Hack Your Mac

What did surprise me, however, was the extremist position Israelite staked out. He asserted that intellectual policy has the same legal status as physical property, implied that anybody who disagreed might as well be a communist, and declared that the consumer-electronics industry has spent the last 10 years growing at the expense of the entertainment industry.

The first position was laughable enough that the lawyer sitting to my right all but shouted out, "Says who?" The U.S. Constitution is breathtakingly clear about this: Intellectual property -- that is, the creative work covered by patents and copyrights -- has only whatever temporary protection Congress sees fit to grant. It's not the same as physical property and never has been. If you're not clear on this, any first-year law student ought to be able to set you straight. (If you're a first-year law student and you're not clear on this, please consider whether you're really on the right career path.)

As for the "if you don't agree with that, there's another system out there called communism" line: Oh, please. As a general rule, dropping the C-bomb in a political debate is unlikely to do anything but convince undecided observers that you're not only dangerously unhinged, but that you're also seriously out of touch. (The current, correct version of this argument is, as we all know, "If you don't support me on this, then the terrorists win.")

As for Israelite's last contention, it merely showed a total lack of understanding of recent history. Would anybody in Hollywood really prefer life without the advent of the DVD player, which has made the studios billions of dollars in added revenue since its arrival?

Well, I can't say watching this debate didn't make for interesting theater. I'd like to think that nobody in a position of power takes those kinds of arguments with any seriousness anymore ... but I'm sure there are people in Congress who still do.

Tech-Support Offense of the Week

My Friday evening involved more work than I'd hoped -- a reader called, very angry and upset, some time past 7, to complain about how Symantec's Norton Internet Security had knocked him and most of his family offline by stopping their AOL software from connecting to the Internet. I quickly found Symantec's tech-support note about this problem (note the dismaying workaround procedure recommended there, without any advice about using somebody else's firewall program while you download the update to fix the update that kicked you off), then set out to confirm the phone number listed for Symantec's tech-support line in a story I'd read at News.com.

I could not find that number anywhere in plain view on Symantec's site; I had to fill out a form online with my name, e-mail address and phone number just to get it.

Having to go through that effort just to find a phone number -- one that you normally have to pay $29.95 per incident to use -- annoyed me greatly. Having to go through that around 8 on a Friday night annoyed me still further. So here it is:

800-927-3991

Web Chat and Weekend Roundup

I'll beonline at 2 p.m. today to talk about these topics and many more. Stop by if you can, or submit your questions early. If you miss the chat when it's live, you can read the transcript any time at the same link.

In my column yesterday, I review Apple's new Mac Mini and see how well it can do the job of serving as a digital-media hub for a home theater. (Aside from the worst wireless performance I've ever seen, the answer is: pretty well. You can only hope there will be a fix for that WiFi problem soon.)

Frank Ahrens takes a tour through history's back pages with Newspaper-Archive.com's searchable collection of old newspaper pages. Daniel Greenberg reports on his tests of Creative Technologies' X-Fi sound cards. And in Help File, I explain why you should be wary of anybody suggesting "turn off your firewall" when things stop working on your computer.

Questions? Comments? Send them to rob@twp.com.