Power strip allows reboot by phone

Although I'm a geek, my favorite Friday-night activity at 11 p.m. isn't necessarily getting into the car, driving 3-½ miles, and rebooting my office DSL modem.

Before purchasing Sophisticated Circuits PowerKey 650 power strip (www.sophisticated.com), this Friday-night activity was all too common. Each outlet on the basic PowerKey 650 can be toggled by calling the unit by phone and punching in tones; an advanced version can detect a crashed Mac and reboot it.

Sophisticated's products for Macs go way back. This one, introduced in January at Macworld, is the first to use the USB interface, and the first to have software that works with OS 8, 9 and X.

The PowerKey 650 listens in on a phone line even when a fax machine answers. This saves the cost of a second phone line or more complicated options.

When our router crashes, I call our fax line. Between the fax tones, I punch in a sequence of codes to turn the router off and then back on. This power cycle puts our router back on its feet.

The basic PowerKey 650 is $200; an administrator's version that can reboot the USB-connected Mac and handle AppleScript is $300. You can later upgrade the basic version via software for $100. A limited promotion for PowerKey 600 owners offers the 650 at 50 percent off for either basic or administrator models.

QuickerTime: Early this month, Apple released a preview of its next-generation movie and audio playback system, QuickTime 6 for Mac OS 8, 9, and X, and Windows 98 and later.

QuickTime offers the latest, best video-compression standard, MPEG4, an Internet-era replacement for an early-generation algorithm designed for playback from CDs and used as the basis of DVD videos.

Rhonda Stratton, QuickTime's senior product manager, said MPEG4 is much better in compression and, with a 500 MHz G4 or faster, QuickTime can compress video as MPEG4 in real time.

QuickTime 6 features instant-on playing of streaming MPEG4 movies. Click play and images start parading; zoom with the scrub button into the middle of a movie and it starts backup in tenths of a second.

Apple also announced QuickTime Broadcaster and updated streaming servers for broadcasting video over an internal network or the Internet. The QuickTime 6 player and this related software are free. QuickTime 6 Pro, an editing suite, will have a fee.

The MPEG4 format generated controversy over streaming fees that the MPEG licensing authority reportedly wanted to charge. Stratton said that it was initially unclear even to Apple whether users streaming for free would be subject to per-user fees, a policy Apple opposes.

Stratton said these issues were nearly resolved. "We're comfortable enough to go out with this public preview," she said.

Updates: Apple has released the latest in stability and feature improvements to OS X in version 10.1.5. This can be downloaded from its Web site directly, or via the Software Update system preference. The latest version fixed a long list of small problems, including many issues with their Internet-based storage system, iDisk, and WebDAV file mounting in general. ...

Microsoft pushed out its first major service release for Office v.X, also fixing many bugs and adding a few new features. OS X 10.1.5 added a rendering option that creates smooth type; the Office update takes advantage of that, making on-screen type much easier on the eyes. ...

Connectix released version 5.0.3 of its Virtual PC for OS X package. As with its previous micro-updates, this version adds a little speed and makes the system more stable.

Glenn Fleishman writes the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to gfleishman@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.