I logged onto Blogger earlier today and was surprised to see that you can now use a custom domain instead of innerexception.blogspot.com for example.
The really cool part about this is that your *.blogspot.com domain will redirect to your new custom domain. I had registered innerexception.com and innerexception.net last year since they were available and in anticipation of being able to do this, or actually I was thinking of moving entirely to using iWeb and the iWeb Extender. But the difficulty of getting my content out of Blogger and into iWeb always prevented me from investing the time. I had always setup my domains to forward to innerexception.blogspot.com, but using my actual domain name was what I always wanted of course.
Now if only they had control and storage for favicons...
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Mac OS X Annoyance #001: No built-in image manipulation software
It never really hit me before, but it is almost inexplicable that OS X (up till 10.4 Tiger that is, hopefully Apple has something in 10.5 Leopard) has no included image manipulation software. What about iPhoto? iPhoto is not included in OS X, yes you get it free with new Macs, but you only get it going forward with iLlife upgrades. Besides, you can't arbitrarily draw lines, boxes, and add text to images with iPhoto. It is designed to correct digital photo problems like red eye, color levels, cropping, but it doesn't overlap with something like Photoshop.
I am not saying Apple needs to add Photoshop, or even Photoshop elements to OS X, but something more along the lines of Paint for Windows. I think Paint sucks in a lot of ways, but it can get you the basics. Come on Apple, make it happen!
UPDATE
I actually got so annoyed with the various image editing apps on OS X, none freeware and they watermarked the image I was editing (which is actually the new header on the blog), that I fired up Parallels and installed Paint.NET to bang out the change to my header image.
I am not saying Apple needs to add Photoshop, or even Photoshop elements to OS X, but something more along the lines of Paint for Windows. I think Paint sucks in a lot of ways, but it can get you the basics. Come on Apple, make it happen!
UPDATE
I actually got so annoyed with the various image editing apps on OS X, none freeware and they watermarked the image I was editing (which is actually the new header on the blog), that I fired up Parallels and installed Paint.NET to bang out the change to my header image.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Blogger Delight #001 - Mass Post Tag Editing
I realized today that you can edit the labels/tags/metadata en masse when managing the lists of posts. This is pretty nice, retroactively tagging old posts is just a hassle, but I am anal like that so eventually I will have to go back and tag everything. This makes it just a little bit nicer. I don't know when this feature was added, but I clearly missed it.
On the so-called Month of Apple bugs
UPDATE: Updated through Day 12
By know you might have heard that two hackers, LMH and Kevin Finisterre, have a little project running called Month of Apple bugs. Here are the issues so far:
Issue Stats
Day 10+11+12 Comments
Integer overflows in the DMG UFS (Unix File System) mounting code, Day 10+12 are functions shared with FreeBSD 6.1, Day 11 in a function Apple needs to make the switch between big endian and little endian byte orders seamless. Day 12 presents no risk of code execution, it is purely a denial of service issue. As always, only open files from trusted sources. If you are using Safari, you should once and for all disable Open "safe" files after downloading to prevent any "drive-by" DMG download and opening issues like this:
Day 9 Comments
Seems like Day 9 is a variation on CVE-2006-6061. In short, don't download untrusted DMG files and uncheck the Safari option to "open "safe" files".
Day 7+8 Comments
The Day 7 vulnerability in OmniWeb 5.5.1 has already been addressed with a new release, 5.5.2. You can read the release notes here or download the update if you use this browser.
Day 8 has vendetta written all over it. Seems like the MOAB folks have been rebuffed by Landon Fuller when they offered to coordinate bug releases with bug fixes. I have to agree with Landon's decision not to coordinate with MOAB because I agree it's irresponsible to announce exploits with proof-of-concept code with no vendor warning. I say this is vendetta day because the MOAB bug of the day is reported as an exploit in Unsanity's Application Enhancer, which is the utility Landon Fuller has been using to patch the MOAB issues as they come in. Also, look at the stats, only 38% are OS X bugs. I am counting Day 8 as an OS X bug because there is at least a problem in the OS X permissions on /Library/Frameworks
Day 6 Comments
At first I thought LMH was taking credit for this Adobe Acrobat flaw which appears more serious than originally thought, but I don't think that is the case. Looks like he has an entirely new flaw, but again this isn't an Apple OS X flaw, it's a flaw in one of the most popular file formats in use on the Web and it affects close to all OSes in use. Yes, Preview (the OS X PDF viewer and web plug-in) is affected and I have counted this as an OS X issue, but again this is not a uniquely Apple problem. Curiously, if you upgrade to Adobe Acrobat 8.0, neither the PDF cross-site scripting problem will affect you or this MOAB issue. If you load the sample bad .PDF from MOAB in Preview, you experience a denial of service for Safari and have to Force Quit it, but on a Core Duo, this is almost more an annoyance than an actual DOS. LMH doesn't say whether Preview could be remotely exploitable, but its probable with the wide variety of applications affected here that at least one instance could be exploited. For now though, this isn't critical.
Day 5 Comments
Finally. Day 5 is an actually OS X operating system vulnerability. LMH and Kevin Finisterre didn't discover this:
Also, the WebKit folks (the open source components of Safari) have created Bug 12107: Security Regression: Plugins load remote javascript in embedded page's context for the QuickTime XSS issue (Day 3). What's interesting is that FireFox 2.0.0.1 on OS X, IE 6, Opera 9.10 on OS X, and a few others (read through the comments in the bug) all show the JavaScript alert that is the payload of this Landon Fuller Test, but I don't see it! The comments on the bug suggest it may have to do with 3rd party QuickTime components changing the way handlers are resolved, so you might have to remove them for the exploit to be run by the QuickTime Plugin. Day 4 Comments
VLC, the day 2 vulnerability, has published an advisory and the issue has been fixed. Download for Windows here, OS X here.
The iPhoto Day 4 vulnerability is more interesting to me than the previous 3 because it's the first that is OS X only. Either way, check the MOAB Google Group Landon Fuller created which has the fix contributed by one of the group members, William A. Carrel
Day 3 Comments
InMuscatine has an amusing take on today's "issue". Let's review. This Quicktime bug only affects Windows users as Landon Fuller says, OS X 10.4.8 is not vulnerable to this attack
Day 2 Comments
First, Landon Fuller is posting patches to each issue as it comes in. So if you can't or don't want to wait for vendor fixes, then you can use these. VLC has already patched the holes in source, now we wait until the app actually gets released.
Second, of the bugs released so far, 50% are actually Apple bugs, and 100% are cross platform and affect Windows as well. I was expecting ACTUAL OS X ONLY bugs, not application bugs that also work on OS X. It's early in the month. I can imagine these attention whores holding out on their big gun bugs until Macworld (1/9/2007), these are probably just the warm-up, and they do appear serious, but on day 2 to announce a cross platform application bug and say this is an "Apple bug" seems desperate to me.
What is annoying is some of the media coverage. eWeek's Security Week titles their articles "VLC Media Player Bug Bites at Apple" which is, I believe intentionally misleading since this is at least a Windows and OS X issue. Here is the comment I posted:
Surprisingly, CNET's article about day 1 called "QuickTime zero-day bug threatens Macs, PCs" is a more fair and accurate report. I will most likely keep this updated over the month.
By know you might have heard that two hackers, LMH and Kevin Finisterre, have a little project running called Month of Apple bugs. Here are the issues so far:
Issue Stats
- 75% are Apple bugs
- 42% are cross platform
- 8% work on Windows only
- 50% work on OS X only
- 58% are OS X operating system bugs (Day 5,6,8,9,10,11,12)
Day 10+11+12 Comments
Integer overflows in the DMG UFS (Unix File System) mounting code, Day 10+12 are functions shared with FreeBSD 6.1, Day 11 in a function Apple needs to make the switch between big endian and little endian byte orders seamless. Day 12 presents no risk of code execution, it is purely a denial of service issue. As always, only open files from trusted sources. If you are using Safari, you should once and for all disable Open "safe" files after downloading to prevent any "drive-by" DMG download and opening issues like this:
Day 9 Comments
Seems like Day 9 is a variation on CVE-2006-6061. In short, don't download untrusted DMG files and uncheck the Safari option to "open "safe" files".
Day 7+8 Comments
The Day 7 vulnerability in OmniWeb 5.5.1 has already been addressed with a new release, 5.5.2. You can read the release notes here or download the update if you use this browser.
Day 8 has vendetta written all over it. Seems like the MOAB folks have been rebuffed by Landon Fuller when they offered to coordinate bug releases with bug fixes. I have to agree with Landon's decision not to coordinate with MOAB because I agree it's irresponsible to announce exploits with proof-of-concept code with no vendor warning. I say this is vendetta day because the MOAB bug of the day is reported as an exploit in Unsanity's Application Enhancer, which is the utility Landon Fuller has been using to patch the MOAB issues as they come in. Also, look at the stats, only 38% are OS X bugs. I am counting Day 8 as an OS X bug because there is at least a problem in the OS X permissions on /Library/Frameworks
Day 6 Comments
At first I thought LMH was taking credit for this Adobe Acrobat flaw which appears more serious than originally thought, but I don't think that is the case. Looks like he has an entirely new flaw, but again this isn't an Apple OS X flaw, it's a flaw in one of the most popular file formats in use on the Web and it affects close to all OSes in use. Yes, Preview (the OS X PDF viewer and web plug-in) is affected and I have counted this as an OS X issue, but again this is not a uniquely Apple problem. Curiously, if you upgrade to Adobe Acrobat 8.0, neither the PDF cross-site scripting problem will affect you or this MOAB issue. If you load the sample bad .PDF from MOAB in Preview, you experience a denial of service for Safari and have to Force Quit it, but on a Core Duo, this is almost more an annoyance than an actual DOS. LMH doesn't say whether Preview could be remotely exploitable, but its probable with the wide variety of applications affected here that at least one instance could be exploited. For now though, this isn't critical.
Day 5 Comments
Finally. Day 5 is an actually OS X operating system vulnerability. LMH and Kevin Finisterre didn't discover this:
This issue is being actively exploited in-the-wild and we would like to thank an anonymous contributor for bringing the 0-day to our attention, taking advantage of this issue.They say they did the exploit work. This issue can't be exploited without being combined with another issue, like the QuickTime RTSP Handler issue on Day 1, but MOAB claim it is being exploited in the wild making it a zero-day bug. Landon Fuller's post summarizes nicely the key points:
Today's Month of Apple Bugs issue permits a local admin account to gain root access, without any user interaction (ie, an authorization dialog), by exploiting a combination of vulnerable disk permissions and Disk Utility's repair permissions functionality.You can prevent being exploited by this issue even by a remote exploit by running the following command:
sudo chmod -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Resources/DiskManagementToolThis may cause some issues if you have to run Disk Utility, run the opposite command before running Disk Utility, or when Apple releases a patch:
sudo chmod +s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Resources/DiskManagementToolWhat issue would LMH and Kevin Finisterre have had for us today if they hadn't received the anonymous tip on this issue?
Also, the WebKit folks (the open source components of Safari) have created Bug 12107: Security Regression: Plugins load remote javascript in embedded page's context for the QuickTime XSS issue (Day 3). What's interesting is that FireFox 2.0.0.1 on OS X, IE 6, Opera 9.10 on OS X, and a few others (read through the comments in the bug) all show the JavaScript alert that is the payload of this Landon Fuller Test, but I don't see it! The comments on the bug suggest it may have to do with 3rd party QuickTime components changing the way handlers are resolved, so you might have to remove them for the exploit to be run by the QuickTime Plugin. Day 4 Comments
VLC, the day 2 vulnerability, has published an advisory and the issue has been fixed. Download for Windows here, OS X here.
The iPhoto Day 4 vulnerability is more interesting to me than the previous 3 because it's the first that is OS X only. Either way, check the MOAB Google Group Landon Fuller created which has the fix contributed by one of the group members, William A. Carrel
Day 3 Comments
InMuscatine has an amusing take on today's "issue". Let's review. This Quicktime bug only affects Windows users as Landon Fuller says, OS X 10.4.8 is not vulnerable to this attack
Day 2 Comments
First, Landon Fuller is posting patches to each issue as it comes in. So if you can't or don't want to wait for vendor fixes, then you can use these. VLC has already patched the holes in source, now we wait until the app actually gets released.
Second, of the bugs released so far, 50% are actually Apple bugs, and 100% are cross platform and affect Windows as well. I was expecting ACTUAL OS X ONLY bugs, not application bugs that also work on OS X. It's early in the month. I can imagine these attention whores holding out on their big gun bugs until Macworld (1/9/2007), these are probably just the warm-up, and they do appear serious, but on day 2 to announce a cross platform application bug and say this is an "Apple bug" seems desperate to me.
What is annoying is some of the media coverage. eWeek's Security Week titles their articles "VLC Media Player Bug Bites at Apple" which is, I believe intentionally misleading since this is at least a Windows and OS X issue. Here is the comment I posted:
So this is a bug in a cross platform application that affects at least both OS X and Windows, so how does this just bite Apple? The headline is misleading, as I suspect you know. This is no different than a bug in Firefox, or the previous one in Quicktime, or Skype, Word, Excel, the list goes on. Also, does the version of OS X mater? Does the version of Windows?
Surprisingly, CNET's article about day 1 called "QuickTime zero-day bug threatens Macs, PCs" is a more fair and accurate report. I will most likely keep this updated over the month.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
System Error: Charles Petzold
Charles Petzold is one of the personalities in the Windows developer community, along with people like Mark Russinovich and Jeffrey Richter, that have helped countless Windows developers through their books, articles, and blogs.
I mention Mr. Petzold and he gets my new award, the System Error. I named the award after the PC character in this funny Get A Mac ad called Goodwill, in which the Mac and PC are supposed to play nice for the holidays, no comparisons or jabs, but the PC let's one slip and blames it on a system error, brilliant.
The Mac guys consternation at the system error was exactly how I felt when Mr. Petzold's Christmas post It Just Works. In this post, Mr. Petzold rants and raves about how his mother's iMac doesn't "just work" and how hard and dreadful it is to do anything on his mother's iMac. It gives me no pleasure, but I feel it my duty to dissect this post.
The part about the name "Finder"
The part about giving away the original iMac to mom, then buying her another one
The part where Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar should have no bugs, and won't be updated
This is the part where I start to get angry, let me quote some:
But forget about that for a minute, even if you didn't want to wait it out, the minimum you could do would be to update to the last software update for 10.2, 10.2.8. That is only 40 MB and would take 1 hour 39 minutes to download over 56K dial-up. That is practically a lunch. But even if you didn't want to wait that out, you could download 10.2.8 from Apple on a PC and burn it to a CD and then just run it on the iMac. This really isn't a tough "problem" to solve.
Mom gets a new printer for Christmas, it doesn't work with Mac OS X 10.2
This is part is really silly:
The part complaining about broadband web sites, Get A Mac ads, and OS X upgrades
Mrs. Petzold lives in Jersey, I live in Jersey. Mr. Petzold was born in New Brunswick, I live in Somerset, just about 3 miles from New Brunswick, I ride the train into New York most days through New Brunswick. It might be that Mrs. Petzold and I are even neighbors. I wish I could make this stuff up, but New Jersey apparently Leads Nation in Broadband Penetration, with 48.6% of residents enjoying broadband access. Not sure if Mrs. Petzold can use my 1 and only possible broadband provider, Patriot Media, but they have been doing a bang up job with cable modem access so far. Sorry, but it is a broadband world.
Mr. Petzold really hates those Get A Mac ads:
There really isn't enough to go on with the browser hanging issue. Which browser? What version? If it is IE, please stop. Use Safari or Firefox, minimum requirements for Firefox for Mac are 10.2.x. Safari gets updated when you update OS X.
Conclusion
Maybe this article for a "safe" Windows developer audience that would just nod through all the anti-Mac rhetoric and then go back to trying to figure out why they should care about XAML. I really don't care if Mr. Petzold likes the Mac or not, its the hypocrisy (Macs shouldn't need software updates) and inflexible thinking (Finder, NO, Explorer is the one for me) that are so frustrating. I guess I expected more.
I mention Mr. Petzold and he gets my new award, the System Error. I named the award after the PC character in this funny Get A Mac ad called Goodwill, in which the Mac and PC are supposed to play nice for the holidays, no comparisons or jabs, but the PC let's one slip and blames it on a system error, brilliant.
The Mac guys consternation at the system error was exactly how I felt when Mr. Petzold's Christmas post It Just Works. In this post, Mr. Petzold rants and raves about how his mother's iMac doesn't "just work" and how hard and dreadful it is to do anything on his mother's iMac. It gives me no pleasure, but I feel it my duty to dissect this post.
The part about the name "Finder"
 |
Mr. Petzold bought his first iMac on August 15, 1998. How do I know this? It was the first iMac model ever made. He used this for research into user interfaces for his purportedly excellent book Code. I personally haven't read it, it was always on the list of stuff I wanted to read just never got to. I guess I will had to move it higher in the queue because I am fascinated to read what he writes about user interfaces since the Mac's "intuitive" user interface apparently "baffled" him. So what version of Mac OS was so confusing? That would be Mac OS 8.1. What "feature" was so bewildering? The name, the name, of the application that you use to manage files, the Finder. When I read this, I said to myself you have to be kidding. Microsoft obviously used a word that was close in meaning to Finder, a person who finds someone or something, and choose Explorer, which has as synonyms: traveler, discoverer, voyager, adventurer; surveyor, scout, prospector. Here's Mr. Petzold's parting shot about how he felt about his Mac experience:Why, for example, would the primary Mac app be called the Finder? Does stuff on the Mac get lost really easily?This is so silly, and I think it's meant as a nail in the Mac OS coffin, that you almost just have to laugh, like the crazy uncle that says something kooky at Christmas dinner. So for Mr. Petzold, why would the primary app on Windows be called Explorer, do I need to be a traveler, discoverer, voyager, adventerur, surveyor, scout, and this one really tickles me, a prospector, to get my stuff out of Windows? Oh wait, on second though, maybe this was an MS Freudian slip back in the Windows 95 days. I was never a fan of the pre-OS X version of Mac OS, I liked the Windows 95 Taskbar to see running applications vs. the pre-OS X application pull-down menu, and Windows 95+98 was a better multitasker than Mac OS 9.x and below in my experience. But to call out as the best example of UI you didn't like in the old Mac OS the naming of the file manager is just kinda crazy. |
The part about giving away the original iMac to mom, then buying her another one
| Mrs. Petzold goes from this: To this  |
It's not clear how long mom had the Bondi blue iMac before the power supply died, but up until that point she must have been using it for email quite well because then Mr. Petzold goes out and buys her another one. The first domed iMac goes on sale on January 7, 2002, with the final revision being released on November 18, 2003, putting the original iMac between 3.4 and 5.3 years old. Since there are no clues, I'll average them and say the original iMac was 4.3 years old. That doesn't seem unreasonably old for a dead power supply, even on the low end of 3.4 years old, not bad at all, especially with power supplies easily fried with electrical events if not properly protected. But somehow it is suggested that the life of the power supply has any bearing on if Macs "just work", like somehow Mac hardware is magically immune to failure. From my experience with the original iMac, my last company had a slot-loading iMac for browser compatibility testing, and that was either purchased in 1999 or mid 2000. When I left the company in early 2005, it was still going strong because it was running on my desk until a couple weeks before I left, so that puts it at 5-6 years old. My data point is only one of many, as is Mr. Petzold's, but this anecdote on power supply failure only makes me ask another question. If the original iMac was so hated, why would you buy mom another newer one? Was a Windows XP box so bad? |
The part where Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar should have no bugs, and won't be updated
This is the part where I start to get angry, let me quote some:
For awhile she had a problem where certain spam emails would hang the email program upon viewing, but they couldn't be deleted without first being viewed. (Gosh, that was fun.) Presumably some patch to fix this little problem is among the 100 megabytes of updates waiting to be downloaded and installed, but my mother has a dial-up and we're forced to forego this 100 meg download. And besides, the slogan isn't "It just works with 100 megabytes of updates."Would Mr. Petzold let his mom run Windows (already a no, but bear with me) and not install Service Packs? Of course not, he would find a way, including over dial-up, to install updates. No one has ever said Mac OS doesn't have bugs, and if they have that is insane, but refusing to install, or even think of a way to deploy updates in a dial-up scenario is the kind of laziness that I have no patience for. So how the iMac get updated? Just dial-in and let it download the bits. I used this File Download Calculator. If the iMac really has 100 MB of updates to download, that would take 4 hours and 9 minutes with a 56k connection. Sounds like enough time for a Christmas dinner or so.
But forget about that for a minute, even if you didn't want to wait it out, the minimum you could do would be to update to the last software update for 10.2, 10.2.8. That is only 40 MB and would take 1 hour 39 minutes to download over 56K dial-up. That is practically a lunch. But even if you didn't want to wait that out, you could download 10.2.8 from Apple on a PC and burn it to a CD and then just run it on the iMac. This really isn't a tough "problem" to solve.
Mom gets a new printer for Christmas, it doesn't work with Mac OS X 10.2
This is part is really silly:
We were very careful to buy an HP inkjet that was purportedly Mac-compatible and said so right on the box. Regardless, for weeks I've been dreading Christmas morning when I'd have to actually hook it up to the iMac and persuade it to just work. This morning, before even opening the printer box, I carefully read the system requirements and discovered the printer required OS X version 10.3 or 10.4. Alas, my mother's machine is running version 10.2.I can't imagine how anyone could say they were careful when buying something when they didn't even check the most important dependency of a computing peripheral, operating system version compatibility, you need to do this for any OS dependent addition. Nearly ALL HP printers are listed as Mac compatible, they have been in the business for years, just as Epson and others are as well. I even accidentally have an OS X compatible printer, the HP PSC 2110, which I bought when I was Windows only, has OS X drivers going back to 10.1! You know what, I wouldn't mind a printer upgrade, I would be willing to sell at a nice price for anyone looking for a 10.2 compatible printer.
The part complaining about broadband web sites, Get A Mac ads, and OS X upgrades
Mrs. Petzold lives in Jersey, I live in Jersey. Mr. Petzold was born in New Brunswick, I live in Somerset, just about 3 miles from New Brunswick, I ride the train into New York most days through New Brunswick. It might be that Mrs. Petzold and I are even neighbors. I wish I could make this stuff up, but New Jersey apparently Leads Nation in Broadband Penetration, with 48.6% of residents enjoying broadband access. Not sure if Mrs. Petzold can use my 1 and only possible broadband provider, Patriot Media, but they have been doing a bang up job with cable modem access so far. Sorry, but it is a broadband world.
Mr. Petzold really hates those Get A Mac ads:
On Apple's home page, the most important information they deemed necessary to convey to me was that I needed QuickTime 7 to view even more of those insufferable TV ads where that smug goateed glazy-eyed dork tries to make closed architecture and a complete disregard for backward compatibility seem cool.The ad on the home page is the Goodwill one I referenced early in this post. Yes it requires Quicktime 7, which requires OS X 10.3.9 "Panther" or later. Is that a "complete disregard for backward compatibility"? I don't think so. OS X 10.3 was released on October 24, 2003. That would have been 10.3.0, all 10.3.x releases were free. OS X 10.4 "Tiger" was released on April 29, 2005. Same versioning scheme applies. In some ways, Apple has been better at backward compatibility through virtulization (OS 9 running entirely on top of OS X) or emulation (Rosetta, emulating PowerPC CPU on Intel Macs to run non-native applications). Apple can run applications developed for an entirely different CPU architecture seamlessly on Intel Macs, but Microsoft continues to have problems getting 32-bit Windows apps to run on 64-bit Windows. It gets increasingly hard to listen to the myth perpetuated by Windows only computer people about OS X that because Apple has decided to eschew the major.minor.revion numbering scheme so they could continue to market OS X that each release is only minor and not worth paying for. Get over it already, can it really be so hard to adapt? And you can of course get OS X 10.4 "Tiger" from a retail store, Apple has nine in Jersey, including one in Bridgewater Commons. I am sure if you brought the iMac in to the Apple Store, they would update it with all the latest patches and configure it to work with a new printer if you bought the printer there. Then the old saw about Macs being a "closed system".
There really isn't enough to go on with the browser hanging issue. Which browser? What version? If it is IE, please stop. Use Safari or Firefox, minimum requirements for Firefox for Mac are 10.2.x. Safari gets updated when you update OS X.
Conclusion
Maybe this article for a "safe" Windows developer audience that would just nod through all the anti-Mac rhetoric and then go back to trying to figure out why they should care about XAML. I really don't care if Mr. Petzold likes the Mac or not, its the hypocrisy (Macs shouldn't need software updates) and inflexible thinking (Finder, NO, Explorer is the one for me) that are so frustrating. I guess I expected more.
AppleCare Customer Service
Robert Scoble recently said Never Piss off a 12-year old. He is talking about Apple's service toward his son's new MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo. I posted the following comment:
I sent in a 3 year old iBook G4 on 12/24 (box arrived 3 days earlier, got DHL to pick up on the 24th) to fix 5 different problems (wife’s computer, she beats on it) and it came back on 12/28 completely repaired. Great customer service. A friend’s MacBook Pro Core Duo needs to have the keyboard replaced. Apple told her it would take 1 week to order the part and another 2 days to do the repair. That is bad customer service, especially for such a seemingly simple repair as a keyboard replacement. We have 1 MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with zero problems, 1 month old.Then I followed up with this:
So I think the trend might be that supplies are tight on MacBook related parts, but plentiful on older G4 related parts, thus customer service is taking longer.
Playstation 3...In Stock!
Update X2
Now this is really starting to get annoying. I was in a Wal-mart tonight and they had 3 Playstation 3s, all 60 GBs, but no Wiis! Also, I see stacks and stacks of Xbox 360s, I wonder what will happen to all of those if Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 v2?
Update
I was in the Bridgewater Target last night. I stopped by the electronics department on the off chance they had a Wii (nope), but instead they had 3 20GB PS3s. I would say unbelievable, but I think demand has really started to crater for the PS3 if I see stock in 2 different places within a few days of each other.
Original Post
Last night I was out at a Toys "R" Us in Raritan, NJ looking for a Nintendo Wii and came away stunned to find 2 Playstation 3s in stock but no Wiis! By the time I left the store at 8:41 PM, both PS3s were unsold. One was the 20 GB model, the other was the 60 GB. I thought the rumors of unsold PS3s were just that, but seeing it in person is shocking. I did stop into this GameStop in Bridgewater, NJ and they had sold out of their stock of both Wiis and PS3s earlier on Friday (12/29), so I guess the PS3 isn't sitting unloved on all store shelves.
Now this is really starting to get annoying. I was in a Wal-mart tonight and they had 3 Playstation 3s, all 60 GBs, but no Wiis! Also, I see stacks and stacks of Xbox 360s, I wonder what will happen to all of those if Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 v2?
Update
I was in the Bridgewater Target last night. I stopped by the electronics department on the off chance they had a Wii (nope), but instead they had 3 20GB PS3s. I would say unbelievable, but I think demand has really started to crater for the PS3 if I see stock in 2 different places within a few days of each other.
Original Post
Last night I was out at a Toys "R" Us in Raritan, NJ looking for a Nintendo Wii and came away stunned to find 2 Playstation 3s in stock but no Wiis! By the time I left the store at 8:41 PM, both PS3s were unsold. One was the 20 GB model, the other was the 60 GB. I thought the rumors of unsold PS3s were just that, but seeing it in person is shocking. I did stop into this GameStop in Bridgewater, NJ and they had sold out of their stock of both Wiis and PS3s earlier on Friday (12/29), so I guess the PS3 isn't sitting unloved on all store shelves.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Do you trust Google or not?
Blake Ross, one of the original FireFox developers, says that Google has lost his. Paul Thurrott ask Blake what took you so long because he has been banging this drum for a while.
Me? I mostly trust them for search, but the example Blake gives of putting ads for Google's own apps at the top of the search results without it being a search result really bothers me. The IE7 toolbar lockin is crazy, I chose to use the toolbar and your search Google, it doesn't mean I don't ever want to change. The privacy policy on the phishing filter is troubling, and privacy concerns is why I don't use GMail. I don't want ads in my mail, and I don't like the potential to have my mail mined whenever Google feels like it now, or if they update their policy.
That is one of the reasons I keep re-upping my .Mac account. It is reasonably private, and I have pretty control over spam. The other .Mac benefits sweeten the pot, but the easy publishing and OS X settings synching is extremely nice.
Me? I mostly trust them for search, but the example Blake gives of putting ads for Google's own apps at the top of the search results without it being a search result really bothers me. The IE7 toolbar lockin is crazy, I chose to use the toolbar and your search Google, it doesn't mean I don't ever want to change. The privacy policy on the phishing filter is troubling, and privacy concerns is why I don't use GMail. I don't want ads in my mail, and I don't like the potential to have my mail mined whenever Google feels like it now, or if they update their policy.
That is one of the reasons I keep re-upping my .Mac account. It is reasonably private, and I have pretty control over spam. The other .Mac benefits sweeten the pot, but the easy publishing and OS X settings synching is extremely nice.
Obama is Ready...
I hadn't seen the Monday Night Football where Barack Obama gives an introduction, but the following video annotated by Slate.com is fantastic:
I especially like the James Bond reference. Here is the segment from MNF without the annotation on YouTube.
I posted this because the annotated video is very funny IMHO and this is perhaps the best political ad I have seen in years. No mudslinging, make your candidate presidential, and keep him human at the same time. I can think of no other current politician that could have pulled this off. No wonder people are falling over themselves to get this guy to run.
I especially like the James Bond reference. Here is the segment from MNF without the annotation on YouTube.
I posted this because the annotated video is very funny IMHO and this is perhaps the best political ad I have seen in years. No mudslinging, make your candidate presidential, and keep him human at the same time. I can think of no other current politician that could have pulled this off. No wonder people are falling over themselves to get this guy to run.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Notes on a Scandal: The Microsoft+AMD Acer Ferrari Vista Laptop Giveaway
No, not the movie, I just liked the title for this post.
I am talking about the Christmas gift that Microsoft and AMD put together for a bunch of bloggers and influencers. Not clear how recipients got "on the list", but here is a sampling:
Laughing Squid - Scott Beale
Notgartner - Mitch Denny
Ed Bott
Marshall Kirkpatrick - Now MS wants he laptop back
Robert McLaws
I think this story started to explode when Scoble linked to Scott Beale, called it PayPerPost. Since then Scoble posted again saying he thought this was a great PR move, but the key question from a blogger ethical point of view was did you disclose? People are calling the "gift" a bribe.
Full Disclosure: I did not receive a laptop :-). If I had, I would have immediately disclosed that I had, any communication received from Microsoft, and what my intention was to do with the laptop (charity sounds like a great idea).
What would I have done if Apple had sent me a MacBook Pro for "review" and to keep it if I liked as MS has done? You have to disclose, and then you can't keep the machine. It really is that simple. Just because the "bribe" would be better since it would be a MacBook Pro instead of the Acer Ferrari doesn't mean you compromise your integrity. Handouts of any kind cloud your judgement, it really is that simple, which is why Ed Bott's stand against gifts is the only sensible option, but he's wrong that bloggers shouldn't be held to that standard just because they don't have journalism training. Bloggers can't have it both ways, you can't be journalist when it suits your needs, but bloggers when your getting gifts. Here is a link to The New York Times Ethics Guide (PDF) from 2004. Look at the "Accepting Hospitality from Sources" section for guidance on receiving gifts, in short don't unless completely impractical to the situation. Paying for Vista and your own hardware to review it is not impractical.
What really prompted me to post though was the unrepentant post by Robert McLaws on this situation. Here is an amazing quote:
Have I ever received something for my time in online community work that influenced me? Yes I have. Back when MS was launching their Broadband Networking hardware, I bought one of the 802.11b wireless routers. It didn't work with the Pacific Bell DSL I had because of some bugs with PPP dialing. I got into the newsgroups and provided logs, traffic captures, and general debugging to MS and the few other people that where in the San Francisco Bay Area having the same problems with Pacific Bell. One day I came home from work to find an 802.11g beta wireless router from MS for my "time" debugging, which I used and upgraded to retail code until I got my first Airport Express (for the streaming, my first Mac worked fine with the MS router). Did receiving the free router influence me? You bet, when I had thoroughly tested and debugged it, I recommended it to friends, and I moved a few SKUs. I would never have bought the 802.11g MS router because of the problems with the first one. If you haven't used your own money (or your publisher's money) to purchase products that your review, I think it's pretty obvious you are more kind to the product you are reviewing/using than if you had spent the money yourself. If Robert McLaws had to replace his crappy Toshiba Tecra M4 to run Vista properly out of pocket, it may not have changed his opinion all that much, but he would have been starting with a different mindset, and that makes all the difference.
I am talking about the Christmas gift that Microsoft and AMD put together for a bunch of bloggers and influencers. Not clear how recipients got "on the list", but here is a sampling:
Laughing Squid - Scott Beale
Notgartner - Mitch Denny
Ed Bott
Marshall Kirkpatrick - Now MS wants he laptop back
Robert McLaws
I think this story started to explode when Scoble linked to Scott Beale, called it PayPerPost. Since then Scoble posted again saying he thought this was a great PR move, but the key question from a blogger ethical point of view was did you disclose? People are calling the "gift" a bribe.
Full Disclosure: I did not receive a laptop :-). If I had, I would have immediately disclosed that I had, any communication received from Microsoft, and what my intention was to do with the laptop (charity sounds like a great idea).
What would I have done if Apple had sent me a MacBook Pro for "review" and to keep it if I liked as MS has done? You have to disclose, and then you can't keep the machine. It really is that simple. Just because the "bribe" would be better since it would be a MacBook Pro instead of the Acer Ferrari doesn't mean you compromise your integrity. Handouts of any kind cloud your judgement, it really is that simple, which is why Ed Bott's stand against gifts is the only sensible option, but he's wrong that bloggers shouldn't be held to that standard just because they don't have journalism training. Bloggers can't have it both ways, you can't be journalist when it suits your needs, but bloggers when your getting gifts. Here is a link to The New York Times Ethics Guide (PDF) from 2004. Look at the "Accepting Hospitality from Sources" section for guidance on receiving gifts, in short don't unless completely impractical to the situation. Paying for Vista and your own hardware to review it is not impractical.
What really prompted me to post though was the unrepentant post by Robert McLaws on this situation. Here is an amazing quote:
When I got the e-mail giving me a choice betwen a couple systems, I was told that I could either give the system away, or keep it for myself. Being the selfish greedy b@stard that I am, and having dealt with the crappiest Tecra M4 in the world, I decided to keep mine. So, some people think that's bribery. Fine. Some people think the Holocaust didn't happen, too. You get SWAG for going to a conference, why is this any different? I was a Microsoft MVP for 3 years, which was a reward for past efforts with Microsoft software, trips, and buttloads of NDA information. Is that bribery too?Yes Robert, that's bribery too. To even mention the Holocaust as passingly relevant to the giveaway discussion is disgusting. Here is the MS MVP FAQ, look at Q&A 6:
Q6: Do Microsoft MVPs receive any payment from Microsoft? A6: No. The Microsoft MVP Program does provide a small award of software and other benefits in its core program offering, but MVPs do not receive any monetary payment from the Microsoft MVP Program.Somewhat stunning that MS does not equate software and benefits here with monetary compensation, when software handouts have been using to settle antitrust lawsuits, which is obviously compensation. In the MS MVP case, you were compensated for you time with gifts and a title.
Have I ever received something for my time in online community work that influenced me? Yes I have. Back when MS was launching their Broadband Networking hardware, I bought one of the 802.11b wireless routers. It didn't work with the Pacific Bell DSL I had because of some bugs with PPP dialing. I got into the newsgroups and provided logs, traffic captures, and general debugging to MS and the few other people that where in the San Francisco Bay Area having the same problems with Pacific Bell. One day I came home from work to find an 802.11g beta wireless router from MS for my "time" debugging, which I used and upgraded to retail code until I got my first Airport Express (for the streaming, my first Mac worked fine with the MS router). Did receiving the free router influence me? You bet, when I had thoroughly tested and debugged it, I recommended it to friends, and I moved a few SKUs. I would never have bought the 802.11g MS router because of the problems with the first one. If you haven't used your own money (or your publisher's money) to purchase products that your review, I think it's pretty obvious you are more kind to the product you are reviewing/using than if you had spent the money yourself. If Robert McLaws had to replace his crappy Toshiba Tecra M4 to run Vista properly out of pocket, it may not have changed his opinion all that much, but he would have been starting with a different mindset, and that makes all the difference.
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