it.
3. Use a proxy with SwitchProxy and Firefox:

1. Download and install Firefox if you have not already
2. Download and install SwitchProxy
3. Google for free proxies
4. When you hit your download limit, clean your cookies and change your proxy

4. Use an anonymous service:

Running your system through the tor network should in theory work; however, it is difficult to use and setup. Plus, you allow others to run their evil deeds through your system as well by using this system. Anonymizer 2005 is inexpensive, easy to use, but not free. Other pay services would likely work as well.

5. You can use a bookmarklet to stop your wait times:

1. Open IE
2. Right Click On This Link
3. Select Add to Favorites
4. Select Yes to the warning that the bookmark may be unsafe.
5. Name it “RapidShare No Wait”
6. Click on the Links folder (if you want to display it in your IE toolbar)
7. Click OK
8. You may need to close and reopen IE to see it
9. Goto rapidshare and click the bookmarklet when you are forced to wait

SAN FRANCISCO — In its latest crackdown on cybercrime, the FBI planned to announce Friday the arrests of 16 people in the USA and Poland suspected of participating in a website where stolen personal data were traded and phishing attacks were launched.

Individuals were arrested in Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio. Raids were conducted in New York, Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska, Georgia and Ohio, the FBI said.

Search warrants on three individuals in Romania also were performed this week as part of the ongoing investigation.

The actions against the Cardkeeper forum are the highest-profile since the Richmond, Va., division of the bureau started investigating the phishing attack on a bank in mid-2004. More than 100,000 credit and debit cards from more than 1,000 individuals were compromised.

It is the federal government’s latest salvo in a battle against online crooks dealing in stolen credit and debit cards and online bank accounts. In 2004, the FBI and Secret Service briefly disrupted growth of such forums with the bust-up of Shadowcrew, a forum of more than 4,000 members. Since then, other forums have formed or resurfaced with new security measures to avoid detection, security experts and law enforcement officials say.

The arrests are the latest indication that federal officials are serious about tamping down online credit card fraud and deterring 12 to 20 carding forums worldwide, says Dan Clements, CEO of CardCops, an identity-theft-prevention company.

The FBI says it is working with local law enforcement officials in the USA and Eastern Europe.

“Cybercriminals will no longer be able to hide behind borders to conduct their illicit business,” James Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement.

Still, unless U.S. officials have success extraditing suspects from such locales as Romania, Clements is unsure how effective the crackdowns will be: “This is a small dent in the problem, if (computer) servers continue to run in Romania.”

EA have announced some new plans for the next generaton consoles, and of course, why would Wii not be in there. A new Sims game should suit the Wii contoller perfectly, depending on whether EA utilise this properly or not.

“There is a Sims title that is being specifically developed for the Wii platform.” EA Rep

Looks like Wii has got a good thing going. I’ve always liked Sims, so bring it on.

Whenever the fashionable concept of ’software-as-a-service’ is discussed, security software companies are always held up as a prime example. Everyone knows you need a decent anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall combo that updates itself regularly, so automatically renewing it makes sense, right? The short answer is: possibly, but you should still do some shopping around.

To work out how to get the best deal on total security suites, we examined the pricing options available for a single PC. Options we considered included the RRP, what the Australian site of the developer charged for it in both new and upgrade versions, and how much it cost from other overseas locations.

We’re ignoring completely free packages such as Grisoft’s AVG Free Edition here, since if you meet their requirements — that is, you’re happy with the package and it’s solely for personal use — a price comparison is hardly necessary, is it?

For those of us stuck with paying, here’s the key lessons we learned:
Everything costs more or less the same.

As a broad rule of thumb, you can expect to pay between $90 and $100 for a brand-new Internet security suite (including both anti-virus and firewall components). Prices differ slightly, but hardly dramatically, so your own preference in terms of package is just as important as the cost.
Buying at retail is a waste of time unless they throw in a freebie.

Assuming you’re happy with downloading software rather than paying postage for an oversized box filled with air and a single CD, the prices offered on company sites are generally as good or better than those offered by ‘conventional’ retailers, so you might as well skip them.

The only partial exception is if the retailer has some kind of bundling deal going. For instance, it’s been possible to pick up a free basic web cam with Trend Micro recently, or a wireless mouse with some McAfee multi-PC licences. That’s only worthwhile if you really need the product in question, though, and it’s not just going to become desk drawer clutter.
Shopping offshore can save you money — but not often.

Most software companies have got wise to ‘download from an overseas site and save money’ arrangements; what with the current state of the US dollar exchange rate, we couldn’t find a single product where buying from the American parent site was a better deal than picking it up locally.

If you want this kind of discount, you’ll need to be more imaginative. Symantec’s products, for example, are somewhat cheaper from its Singapore site than via Australia ($65 versus $80 for an upgrade, for instance). However, whether that really works out will depend on the exchange rate on the day, and also on what foreign transaction charges your credit card company imposes — if they go too high, the saving might not be worth it.
Go academic if you can, but accept the limitations.

If you do qualify for the ‘academic rate’ offered by a given software vendor — typically, you’re a student or university lecturer — you can save quite a bit. For instance, at $49, CA’s suite is almost half the official $90 price, while McAfee offers a less generous $20 discount.

However, some companies (e.g. Kaspersky) don’t offer any academic pricing at all, and others (e.g. Symantec) offer it only on individual components, rather than entire security suites.

In some cases, the discount isn’t very pronounced anyway — Harris Technology, for instance, sells an academic licence Symantec Anti-Virus 2006 for $55, but you can buy a normal version of the 2007 release for $56!
Multi-PC deals are generally cheaper.

If you’ve got any kind of home network, then you’ll need security software on all of them. Some packages (such as Symantec or Trend Micro) can automatically be used on up to three PCs; purchasing multi-licence bundles is nearly always cheaper, regardless of your preferred package.
Get more than a single-year licence.

Software vendors prefer certainty, so they offer discounts for two-year licences over one-year options. Hence a one-year Symantec upgrade is $79.95, but two years is $129.95. Despite this, most offer one-year deals as standard (Grisoft’s AVG is a notable exception, and its two-year standard price of $98.95 is the cheapest deal we found overall).

Over recent weeks the stormclouds have been gathering over the teacup called Canis Canem Edit (nee Bully). Rockstar Game’s new title suffered greatly in the leadup to its launch, being called everything from a Columbine Simulator to training software for bullys, all before anyone had actually played the game.

Astonishing is the only word that can describe the vitriol levelled at this game, vitriol that has stemmed purely from the fact it is developed and published by Rockstar. The vast majority of this has come from the notoriously litigious Florida lawyer Jack Thompson and his small band of experts.

Writing funny tales of Jack Thompson’s exploits is like shooting fish in a barrel. He’s been fighting against the evils of the mass media ever since spearheading the whole Explicit Lyrics debate with a campaign against 2 Live Crew’s ‘Nasty as we wanna be’ album way back in 1989.

Now that Canis Canem Edit is out, it’s apparent that a lot of the accusations levelled at it were at best gross exaggerations and at worst just plain troublemaking. While it is essentially Grand Theft Auto: Highschool, it lacks the violence, drugs, sex and criminal overtones of Rockstar’s flagship series.

In fact, the major campaign now being directed at Canis Canem Edit by its detractors centers around the fact that the male protagonist in the game can, gasp, kiss boys. This apparently qualifies as sexual perversion for some unknown reason. It’s also not the first game to feature such a sideline to gameplay - in the mega selling title Xbox title Fable you could not only kiss, but go on to marry boys. And lets not forget the hidden ‘parade’ in Sim Copter. But those games weren’t made by Rockstar so aren’t evil.

Despite the fact that the scandal is so minor the stigma remains. I went shopping for the game earlier this week, the nearest EB to the office was sold out, so I took a walk up to Myer’s City store here in Sydney. I was assured that the game had been released, but then told they had chosen not to stock it because of its controversial nature.

Luckily in this day and age EB is even more commonly found than Starbucks in Sydney so I was able to track down a copy at another store. But it got me wondering just what Rockstar has to do to break down the stigma associated with its games.

To put things in perspective - within five minutes of starting Rockstar’s (now banned) game Manhunt you have brutally murdered an NPC using just a shopping bag. In Bully I’m 20% into the game and still cannot work out how to kiss boys. I’m smooching with girls left right and centre but I haven’t discovered any boys willing to engage in same sex tonsil hockey so far.

In fact, the creepiest thing I’ve come across is a mission where you have to steal panties from the girls dorm and give them to the Gym teacher for, um, laundering.

Canis Canem Edit’s schoolyard setting belies the fact there is a very mature wit at play behind the game and dialogue. If anything the games setting means that Rockstar has been quite conscious of removing heavy violence. Run-ins with Bullys resemble schoolyard scuffles, with a lot of pushing and punches thrown, rather than a fighting game. And I learned pretty quickly that violence against adults or small children brings the long arm of the law crashing down in force.

I’ll have my impressions of the game up soon, but for now I’m fascinated with the fact that despite the continued slurs, the game is less offensive or violent than most games I have played in recent times.

It’s a fun, wryly smart title that stands on its own merits, and is less controversial in the sex, drugs and violence stakes than the high school movies like Heathers and The Breakfast Club that inspired it.