MailBITS/14-Jun-93

With the help of several users, Akif Eyler tracked down and eradicated a bug with styles in Easy View 2.32 that had escaped detection throughout the beta test process. I distributed the 2.33 patch application several days ago; you should find it at the usual sites, although I don't know what the exact path will be - look for it in the same directory as Easy View itself.

Cable Table Label -- Alert reader Phil Reese <preese@skat.usc.edu> wins the copy editing award for the week, noticing a serious typographical error in our chart listing the "standard" configuration for a Macintosh hardware handshaking cable. Somehow we switched the Macintosh pin numbers for handshaking in and out. Our apologies. The correct table is:

     Mac function     RS-232 function   Mac pin    DB-25 pin
     ------------     ---------------   -------    ---------
     RxD (receive)    Receive Data      5          3
     TxD (transmit)   Transmit Data     3          2
     Ground           Ground            4 & 8      7
     HSKi             CTS               2          5
     HSKo             RTS & DTR         1          4 & 20
     GPi              CD                7          8

CAPITAL Punishment -- The 17-May-93 issue of InformationWeek reported on news stories from China about a computer hacker being executed for defrauding the Agricultural Bank of China of about $200,000. The news reports said that Shi Biao was executed as a warning to others contemplating computer crime. Considering the ease with which computer viruses travel, if I were a virus author I'd think about other lines of work.

Color-less Classic -- A friend at Apple notes that Color Classic users can move the contrast slider bar in the Screen Control Panel all the way to the left, making the screen go pitch black. It would seem that users in that situation are stuck, since they can't see the slider bar any more, but pushing the screen contrast button on the Color Classic's front bezel will bring the screen back up.