Technically Speaking

If you all haven’t heard yet, iPod’s random feature is really random. MSNBC News ran an article investigating the randomness of the iPod. Apple basically chalks up all the hoopla to people only listening to th e first few songs of the random set. Or better yet, “We often interpret and impose patterns on random processes.”

Apple execs profess amusement. “It’s part of the magic of shuffle,” says Greg Joswiak, the VP for iPod products. Still, I asked him last week to double-check with the engineers. They flatly assured him that “Random is random,” and the algorithm that does the shuffling has been tested and reverified.

More specifically, when an iPod does a shuffle, it reorders the songs much the way a Vegas dealer shuffles a deck of cards, then plays them back in the new order. So if you keep listening for the week or so it takes to complete the list, you will hear everything, just once. But people generally listen only to the first few dozen songs. In theory, that sample should be evenly distributed among all the artists and albums in their collections. So why do you typically get three Wilco songs in an hour while Aretha Franklin waits in the wings forever?

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If you have heard about FreeiPods.com and the company that makes it all possible, Gratis Networks, then you will be happy to know that they are making it possible to get a free Mini Mac. FreeiPods.com has proved to be a legit operation so you can rest assured that the free mini mac offer is legit as well. From what I hear, it just takes a little bit of waiting to receive your goods, but they do come.

If you have forgotten what the Mini Mac has to offer, take a look at its stats below.

The Brand New Apple Mac mini (80GB)

* Fast G4 processor
* Comes with 80GB harddrive
* iLife ’05, Mac OS X v10.3 “Panther,” Quicken 2005 for Mac, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold
* Built-in Ethernet and modem
* Slot-loading Combo drive
* DVI connector, VGA adapter
* Just 6.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall
* Weighs only 2.9 lbs

If you are so inclined, help me get a free MacMini

Satellite radio is one of the hottest things out there now and especially now with Howard Sterns making a move Sirius in the near future Satellite Radio subscriptions will soar to new heights. But if Sirius and Apple were to make a Satellite iPod, so the masses can have a nice little gadget to carry with them everywhere and enjoy their music, this would be the icing on the cake for everyone. Sirius would increase their sales, Apple will too, and of course the music lovers will be loving this as well.

Rumors that Sirius and Apple Computer Inc. (Research) were going to announce next month at the Consumer Electronics Show or MacWorld a deal to bundle iPods with satellite radio have added to the sector’s buzz.

Sirius and Apple declined comment on the rumors, but analysts said it seemed technologically unfeasible right now.

“I don’t believe Sirius’ chip set is at the point where it can go into an iPod. It’s the size of a credit card, and an iPod would need a chip set the size of a thumb nail,” said April Horace, a Janco Partners analyst.

That’s not to say the industry is not thinking about it. After launching its wearable MyFi device in October, XM chief executive Hugh Panero said he believed one day a portable satellite player would be combined with a device like an iPod.

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Now the question is; Is this some more some and mirrors to not get people about the possible upcoming product? We have seen it before with the iPod photo, didn’t we? I think that we will be seeing this Satellite iPod real soon.

Edward C Baig of USA TODAY fame, lists his top picks for gadgets, gizmos and software for 2004. To no surprise Apple, Google and Mozilla all have made the list with Apple and Google having two products each in it. Most of the items listed in the complete list would make great holiday presents, provided that they are in your budget. The software is free so you can’t beat that.

•Apple iMac. This is the most exquisite Mac yet, and that’s saying a lot. The whole computer, not just the display, appears to float on an aluminum stand. That’s because the guts of the machine - 80-gigabyte or 160-gigabyte hard drive, memory, robust “G5″ processor, etc. - are inside a 2-inch flat-panel display. There are two vibrant wide-screen display models, 17 or 20 inches. You can twist or tilt the display to any reasonable viewing angle.

Also hidden inside: a drive for handling CDs or DVDs. Disks are loaded into a slot on the side of the display. The back of the computer is equally elegant. You can loosen three screws to remove the cover to add, say, extra memory or a wireless networking card. All the connectors you’d need are neatly aligned on the outside. To reduce clutter, the power cord slips through a hole on the back of the aluminum stand. And you can tuck the keyboard under the display and out of the way. Cost: $1,299 to $1,899.

•Apple iPod Photo. How do you make the best-of-breed portable digital music player even better? Add up to 25,000 pictures (and in some instances album art) to the mix. The latest iPod Photo models include a cable that lets you view slide shows on a TV, backed by a soundtrack. Or you can peek on the device’s crisp 2-inch color display while scrolling through images by sliding your finger across a click wheel. There are a few drawbacks, including price ($499 to $599, for 40-GB and 60-GB versions) and the fact that you cannot directly transfer pictures from a digital camera or memory card to the iPod.

•Google Desktop Search. Funny how Google’s “beta,” or not-quite-finished, products outshine “final” offerings from most other companies. Example No. 1 is Google’s Desktop Search. Anyone who is anyone leans on Google for Web searches. But what about searching your hard drive? Google’s free Desktop Search tool, also in beta, can perform the task quickly.

When first downloaded, Google’s Desktop Search software “indexes” compatible files, e-mail and any Web pages you previously viewed in Internet Explorer. Later, when Google spits out search results, you can view these Web pages again, even if you are offline or the page is no longer available. That’s because the pages and other files Google indexes are stored, or “cached.” Google can search plain text, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, along with Outlook (and Outlook Express) mail and AOL Instant Messenger chat sessions. Other file types are in the works.

•Google Gmail. The beauty of Google’s free, and invitation-only (while in “beta”), Web-based Gmail service is the amount of storage you get - a humongous 1,000 megabytes (or 1 GB), about 500 times the capacity of Microsoft’s rival Hotmail e-mail service when Gmail first arrived. (Perhaps in response, Hotmail and Yahoo recently beefed up storage capacities to 250 MB.) That means you’ll likely never have to discard any old mail. Also, messages are grouped with all their replies, making them easier to find.

Be aware of the tradeoff: You’ll have to put up with targeted advertising, though there are no pop-ups. Google recently added free POP e-mail access. You can now view Gmail messages using an e-mail program such as Microsoft Outlook or a handheld device such as a BlackBerry.

•Mozilla Firefox. The cyber-rogues who unleash viruses at your computer often attack vulnerabilities inside Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser. That’s why alternative browsers are looking so good. Among the best: Firefox, from the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It was built with security in mind. This sly fox is fast (switching programs is a breeze), free and uncluttered.

Among the available features are “extensions” and “themes” - custom add-ons that boost functionality and alter the browser’s look and feel. Still, you might run into cases where the sites you visit want you to use IE.

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Yahoo Sports reports that the NBA has laid the law down to Vince Carter regarding his iPod use during the warmup period before games. According to the NBA, there shall be no iPod usage during that period.

The Toronto Raptors star was informed by the NBA that he no longer can listen to music on his iPod during the 20-minute warmup period before each game. Carter recently started listening to the music on his headphones, a violation of the league’s rules on proper attire.

When the NBA heard about it, the league called the Raptors.

“We informed them that he can no longer do that,” NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre said Tuesday.

Carter has said he listens to the music in order to focus before a game.

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I’m not really sure of the motives behind the decision, but it might have to do with some type legalese (sponsorship), safety, NBA’s image, who knows? But it looks as if they want to control this behavior before they have half the NBA listening to their own music before the game. I wonder what the penalty is for this offense.

Rumors are now circling the web about Apple’s possible new line of iPods. Word is that in “December will begin manufacturing a third variant of its flagship iPod music player, which will be based on solid-state flash memory”. This news comes from AppleInsider and they claim that the rumor has been confirmed through a reliable source of theirs.

According to contacts in Asia, the computer company will build a stock-pile of approximately 2 million flash iPods before the product begins shipping world-wide in late-January or early February. The new players are slated to be announced at the annual Macworld trade show in San Francisco during the second week of January.

Though precise specifications were not readily available, the flash iPod will reportedly use controller chips from Austin, TX-based SigmaTel, and feature a storage capacity in the range of 256 Megabytes to 1 Gigabyte. Sources were unable to confirm if the player would be released in more than one configuration.

The iPod flash will retail for below (US)$200 and sport a similar user interface to the company’s ubiquitous iPod and iPod mini.

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This just may put a bigger piece of the market share in their lap. Good move!

After months of rumors, the iPod Photo is finally here. iPod Photo holds up to 25,000 digital photos, and displays them on a 220 x 176-pixel, 65,000-color display. Mixing your photos and music to create slideshows is one of the special features of this product. The new iPods comes in 40 GB or 60 GB sizes, and can hold 10,000 or 15,000 songs respectively. The player’s battery life is 15 hours of music playback, or five hours of slideshows. Both models are currently shipping and carry a retail price of US$499 (40 GB) and $599 (60GB).

I’m sure that these beauties will be a big hit and soon to be hard to find, so get your now.

Newer Technology, Inc. and Other World Computing brought to market the most powerful battery for 1G and 2G iPods. The battery packs an impressive 70% more power than the original iPod batteries. And the best part of all is that you can get the battery and the tools to help you install it for a mere $39.95. What a bargain!

The 2100mAh iPod replacement battery uses the same high-quality Li-Polymer technology used by Apple Computer to make the original iPod batteries. The NewerTech battery also comes with two non-scratching installation tools and a detailed instruction manual to guide users smoothly through the installation process.

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The first iMac powered by the G5 processor was first displayed to the world at the Apple Expo 2004 in Paris. Apple is billing it as the world’s thinnest computer.

“Just like the iPod redefined portable digital music players, the new iMac G5 redefines what users expect from a consumer desktop,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing at his keynote speech.

“With the entire system, including a gorgeous 17 or 20-inch display, just two inches thin, a lot of people will be wondering ‘where did the computer go?’”

The two-inch thick new member of the Apple family is small, white, and has both a 1.8GHz G5 chip and a 17-inch or 20-inch screen.

It also has a wireless keyboard and mouse, and the whole computer, including the power supply and slot-load optical drive, is built right into the display which sits on an aluminium foot.

The iMac G5 is expected to be available worldwide from mid-September, with prices starting from $1,299 (£919).

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Duke University has followed through with its rumored plan of giving their freshmen class free iPods as part of the entering class’ goodie bags. The gift is an experiment of sorts in which the University would like to see if the iPod can be a useful learning tool. Supposedly, the iPod is a possession of the University for the first year and then it is “officially” the property of the student. Some enterprising students are already planning to post their iPods on eBay for a quick few hundred bucks.

The project is being funded with money the school set aside for a one-time innovative technology purpose, and it’s not known whether the program will continue after this academic year. The $500,000 price tag includes the iPods themselves, salary for an academic computing specialist and grants to faculty members who participate.

The school approached Apple about the project and got the iPods at a discount. Each student also got a $10 gift certificate to buy music from a Duke-only iTunes Music Store Web site developed by Apple.

Other details of Duke’s contract with Apple remain confidential, but Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of hardware product marketing, said the company is monitoring the project closely.

“The whole iPod thing has grown into this ecosystem that’s far beyond anything anybody could of dreamed up,” Joswiak said.

Duke handed out iPods to 1,650 freshmen on a mid-August evening. For those who already owned iPods, the freebie offered a chance to turn a quick buck or do someone a favor.

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The iPods are the 20-gigabytes models, engraved with the school’s crest and the words “Class of 2008,” and are also equipped with a $35 voice-recorder attachment. They are also preloaded with messages from the school’s president and provost. The University is hopeful that their investment in the program will help stem some creativity around the iPod but regardless of the result, they say that the offer isn’t just a gimmick.

The Microsoft Windows application is more secure than you think, and Mac OS X is worse than you ever imagined. That is according to statistics published for the first time this week by Danish security firm Secunia.

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“Secunia is now displaying security statistics that will open many eyes, and for some it might be very disturbing news,” said Secunia chief executive Niels Henrik Rasmussen. “The myth that Mac OS X is secure, for example, has been exposed.”

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Secunia’s analysis of the data proves that Windows XP isn’t so bad after all. It does seem that Microsoft is known for being a “holey” OS, when it comes to security but the severity of those holes are statistically less damaging than those found in other operating systems.

For example, Windows security holes generally receive a lot of press because of the software’s popularity, but the statistics show that Windows is not the subject of significantly more advisories than other operating systems. Windows XP Professional saw 46 advisories in 2003-2004, with 48% of vulnerabilities allowing remote attacks and 46% enabling system access, Secunia said.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 8 had 48 advisories in the same period, with 58% of the holes exploitable remotely and 37% enabling system access. Red Hat’s Advanced Server 3 had 50 advisories in the same period - despite the fact that counting only began in November of last year. Sixty-six percent of the vulnerabilities were remotely exploitable, with 25% granting system access.

Mac OS X does not stand out as particularly more secure than the competition, according to Secunia.

Of the 36 advisories issued in 2003-2004, 61% could be exploited across the internet and 32% enabled attackers to take over the system.

The proportion of critical bugs was also comparable with other software - 33% of the OS X vulnerabilities were “highly” or “extremely” critical by Secunia’s reckoning, compared with 30% for XP Professional and 27% for SLES 8 and just 12% for Advanced Server 3. OS X had the highest proportion of “extremely critical” bugs at 19%.

Sun Microsystems’ Solaris 9 saw its share of problems, with 60 advisories in 2003-2004, 20% of which were “highly” or “extremely” critical.

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Now to the average person, do these numbers really matter? Would you rather have a “statistically secure” OS or an OS that will give you less problems. It is great to know that Microsoft isn’t that bad of an operating system but with its popularity and market penetration, it is a great target for hackers. With this fact comes the truth that more holes will be found and more inconveniences will come from that to the users. Applying patches every week is tiresome and in my own opinion, I would rather do without that. The severity of the hole is virtually inconsequential for no matter how damaging the hole is, it needs to be repaired. Give me the OS with the least amount of “found” holes.

eWeek is hosting a slideshow of Tiger’s new changes. There you will find features such as the Spotlight search interface; the controls for VoiceOver, OS X’s new spoken interface for visually-impaired users; Dashboard, the holder for new “Widget” productivity apps; the updated iChat conferencing program; and the extended integration of .Mac synchronization.

Microsoft made it known that they were going to make it easier to search for things on your computer in the release of their next OS, Longhorn. With delay after delay pushing back the release of Longhorn, Apple has beat them to the punch. Apple’s system-wide search engine, Spotlight, will be included in their Mac OS X 10.4, aka “Tiger.”

The trouble with the way we store our data today is that it doesn’t go well with the vast amounts of space in which we store it. The current methods of storing data incorporate techniques developed for old-style office management. On the computers of today, one would need a disciplined attitude to keep up with the amounts of data we collect on a daily basis, putting files in the proper subfolder under folder. Not only is it hard to consistently keep filing the data, it is hard remembering where you actually put it. Apple’s system-wide search engine is a viable solution to this problem. We may even bother with “filing” our data anymore.

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Take for example, Rael Dornfest, who has stopped sorting his e-mail. Instead of cataloging e-mail messages into neat mailboxes, Dornfest allows his correspondence to accumulate into one giant, unsorted inbox. Whenever Dornfest, an editor at tech publisher O’Reilly and Associates, needs to find something, he simply searches for it.

Apple is applying the same reasoning not just to e-mail, but to all the files stored on a hard drive. Microsoft also is touting a similar system-wide search engine in Longhorn, the next major version of Windows.

Jobs demonstrated Spotlight by finding a place-name reference in a PDF map, which the system had indexed in the background seconds after it had been downloaded from the Net.

As well as indexing the content of files, Spotlight also parses metadata: information about a file’s type, size, date and kind, as well as the author, creation date and dozens of other parameters.

To track information as it comes in, the system will enable users to create smart folders that automatically archive new material corresponding to specified search terms.

Jobs showed Spotlight working in Apple’s Mail application; a smart “Paris” folder archived messages with any mention of the French capital, and new messages would be added as they arrive.

“It’s very, very simple, and it’s a really effective way to find anything … it automatically finds stuff you’d never find by hand,” he said.

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It is said that this technology is long overdue, especially with the rate that our storage capabilities increase, it is also increasingly difficult to find the data we need quickly. The idea isn’t new, many have tried to make this idea fly; X1, blinkx, to name a couple. But what was needed to get the idea really moving was for it to be bundled in the OS. Congrats to Apple for being the pioneer of this task.

A new handy little app has popped up that will give you the latest entries from Engadget.com. It simply sits in your status bar and collects all the goods as they come in. The developer has billed this creation as donationware and if you find the engadgeter useful, do the right thing!

You can download it here and learn more about it here.

Source: Where else? Engadget.com

An Army contractor, the Huntsville, Alabama based Colsa, announced that they will be buying 1,566 Xserve G5 system costing $5.8 million. This system, called MACH 5, will be used to run simulations of hypersonic aerodynamics of flight. Colsa hopes to have the system running at 15 teraflops by this fall. The achievement will put the MACH 5 supercomputer very high on the Top500 list (I think #2), which will be another great score for Apple supercomputing.

Much of the credit to Apple’s successes thus far is due to the processor it uses–IBM’s PowerPC 970–Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said.

“The Macintosh software and the nice management features of OS X are factors here, but certainly performance of the processor is an enormous factor,” Haff said. “PowerPC is a fast processor.”

Indeed, the chip’s abilities to perform a type of mathematical calculation called “floating-point operations” were compelling. “The floating-point units in that processor were particularly attractive,” Whitlock said.

Colsa will use Mac OS X as the primary operating system, though it will evaluate other options including Red Hat Linux and Yellow Dog Linux, Whitlock added.

MACH 5, which stands for Multiple Advanced Computers for Hypersonic, G5, will occupy 42 racks and 600 square feet of floor space, said Anthony DiRienzo, a Colsa executive vice president. Apple was the winning bidder among six companies, DiRienzo said, declining to name the competitors.

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Apple is quickly making a name in the supercomputing market. I predict that many seekers of supercomputer power will opt to look Apples direction for the reliability and cost effectiveness. Scalability and serviceability can also be major factors in going with Apple. With their supercomputer setup, components can easily be swapped out or added when need be. Watch out IBM!

With the recent news of Apple’s QuickTime gaining market share, Apple forges on with their successor to MPEG-2. MPEG-4 part 10 or H.264/AVC is the next-generation video compression technology using the MPEG-4 standard that will be able to handle everything from 3G to High Definition (HD) broadcast. QuickTime will be the vessel for the new engine.

Earlier this year, Apple demonstrated MPEG-4 part 10 showing content encoded at full HD resolution (1920×1080 24 frames progressive) and played back between 6.8 and 8 Mbps on one of Apple’s current dual-processor computers. The company suggests that H.264/AVC is the likely successor to MPEG-2, which is still the industry standard.

MPEG-4 has come into conflict in the past with Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 9 and its FastStream technology, which like Apple’s Instant-On, eliminates buffer delays. Earlier this month, Microsoft released its Windows Media Player 10 beta with digital rights management technology, code-named Janus. The technology, expected to ship later this year, will also feature full support for the coming Portable Media Center.

“Apple’s pursuit of standards is a new leaf for them,” Mike McGuire, Gartner Research Director, told internetnews.com. “Their view is that digital media is going to extend to other formats and players and they are looking at the new opportunities for distribution channels. That long-term strategy is an interesting opportunity for them.”

McGuire said the key for Apple is its work to push its QuickTime Streaming Server as a backside technology.

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QuickTime’s new overhaul should make it even more appealing to the masses mainly for its new capabilities, but perhaps most importantly because it is not a Microsoft product.

[No mention of when QuickTime will be ready for release.]

After a formal request was issued, by Joel of Gizmodo, to Apple to include support for the OGG Vorbis codec on their iPods, a response was given by Rio Audio’s Engineer Hugo Fiennes as to the plausibility of Apple adding OGG to their iPods. As it turns out, the newer models of iPod may be able to handle the codec while older models simply don’t have the needed computing power. Here is what Hugo had to say about the matter:

Firstly, CPUs:

The current iPod gen3 has a PP5002D CPU, the same as the gen1 and gen2. The gen1/2 stored their code from flash, not SDRAM, meaning they had a more limited codesize, and their SDRAM took more power to operate.

The iPod mini has a PP5020 CPU

The Rio Karma (developed here, in Cambridge UK) uses a PP5003 CPU. It plays OGG (and FLAC and MP3 and WMA). [Nice plug - Ed.]

The old 5002:

The 5002 has a “broken” cache (1 wait state per access for program or data, meaning you effectively have half the effective clock rate when running code from external memory). This means that running code that doesn’t fit in the internal 96kbyte SRAM of the player is very inefficient, both in terms of CPU cycles and power. MP3 and AAC just about squeeze into the internal memory (one at a time, obviously!), but anything that didn’t would result in a big power hit - my guess is 30-40%+. This would be a bad user experience, considering the already short gen3 battery life.

The newer 5003:

The 5003 in the Karma has this particular silicon deficiency fixed. The Karma plays OGG, though it’s still a resource hog - you get about 25% less battery life - about 11-12 hours compared to 15+ for MP3 due to the extra cycles and memory requirements when compared to the more svelte codecs. We didn’t do a lot of optimisation, so it’s running the Vorbis-supplied tremor decoder with only a few tweaks.

The even newer 5020:

The 5020 is based on the 5003, and so has the cache bug fixed. It’s capable of playing OGG with 25% or less hit on power (depending how much optimisation is done). I would suspect the 5020 will find its way into the next iPod, as it’s cheaper and integrates both the firewire MAC and the USB2 mac/phy blocks which are separate chips on the gen3.

So in summary:

gen3 - In theory possible, but unlikely. mini - Very possible. gen4 (or my guess at what a gen4 would have in it) - Very possible.

Hugo Fiennes is not speaking for his employer Rio Audio or Digital Networks or anybody else. He’s just sharing.

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With the rash of security vulnerabilities popping up in Mac OS X, the need for protection is becomes prevalent. One of the most popular way of securing your system is with the help of the app Paranoid Android. If for some reason you do not wish to use Paranoid Android, there are other thing you can do. Jason Harris of UnSanity has a few tips that may keep you protected.

My current understanding is that there are five infection vectors that can be used with Safari (more and fewer with various other web browsers). If “Open Safe Files After Downloading” is enabled, a ‘zip’ file can be used. If not, ‘disk’, ‘disks’, ‘ftp’ and ‘afp’ can be used. There’s anecdotal evidence that these don’t work in Jaguar or in some other web browsers, but they do work in Safari on Panther.

This means that for those who do not wish to use Paranoid Android, there are other methods of protection - use RCDefaults to disable the ‘disk’, ‘disks’, ‘ftp’, and ‘afp’ protocols, and turn off “Open Safe Files After Downloading”. Paranoid Android is not the only solution.

However, I still recommend using Paranoid Android instead of remapping protocol helpers. It’s possible that there are other infection vectors I’m not aware of, and also, once Apple resolves this issue, it’ll be easier to turn Paranoid Android off than it will be to remap the protocol handlers. Paranoid Android can be installed for all users, and is significantly easier to use than remapping protocols for every user on the system.

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Read more.

According to the MacOSX.com forum, it is “confirmed” that the next version of the iPod will have a color screen. The site’s founder seems to really believe that this is a true fact but his source of info is not mentioned. Along with this addition to the iPod may come the ability to view your digital pictures or perhaps other useful functionality will be added.

Our sources have confirmed the next generation iPod will have a color screen. The new iPod will not be much different in form and function from the current models, but the primary difference is thecolor (sic) screen. Other details about the iPod are scetchy on our end but the fact it will be color is not up for debate. We are sorry we don’t have more information to provide or details concerning the screen itself, but when it does come out or other rumors abound of it, just remember you heard it here first.

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Check out the forum’s comments, lots of speculation as to Apple’s intentions.

Click to enlarge.

Karl Lagerfeld, owner of 40 iPods and French fashion designer, has created a way to carry a small portion of his iPod collection. This carrying cased, called the Fendi Juke Box, will enable you to carry at least 12 of your iPods at once. By the looks of the photo you should be able to get a few extra things in there as well. The bag is available now at Fendi boutiques across the nation and is priced at a mere $1500.

The bag, unveiled by the Italian fashion house at a catwalk show in Milan, is a rectangular gilded purse about the size of a bread bin. It is lined with multicolored cloth and incorporates a pocket for holding up to a dozen iPods.
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As well as the Juke Box, there’s a silver iPod carrying case, which has not yet gone into production. Several items in the collection are made of translucent materials (reminiscent of Apple’s use of transparent plastic) or feature a circular motif, a reference, perhaps, to the iPod’s scroll wheel interface. For example, Lagerfeld designed a large silver ring called the Disk, a circular purse in semi-translucent leather, and the Compilation, a gold purse with a circular clasp.

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