IT, A Philosophy

It's Monday: Here's Some Quick Links

2009-11-02T12:23:00.001-06:00

Yeah, not really in the mood for an all out bitch fest, so, here's some links to get you over the Monday hump (unless you're getting it on in the broom closet with some hot coworker, then you really should be focused on other things).

Apple's Killing the Hackentosh, So Go Cry Your Little Eyes Out, You Weenie

InformationWeek Thinks Windows 7 Will Actually Increase Productivity

Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.6 Beta 1. Go Team!

Apple's Not Feeling the Love in China, But That Mystery Meat On A Stick Sure Looks Good

Ford Posts A Nearly $1 Billion Profit for Their 3rd Quarter: Take That, Government Bailouts!

That's all, folks! Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, or Wednesday, or something. Now, go enjoy whatever Halloween treats you have left over while you start contemplating what you're going to cook for Thanksgiving even though your family is a bunch of ungrateful fuck faces who wouldn't know how to say "Thank You" if you branded the back of their hands with those words.

Of course, I'm not speaking of my family. Oh, no, not at all.

Halloween is Coming!

2009-10-30T12:51:00.001-05:00

Yes, yes, yes! Halloween is coming, boys and girls. It's the Birdman's favorite holiday, though I never really need a costume. Although, the next kid who calls me Big Bird gets punched in their snot-dripping little nose.

So, if you still don't have a costume and want to scare the bejeezus out of everyone you meet I have a few suggestions.

Windows ME or Vista

Steve Ballmer

Internet Explorer

BSOD

Darl McBride

John Sculley, Michael Spindler or Gil Amelio (in my book all equally scary)

A command line prompt from your OS of choice

Dick Cheney (be sure to have a shotgun and waterboarding apparatus in hand)

I think that covers the bases, but, if you have any more suggestions I'm all ears (really, beneath all these feathers I do have ears; I'm a freak, not a monster).

Droid Reviews Are In

2009-10-30T12:26:00.001-05:00

At least from PCWorld. The short of it is: Great OS, great screen, crappy physical keyboard, clunky (read: large) hardware.

I'll throw my own $0.02 in here, just because. Before iPhone everyone and their brother trotted out smartphones with physical keyboards (whatever that even means today – if you don't know what I'm getting at there's plenty of people on the InterTubing discussing how "smartphone" doesn't really apply anymore, the devices are really all portable computing devices). Anytime anyone piped up about a virtual keyboard the consensus was that it couldn't be done well enough to be usable. Then, as we all know, Apple put out the iPhone with, yep, a virtual-only keyboard. And, oh my, the shit storm that swirled around from RIM and Palm and Microsoft about how a virtual keyboard was so inferior to an honest-to-goodness physical keyboard with their ultra-small keys and super-tight spacing. Yeah, that didn't last long. Now, of course, everyone and their brother is racing to put a virtual keyboard into their devices.

With the level of tech available today I think virtual keyboards will eventually completely replace physical keyboards. Why? Well, with the right algorithms you can correct for user typing errors with a virtual keyboard. Just ask Apple. Physical keyboards don't really give you that kind of freedom. Also, physical keyboards take up space, adding bulk to devices that everyone wants to be as slim and light as possible.

Of course, like most things in human life, physical vs. virtual keyboards are a religious debate, and each person has an opinion. Kind of like an asshole. But, the market seems to be pushing for virtual keyboards, even if a physical one is available. Eventually, whether you believe in the god-of-virtual-keyboards or not, the physical keyboard on portable computing devices will disappear.

Like the dodo and Summer Arctic ice.

Ubuntu 9.10 Launches the Karmic Koala

2009-10-30T11:51:00.001-05:00

Yep, kiddies, that Linux distro that all the cool kids are loading up and wiping Windows away with has just seen a new release. Thanks to Ars Technica you can read all about it. The faster boot time, the pretty pretty boot up sequence (who doesn't like a pretty boot up sequence?), the yumminess of Gnome 2.28, the awesomeness of Ubuntu One web sync. It's all there for your Linux lickin' pleasure.

So go on, have at it. You know you want to.

SCO Fires Darl McBride

2009-10-29T14:33:00.001-05:00

Just thought I'd pass this on incase anyone still gave two shits about SCO. Courtesy of Ars Technica.

How to Make a Company Innovate

2009-10-29T09:42:00.001-05:00

This story via Ars Technica relates how Moticello, MN got 50Mbps fiber-to-the-house connections out of TDS. Essentially, all the town had to do was get the residents to vote for it. Why didn't TDS offer the better service to their customers before the whole voting and taxpayer money being spent and lawsuit (brought about by TDS) happened?

We spoke to TDS about the situation last year, and its director of legislative and public relations told us that TDS didn't act earlier because it didn't actually know that people really, really wanted fiber; once the referendum was a success, the company moved quickly to give people what it now knew they wanted.

Uh, yeah, sure. Maybe if these dipshits were more honest I'd like them more. Just come out say "Hey, look, we're cheap fucks, and rolling out faster service with fiber connections is just so much work, and costs money, and really, what we offer is good enough, and who really cares? It's not like people have multiple computers in their houses all connected to the InterTubing downloading gigabytes of illegal software, games, porn, music and movies at the same time. I mean, really, all this advancement just seems silly. I miss the good ol' days of DOS and not needing more than 64K of RAM."

The real punchline, folks, is that sometimes, yes, sometimes, good ol' Capitalism just don't work. Chew on that for a bit and get back to me.

Apple's Mixed Singles and the Mythical Touch Me Pad

2009-10-29T09:32:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm talking about the likelihood of Apple actually introducing a tablet-like device, along with new support for new MacBook Pro models in the latest seed of 10.6.2.

Here's where the confusion seems to be for the blogosphere (via Ars Technica):

Apple SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller recently implied to Gizmodo that there would be no more new products announced this year. Indeed, it would make logical sense that this is it for 2009, as we are soon entering November and the beginning of the holiday season. However, Apple was quick to clarify that what he actually said was, "The holiday lineup is set," indicating that the company doesn't want to say, specifically, that no more products are coming.

Here's my thoughts, as if you care. I believe the "The holiday lineup is set" comment means exactly that, no new product types will be in the Apple lineup between now and the beginning of 2010 (or end of 2009, depending on how you look at it). In fact, I highly doubt any updates will come to light before the end of year, only because you don't want to piss off your customer base during the holiday buying season. Traditionally, most companies like to update their product offerings right after the holidays. At least a month or so later. Give the poor buggers enough time to really enjoy their new Shiny-Shiny before putting out a new and improved Shiny-Shiny that makes the old (well, month old) Shiny-Shiny look like a piece of crap wrapped in gold-tone tinfoil.

Now, Macworld (the Conference, not the publication) is traditionally held in early January, but we all know that Apple left that relationship. So, if Apple were to introduce a new product type, like the so far mythical Apple Tablet, when would that be? By not participating in a conference with a set date in which the company is expected to introduce new products, Apple is free to introduce new and updated products at will. No timelines, no schedules. This goes even for the WWDC as Apple sets the dates. So, now that Apple isn't tied to any third-party's need to have a get together with all their friends and family right now, they're free to hold their own parties whenever they feel like. Which is what they've been doing. Sometimes, they'll even introduce a slew of products with nothing more than a PR release.

So, where does that leave us regarding the 10.6.2 update, support for new MacBook Pro models, and the mythical Apple Touch Me Pad? Here's how I see it playing out. Mac OS X 10.6.2 is released sometime in November. MacBook Pro updates come in January consisting of some speed bumps, maybe upgraded GPUs, and that's about it. The form factor is there, the major connectivity options are there. There isn't much for Apple to do to these machines at this point. The real news, though, come late January (after Macworld and that CES thingy¹), will be the oft-rumored and still mythical Apple Touch Me Pad. Yes, Virginia, it will sport a form factor reminiscent of the iPhone/iPod touch, but I'm on the fence as to which OS X version it will sport, iPhone OS or Mac OS X. I'm leaning toward Mac OS X because, as a bigger device, the Touch Me Pad would have more screen real estate to work with, most likely sport enough CPU/GPU horsepower to effectively run multiple apps at once, and with Apple's new battery tech, should get enough battery lifetime to be worthwhile as a portable device.

Of course, I could be completely wrong on when the Touch Me Pad would be introduced, though I feel kind of confident on the timing of the updates. The other point at which I can see a new product type being introduced is, of course, during Apple's WWDC. This makes more sense than early-2010 for two reasons:

1) the Touch Me Pad, while not a completely new platform like iPhone, would represent a new device category for developers to target, one that would provide a superset of functionality, either of Mac OS X (touch capabilities, maybe accelerometer support, etc.) or iPhone OS (multiple apps at once, possibly even the ability to run in the background);

2) it's close to the back-to-school buying season, and therefore a great time to maximize initial sales.

At the end of the day, what all this really means is that I don't believe that just because 10.6.2 is imminent and MacBook Pro updates are pretty much a given that Apple will also introduce a new product type at the same time. In fact, I don't think the introduction of the mythical Touch Me Pad is tied to anything other than When It's Done It's Done. So, yes, regardless of evidence of updated machines and the drawing near of 10.6.2's release, Phil Schiller spoke the truth, the holiday lineup is set. There will be no new product types launched between now and December 31, 2009.

Let the frothing and counter-arguments begin.

1. A quick search of the CES exhibitor list doesn't produce a listing for Apple. So, unless they're a late entry (always a possibility), I don't foresee the company participating in any tradeshows/conferences unless they're the ones throwing the party.

Microsoft's Crapware-free PCs

2009-10-29T08:38:00.001-05:00

No, Microsoft has not struck a deal to resell Apple Macs or PCs loaded with Ubuntu. Instead, they are offering up PCs in both their brick-and-mortar and online stores that come free of most of the crapware you'll enjoy when buying from the likes of Best Buy or directly from the manufacturer. According to Ars Technica (see previous link):

The new "Microsoft Signature PCs" initiative means the software giant is removing all preinstalled software from the computers it is selling, and loading them instead with full versions of programs of its own choosing.

…

According to the Microsoft Store, Redmond is bundling the following applications on the PCs it is reselling: Microsoft Security Essentials, Bing 3D Maps, Zune 4.0, Playready PC Runtime (for WMC), Adobe Flash Player for IE, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Windows Live Sync, and Windows Live Essentials (which includes Windows Live versions of Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Family Safety, Toolbar, as well as the Office Live Add-In and Silverlight).

This is a positive move, in my book. Aside from the great annoyance that has been Windows for, oh, well, decades at this point (heck, I remember having to reinstall Windows 3.11 constantly anytime anything on the system got a little wacky), crapware has been high on the list of reasons computer users have wanted to take baseball bats to their PCs and demonstrate the dominance of humanity. I think this move will get people, who for whatever reasons insist on using Windows, to actually enjoy their PCs. Until, that is, they actually try to do anything useful. Then they'll just be back at hating Windows.

Seriously, though, I'm curious to see a study comparing the reliability of the crapware-free PCs to machines pre-loaded with crapware goodies. I'm wondering if Windows will actually prove to be more stable and responsive without all the extra baggage.

Let the Windows Upgrade SNAFUs Begin

2009-10-27T08:41:00.001-05:00

It's being reported that some people upgrading to Windows 7 are experiencing endless reboots and product key problems. Some of the problems seem to be caused by a third-party who was offering the Student Upgrade via download. Other problems just seem to be random Microsoft goodness.

Man, Microsoft just can't seem to get anything right. It almost seems like they're the only software company that consistently creates clusterfucks. I don't know of any other company that recently put out an OS upgrade that craps out your system.

Amazon Intros Relational Database Management Services

2009-10-27T08:35:00.001-05:00

You get to run MySQL with Amazon managing all the dirty backend details, like patching and "time-consuming database administration tasks".

All of these "cloud computing for the masses" initiatives are interesting when viewed through the lens of the Desktop OS + Apps paradigm. What I'm blundering through trying to get at is that as average users begin to utilize online-only or online-with-some-offline-access services (think IMAP email, Google Docs, etc.) the OS begins to become less and less relevant.

Or, rather, it's not that the OS is no longer relevant because we're all going to be computing in the cloud (whatever the fuck that means). Simply, it means that the emphasis on the technical specs of your OS of choice are of less importance than your overall OS experience. This is why Apple's Mac has been making incredible strides, along with iPhone. No one outside of us tech geeks cares about the internals. It's all about getting what you want done, done, in an easy, no-brainer way.

UPDATED: Realized that the first sentence and last paragraph had zero relation to each other. So, I added the middle bit you see above there. Should make more sense now.

The Fiscal Difference Between Microsoft and Apple

2009-10-23T10:00:00.001-05:00

The big story out of Redmond, aside from the launch of Windows 7, is Microsoft's latest financial results. According to Reuters Microsoft smashed Wall Street expectations. Which is great from a macro-economic perspective (if MS is doing better than expected then there must be some positive momentum in the overall economy). But, when you read the actual story, Microsoft is being praised for showing 18% less profit and 14% lower sales from the same year ago quarter. For this Microsoft is given a 9% boost on their share price.

Now, contrast that with Apple's latest numbers for their fourth quarter: 18% increase in net income and a 12% increase in revenue (sales). For that, Apple was also given a significant share price boost.

Is is just me, or does this seem strange, awarding two companies that pursue very similar target audiences for performance that, honestly, sits on opposite ends of the spectrum? One beats expectations by not sucking as bad as everyone thought, and the other by doing better than anyone else in the industry. It's almost like Microsoft and Apple are stuck in some sort of cosmic Yin Yang, so opposite of each other, yet so interdependent.

This just makes me wonder what all the fucktard tech journalists are going to do if Apple and Microsoft actually do well¹, at the same time. Dear Lord, I think their heads will explode.

1: By well, I mean both showing increased profits and revenue. Possibly even both gaining market share. Though, I don't see how that would be possible. What would be possible, though, is for both to continue to show increased sales numbers as each company moves into untapped/undertapped markets.

The WTF Quote of the Day, and it's Only 10:45 a.m.

2009-10-22T10:50:00.001-05:00

Via the AP by way of Daring Fireball:

"Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone," Ballmer said. "That's why they've got 75,000 applications — they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone."

If this actually makes sense to you, please, please explain, in full detail, in the comments below.

Windows 7 Launches Today

2009-10-22T10:42:00.001-05:00

It's been all over the InterTubing, but I've been too busy here at Birdman Central to write anything up. But, here's my shot into the "Weeee! Windows 7 is launching!" gleefest. Don't get me wrong, I really do hope that this iteration of Windows is an actual, honest-to-goodness, solid, stable, just works OS. But, unlike with the stockmarket, past performance of product quality is usually a good indicator of future performance.

With that being said, the InterTubing has been rife with high praise for Windows 7, essentially calling it What Vista Should Have Been. But, I've been hearing that since the first betas were released, and to be very frank, I'll believe it when I see it. More specifically, I'll believe it when I read the post-coital reviews, the been-using-it-at-least-a-month first hand accounts, and maybe taking some time at my local Shit Buy to play with the damned thing. Being the Tech Guru of the Birdman household is a lot of responsibility, and I'm not itching to upgrade the one Vista machine (a laptop) we have floating around here. Not that Vista's all that great. In fact, the damned thing will seize up if you unplug it while the laptop is still running, then plug it back it in.

…

It's a fucking laptop for fuck's sake! How do you build a fucking piece of shit laptop that can't be unplugged than plugged back in while it's still running? The whole point of a laptop is portability, people! Get with the program.

…

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system …

Sometimes, it doesn't seize. The behavior seems somewhat random, though I think it's a combination of shit hardware and leaving Vista running too long between reboots. Anyway, the craptop runs well enough for what it's used for: email, surfing the InterTubes, playing solitaire (this version rocks!), and um … uh … yeah, that's about it. Occasionally, I'll hook it into the TV to watch a movie. That's a whole other pain in the ass unto itself, and I won't bore you with the details. I'm just waiting to grab a MacBook Pro for those duties, especially now that a Mini Displayport + USB to HDMI adapter is available (Seriously, Apple, no audio out of the Mini Displayport? You'd better have a damned good reason why not.) So, I'm not looking to upgrade the machine, at least not in the short term. We'll see.

Anyway, ran across this piece, which seems to be the lone voice in the "Microsoft is Great! Microsoft is Back on Top! Windows 7 Will Save the Planet!" chorus that is echoing around the InterTubes, clogging my bandwidth. If you're too lazy to click on a link and read a few paragraphs I'll give you the summary: Even Vista received high praise before it's launch, and now a bunch of tech journalist luminaries are regretting that they wrote such nice things.

We'll see how this goes. My bet, after about two weeks of "Yippee! Windows is nearly usable!" the first reports of shittiness will begin dribbling out into the InterTubing, a major security hole will be discovered (my bet is that it will be of the "Fixed in previous OSes, how the fuck did this get through code review" variety), testing from security gurus will show that Win 7 is just as vulnerable to attack as Vista and XP, and, oh, yeah, it isn't much more stable or reliable over the long haul than XP.

But, that's just my prediction based on Microsoft's past performance. I could be wrong, yet, I doubt it.

Judge Brings Some Sanity to the Music Industry: Ringtones Aren't Performances

2009-10-16T13:31:00.001-05:00

Jackie Cheng writes for Ars Technica that US District Judge Denise Cote ruled against ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) in their lawsuit against cellphone carriers that demanded that the carriers pay ASCAP a royalty fee whenever the phone rings. Thank fucking God.

I'm all for writers (whether literature, music, ad copy, etc) getting paid for their work, but come on. The fact that this suit even made into reality, let alone the US court system, just goes to show how fucked the music industry really is.

I feel bad for the performers, artists and writers. But, their leadership is driving them into one hell of a deep well. At least this judge let her common sense and the law prevail, not some fear of an entire industry disappearing (which, by the way, the leadership of said industry seems to be doing a mighty fine job of committing suicide all on their own).

Will Linux be the Dominate OS in the Consumer Electronics Landscape?

2009-10-16T12:34:00.001-05:00

So asks Ryan Paul over at Ars Technica. The article focuses on a talk given by Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation.

As netbooks and smartphones redefine the boundaries of computing, he argues, Linux will take on even greater importance. Although he says it's not clear what kind of form factors will dominate when the dust settles, he's convinced that Linux will become the dominant platform of the transforming mobile and embedded ecosystem. Thanks to greater flexibility, freedom from lock-in, and lack of licensing costs, he believes that Linux "enables consumer electronics like no other platform."

While I don't necessarily disagree that Linux will be a major force in CE and the computing space in general going forward, I wouldn't bet on it becoming the dominant OS. Simply because, while Linux is definitely flexible and seemingly infinitely configurable, the best software/firmware for each specific use will need to be used, and that may not always be Linux. In fact, it may be Windows, or some other OS. Maybe even something new. Still, Linux has been making great inroads in the embedded space, and I do foresee it being a major player going forward. Again, though, I wouldn't bet on it becoming the dominant player. In fact, I foresee the CE and embedded spaces remaining fairly fractured, not becoming a reflection of the desktop OS market, merely out of necessity.

The Fear of Innovation: 100 Years of Big Content Hysteria

2009-10-16T11:50:00.001-05:00

Well, fine, that's not really the title of the article over at Ars Technica. It's really 100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words. Honestly, I like my title better.

Anyway, if you're looking for a pretty good historical overview of how Big Content has always dealt with technological innovations that impacted their business, this is it. What strikes me as most interesting is how Big Content's initial reaction to any new technology, whether gramophone, MP3 players or DTV, has been to go running to Congress with a Sky Is Falling! argument. "It's the end of our business," they'll cry, in perfect harmony. "Soon, we won't be able to feed our kids, and professionals and amateurs alike will suffer at the hands of [fill in the blank here with a new technology]. Our national way of life will come to an end!" Well, that last bit was an interesting claim made by John Philip Sousa.

Honestly, like any business, Big Content's biggest threat is itself. If Content is King, as the media companies always claim, then as long as they are creating kings worthy of the public's adoration, then sales should be good. If they fail to create compelling content that people are willing to spend money to obtain (read: a product with a good value proposition) then no amount of broadcast flags or DRM or any other of a million stupid ways to limit the consumer's ability to enjoy content whenever, wherever will save their business. When the product's only worth is it's ability to be obtained for free, no one will buy it, even if that's the only way to obtain it.

Microsoft's Biggest Patch, Ever! And, The Danger Factor

2009-10-15T09:12:00.001-05:00

So, two things have hit Microsoft this week. And, no, one of them was not a pie. Okay, fine, that one was a bit on the old side, and I did feel bad for the guy, but hey, it works.

Anyway, back to those two things. The first big thing to be making waves in the tech world, and for many people on a personal level, is of course the outage and subsequent data loss suffered by Sidekick users at the hands of Microsoft's inability to properly run something a smaller company was running for years without glitches (thanks, TechCrunch). That would be servers. Something the World's Biggest Software Company really should have a handle on. I mean, they make server OSes and software. How hard could it have been for them to make sure there was a backup? Or, I don't know, take better care before upgrading your systems? Oh, wait, how about making sure there was a current backup, that worked properly, in place before upgrading your SAN? You know, just in case something went wrong.

But, hey, who the hell am I? Just some freaky bird and man combo (the best of both, if you know what I mean) who has some common sense. But, just a little, not a lot.

Whew, well, I've gotten that out of the way. Frigtards.

Sorry, residual anger over extreme incompetence and stupidity.

Dipshits.
Morons.
Dipshit Motherfucker Frigtarded Morons.

Ahem, excuse me. So sorry. I must be having some sort of tourettes-like episode.

Let me try again.

Okay, now, the next thing on the list is what is being billed as Microsoft's Biggest Patch, Ever! (Thanks, Reuters.) This one even includes some patch goodness for Windows 7. Yes, the not officially launched, out in the wild, ready to be bought, waiting lonely on some dirty tech store shelf to be taken home to a good, loving home, Latest-Greatest-Bestest-Ever Windows OS.

Ah, reminds me of my youth. (Ed. What?)

Now, I know Microsoft's been a punching bag of late. I've been known to put in a few good rights now and again, but, really people, why make such a big deal out of this? This is par for the course with Big Redmond. I can't remember an OS they've put out that didn't have a patch ready and waiting a good couple of weeks before the damned thing hit the retail channel. Can you?

I'll give you a minute to thing about it.

…

Yeah, didn't think so. Honestly, this actually makes me proud of the company. They caught an issue before the OS fell into the hands of the unsuspecting public (though, at this point, really, John Q there really should be suspecting) and put out a fix. The real fun will be seeing how many patches need to be released to patch the patch they just released.

Ah, good ol' Microsoft. Good to see they're still in tip top form.

Of course, our favorite company here at HQ likes to take a slightly different approach. They like to declare their OS solid and good to go, then wait for all the user complaints to come rolling in. At least Microsoft makes a good show while they pretend to produce an error free OS. Oh hell, who am I kidding? Apple's OSes of recent have been much more stable out of the box than anything Microsoft's produced. I guess the public beta periods really do work better.

Well, that wraps up my "Microsoft is clueless" post for today. I'll be out of the office this afternoon, so if you need anything, just leave a message or let my secretary know. Oh, and tomorrow? I make no promises.

UPDATE: This just in from PCWorld: Microsoft recovered their Sidekick customers' data. Though, this article by David Coursey does raise some good questions. But, David, I'll give you the really, really obvious answer to all your questions. Incompetence. Deep rooted, corporate wide, institutional incompetence. Really, that should be all you need to answer any question you may ever have that begins with "Why did/can't/won't Microsoft …"

InfoWorld Declares Apple and Microsoft Thieves

2009-10-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

With the recent launch of Snow Leopard and the very, very fresh launch of Windows 7, John Rizzo of InfoWorld put together a list of 20 areas in which Apple and Microsoft stole from each other (that would be 10 each, for those of you who suffer poor reading comprehension). The list is pretty good, and from what I can tell well balanced and accurate. Though, I do take exception to two items InfoWorld claims Apple stole from Microsoft:

6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore

Apple didn't steal Time Machine from Windows -- just the concept of including backup capability with the operating system. Time Machine is far easier to use and than the Backup and Restore utility in Windows 7, and some would say, more flexible. But Windows had backup first.

While, sure, Windows had some sort of system backup and restore capability starting with XP, I wouldn't place Time Machine and Microsoft's Backup and Restore utility in the same ballpark, let alone the same league. Time Machine backs up all a users data, not just system components. At least, my experience with the Backup and Restore feature was such that the user stood to lose their data when the system was restored unless there was a separate backup. I could be wrong, and frankly, I've never gotten the Backup and Restore functionality to actually work for me. But, hey, I could be doing something wrong.

The other item I disagree with is the following:

10. Terminal: Command Prompt

Old-timers will remember that Windows began as a GUI running on top of the MS-DOS command-line OS. Today's Command Prompt is no longer DOS, but it does give command-line access to Windows itself. Apple eschewed a command-line interface in versions 1 through 9 of the Mac operating system, but finally gave in and added Terminal to provide access to Mac OS X's powerful Unix underpinnings. In 2006, Microsoft released Windows PowerShell, which includes a scripting language and supports some bash (Unix) shell commands.

Here I think John is just plain wrong. Mac OS X being based on NeXTSTEP, and NeXSTEP being based on UNIX, well, it would naturally come with a Terminal. It's free functionality, handed down by the OSes pedigree. Kind of like genetics. I believe that the reason Apple included the Terminal app is that without it you lose your ability to interact with the UNIX core, especially if you're a keyboard jockey ("Damn them new-fangled GUI's! Why, in my day you had to code all your commands in Assembly, compile them, and hope you didn't make a spelling error!") and I believe Apple is very proud of the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X. Why else would they bother to get it certified? It also doesn't hurt Apple's marketing department to be able to say "See, we're a UNIX shop. Mac OS X is solid, stable, and has a long history of security vetting. We're the awesome, inexpensive, user-friendly UNIX your users have been dreaming about for decades."

I have a few other nitpicks, but honestly, those are really the biggest ones. If you want to read more of griping, Keep-It-Accurate-Bub rhetoric, drop me a comment. A little begging and pleading might get you somewhere.

Walt Mossberg Declares Windows 7 "A Windows to Help You Forget"

2009-10-09T11:51:00.001-05:00

Of course, he's referring to Vista, the clusterfuck Microsoft put out and called an OS. You can read Walt's review here. Of course, it's still Windows, which means you have a registry to deal with, which means if you're upgrading from XP you're in for the long nightmare of backup, wipe, install, put back, reinstall, update, update, oh, update again, and finally, update. Then, when you're done doing that, in case you forgot to install any security software, there's that trainwreck of an afternoon killer. Yep, install the security software, update all the virus and malware definitions, do that some more, maybe update the scanning engine. Oh, and make sure your firewall is set properly before you do any of that, otherwise you're not going anywhere on the InterTubing SuperDuperHighway, chico.

So, the Guru of All Things Tech has given Windows 7 his blessing. That's good news for Microsoft and the roughly 90% of the computing world running some flavor of Windows. Hey, if you're going to stick with a beast, at least have it somewhat housebroken. Still, Phillip Elmer-DeWitt over at Fortune puts up this response to Mossberg's review: What's wrong with Windows 7.

Though, the best part of DeWitt's response has to be this last bit:

UPDATE: Kudos to reader Jon T. of Cardiff, Wales, for digging up this quote from Mossberg's review of Vista:

"After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced." — Wall Street Journal, Jan. 18, 2007

"After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced." — Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 2009

Oops, Walt, maybe you should have taken some more time writing this most recent review.

Okay, we can all look askance at Mr. Mossberg here and ask ourselves, and maybe even our neighbors, "Is Walt smoking something, or has Microsoft paid him huge chunks of money and we're going to hear about how after this last review he suddenly retired to some beach in the Bahamas?" Or, we can take a reality check and remember that each iteration of Windows has been called Microsoft's Best Yet. Well, except for ME.

Truth is, the company does continue to provide new and nifty things in their desktop OS. So what if much of it is derivative of others, and the company is much more the follower in the tech industry than an actual leader, especially when it comes to their flagship products? And, so what if their crazy pursuit of backward compatibility that allows their customers to run programs from 1983 means that they produce bloated, security hole riddled, unstable, unintuitive, user-antagonistic pieces of shit? Hey, each version is better than the last, right?

Anyway, if you really want to get a quick read of what Mossberg is really getting at, read DeWitt's response. That's all you really need to know.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Launches, or Something Like That

2009-10-06T14:58:00.001-05:00

So, it seems that Microsoft finally let WinMo 6.5 out the door. And, from what I've been reading all over the InterTubing, it's crap. Like, utter shit. Marginally better than 6.1, but really, nothing to jump up and down about, screaming in excitement. I'd link to the reviews, but just Google for Windows Mobile 6.5 reviews. Or, head on over to Gizmodo, they have a solid review there. (Link not provided due to shear laziness.)

Anyway, I guess the real story is WinMo 7, at least everyone, including Microsoft, is looking forward to the launch of WinMo 7. Guess 6.5 was a stopgap measure, but not a particularly good one. Whatever. Windows Mobile hasn't been relevant for years now. iPhone, Android, webOS, they're kicking the snot out of Microsoft. And, it seems like Microsoft is punch drunk. The competition keeps comin' at 'em, keeps one uppin' them, and Microsoft's only response it to retread old shit and put it out there as new.

Well, at least the general consensus on Windows 7 is cautiously optimistic. I'm not holding my breathe, just holding back judgement until it's in the wild. Vista is nothing but a shiny coat of paint on XP. Oh, with an extra layer of annoyance labeled as security. It's going to take some major Earth Moving for Microsoft to recapture its glory days. And, by that, I mean jettisoning Ballmer and putting someone with a fucking clue in charge. I swear, at this rate, Microsoft is going to out-(Pre-Return-of-Steve)Apple Apple. Sadly, I don't see Bill Gates hopping back into the driver's seat anytime soon. Sorry, Microsoft investors.

I kinda feel bad for the company. They just can't seem to get anything right lately. I mean, look at the Zune. With all the derision its been getting I wouldn't be surprised to find "Zune" in some dirty word dictionary.

zune (noun): A person who is so out of touch with those around them that they are perceived as utter pieces of shit. Kenny is such a zune.

zune (verb): 1. To screw up imitating someone or something so horrifically that you literally couldn't do worse, or be any more offensive. In some countries it may be a criminal offense requiring capital punishment. He totally zuned that imitation of that guy who saved all those old ladies from the nursing home fire. What a fucking dipshit.2. To blow a great opportunity to compete in the market by creating a product with compelling features, yet hobbling them so tremendously that they are both useless and derided by anyone who attempts to use them. The company zuned so horribly that they're considering bankruptcy.

Flash and iPhone, Why They'll Never Get Together

2009-10-05T11:38:00.001-05:00

Daniel Ionescu of PCWorld waxes philosophic as to why Apple hasn't jumped on the Flash bandwagon like all the other mobile phone makers. Well, maybe "waxes philosophic" is giving too much credit, rather, it's more like puts up three points that sound good, are pretty plausible, yet leave us, the readers, none the wiser. Really, because no one in the tech journalism world has any fucking clue what Apple's up to until it happens. Well, except for the few who get advance Apple products to test, like Mossberg and Pogue. But, Apple pretty much binds them up like some BDSM super fantasy before the official product launch, so we never get anything out of them.

I think the reason's pretty simple: Flash sucks, even on a fully decked out PC. It's a memory hog, eats CPU cycles like a starving kid in a candy store with a pocket full of stolen credit cards, and when it wigs out you have to reload the whole Goddamned thing. Yeah, that's an experience I want on my phone. A platform that is sluggish, bloated, and is known for crapping out even the best browsers. What, you think Google would have developed Chrome as a multi-threaded app wherein each tab runs completely independent of any other tab and the browser as a whole if Flash was stable and played well where it lives?

Flash used to be a cool thing, a nifty platform to develop some cool web-based UIs and the occasional app. It was getting bloated and unstable back when Adobe ate Macromedia, and it appears that Adobe has done nothing to correct the situation, only make it worse.

Please, Apple, do yourself and all your iPhone users a favor and keep Flash off iPhone. In fact, give it a lifetime ban. Keep it where it belongs, on second-rate mobile hardware and software platforms and on full-powered computer platforms. Apple, don't let Flash kill your HTML 5 aspirations.

Besides, I don't understand why anyone gives two shits about Flash on iPhone. Well, aside from the tech journalists who've run out of ideas and need something to write about in order to fill up space, get page hits, and generally make it sound like they know something. Honestly, journalists are nothing more than English majors who were going to write the Great American novel, but realized they had nothing to write about that would last more than 2 pages, so they went into journalism. Reality is iPhone sales are strong and growing, iPod touch sales are also growing and strong. So, really, I don't see how not having Flash on iPhone is hurting Apple one bit.¹

1: I recognize the irony in the above. But, it's even worse for me, I'm just blogging, and not even getting paid for it. At least, though, I recognize the situation for what it is. I'm not a self-important prick because I'm a journalist. I'm a self-inportant prick because I happen to be right most of the time (by which I mean in the 90% range), which most of these "journalists" can't really say.

A Funny Thing Happened When I Switched to Firefox

2009-10-02T10:26:00.001-05:00

Well, well, well, I'm just full of self-awareness lately. Take my last post, all this time and I just realize that the way I work is completely different than what I thought. Odd how some realizations take longer than others.

And, now, well, it just finally bubbled up to my higher consciousness that I must have gotten so used to having no bookmark sidebar in Safari that when I switched back to Firefox I actually prefer it closed. Weird. I guess this just means that if it weren't for Safari's tendency to get easily bogged down I could use Apple's window into the InterTubing. Although, Firefox does have its advantages, like its extensions. I have two that I utilize quite often, Session Manager and Fast Dial.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my bit of self-awareness in one of the most egotistical, self-involved ways I can, by blogging about it. I mean, really, do any of you actually care?

No, seriously, I'd like to know. Leave a comment, drop me a line. Whatever floats your boat. I'd like to hear from you.

And, Back to MarsEdit

2009-10-01T23:21:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm still playing around, but I realized something a little earlier this evening (yes, including I'm crazy): I have a great blogging environment right here with MarsEdit. I do enough hand HTML coding that MarsEdit is helpful, not a hinderance, and I spend as much time out of fullscreen mode as I do in, so why not use MarsEdit exclusively?

Well, that's what I'm going to do, at least for a little while. There were two reasons I used WriteRoom and MarsEdit together:

I like WriteRoom's fullscreen mode;

I like to save my posts locally as RTF files.

Well, as I mentioned above, I'm 50/50 in utilizing WriteRoom's fullscreen mode, and in fact am finding myself using it less and less. My setup is usually this, a browser (currently Firefox), my email app (Thunderbird), iTunes, iChat, WriteRoom and MarsEdit. What I'll do is come across an article, or twenty, on the InterTubing, be inspired to rant on and on about how stupid people are, write this all out in WriteRoom, being careful to add in my HTML code where needed, then copy/paste into MarsEdit. Well, here's the problem: I can't stay in fullscreen mode when I'm bouncing back and forth between Firefox and WriteRoom grabbing URLs and inserting them into my fine, fine prose. The other issue is why the hell am I handwriting HTML code when MarsEdit has a nice "Markup" drop down menu that does the dirty work for me. Jesus, I've got to be a fucking idiot to always be typing out this shit '< a href=' blah the fucking blahdy blah.

Number two on my list, keeping all my posts nicely pack ratted away on my local disk as nice cross-platform RTF files is nice in theory, but really, I use friggin' Blogger. They're all there. Also, I can use the nifty "File → Edit with WriteRoom" to throw the post into WriteRoom and then save it from there.

While I've used the Preview functionality of MarsEdit quite often in the past, I'm coming to realize that it's much more useful than as a mere proofreading-as-it-would-really-look tool. I can check out my HTML code and links while I type. I don't know why I never thought of all this before, beyond the fact that this blog, for as much fun as it is, has never been #1 on my priority list. Maybe now that I have something resembling down time my befuddled, abused brain finally got around to thinking about my blog setup and why I was always a little annoyed.

Anyway, there you have it, like you really give a rat's ass. I know. Still, maybe my bumping around in the dark will be helpful to someone else. Or, I'm just wasting bandwidth.

Ballmer's Folly

2009-10-01T13:38:00.000-05:00

So, the Intertube’s have been all abuzz lately about something other than the mythical Apple iTabletPadReaderThingyThatWillChangeTheWorldButIsInAProductCategoryThatAlreadyExistsLikeTheiPodBeforeAndYetWillTotallyTransformTheMarketAndProductCategorySoItSeemsLikeNothingEverExistedBefore. Now, if you can make out the previous, mazol tov.

Anyway, about a week ago Michael Arrington of TechCrunch was granted an exclusive interview with Steve Ballmer. Good Job, Michael. Congrats. You had an exclusive sit down with one of the more nutty CEOs out there. Anyway, you can clickety click the link above to go through the interview (there’s even video! my day is made!). But, here are the highlights: Ballmer is delusional, living in an alternate universe.

One of the things he says … oh, hell, I’ll let the man explain it himself:

The most successful by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not. The fact that there’s a lot of competitors probably is to our advantage. Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features. The other guys are getting more and more unanticipated competitive attack factors, the thing that Google announced yesterday where they replaced IE but they don’t tell you. I mean that’s how I would say it. For all intents and purposes of what they’re doing IE is not there. It’s their operating system. Instead of now masked as browser, it’s masked as a plug in basically to IE. So, you know, we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go. The one thing that’s unclear is what’s the economic play for anybody else competing with us at the browser level. Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?

Um, Steve, babe, I know it’s been tough filling in Bill’s shoes, and if you need help, it’s okay to go talk to someone. A professional.

No, not that kind. What is wrong with you? No, I mean a psychologist, or psychiatrist. Whichever gives drugs. Anyway, I know it’s been rough, but calling Safari and Chrome rounding errors? Okay, here, go look at this Wikipedia entry, and then tell me what it shows. Okay? I’ll wait.

…

Now, in case you missed it, it shows that together Safari and Chrome have a little over 6.5% of the browser market. In fact, taken separately, each of them have a greater market share than Opera, and Opera’s been on the market waaaaaaaaaay longer than either. So, while their combined share is less than 10%, it’s growing, and they’ve reached deeper market penetration (man, that sounds dirty) in less time than Opera. Think about that.

Another thing Ballmer gets at is Google’s dual OSes. He derides them for having multiple operating systems. Apparently, Ballmer’s never seen Microsoft’s product matrix. This is the company (and I’ve gone on about this previously) that has many, many OSes still on the market, from Windows XP to Vista, and soon Windows 7, to Windows Mobile, to whatever OS the Zune is running, to their upcoming cloud initiative, Azure, to their server versions. And, this is before you break down their offerings into sub-offerings, which last I checked included Basic, Home, Professional, Semi-Pro, Pro-Wrestling, Home Professional, Woman-of-the-Night Professional, Enterprise, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Borg Queen, and … hmmm … damnit, I feel like I’m still missing half a dozen.

The only company that can honestly say they have the same (core) OS across product lines is Apple. At least for their major products.

Everytime I come across an interview with Ballmer I always walk away shaking my head, thinking how the poor bastard is either delusional, scared shitting in his pants because of the strong competition, or some combination of the two. Microsoft does have a lot of competitors, but, truth is, if their products are any good then the company doesn’t have much to worry about. Look at Apple, or Google. They both offer products that are very, very good and that people want (well, maybe not so much Android, but we’ll see). As long as Microsoft can get its act together …

Sorry, couldn’t type for a minute, I was laughing too hard.

Anyway, I’ll try this again. As long as Microsoft can get its act together and produce solid, desirable products, then they’ll continue to do well and succeed. Otherwise, I hear Sun is holding a seat empty for them.

Coming to You from MacJournal

2009-10-01T11:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, because I must be nuts, I’m trying out different software for this whole blogging thing. While I like WriteRoom and MarsEdit, honestly, I’m getting sick of the 2-step dance that is required to use both. Not that it’s the fault of either developer, in fact, their respective software are great. It really is me. I’m sorry, I’m just not able to handle a three-way any longer. Maybe, what I really need is a break. Try something simpler. But, I still love you both, and I can’t honestly say this is the end. Just, ya’ know, a break, a lull, a time out.

Anyway, I’ll see how this goes, how it pans out for me. I can already identify two annoyances, but I’ll see if I can live with them.