Haven't we heard this before?

alternateorg on April 4, 2001


A two-month investigation by Sm@rt Partner shows the Internet is at risk from unexpected outages caused by everything from seismic disasters to system overloads, terrorism and just plain human error. Security is spotty, standards still don’t exist in many arenas and, because of the distributed ownership of the Internet itself, getting those standards in place is anything but easy.

What was it that I had heard a few years ago? Something along the lines of ‘the internet is growing so fast that it will collapse under its own weight sometime in 1998,’ or something? Whatever. Ain’t gonna happen.

Not dead yet… Getting better…

alternateorg on April 4, 2001

Let me say a little prayer before I start this post: Oh, Lord, please forgive my poor soul for using a Monty Python reference as a post title. Amen.

From WiredNews:


Long-time foes of the recording industry, the Consumer Electronics Association and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, are preparing to clash with the music labels over consumer rights issues and unfair business practices.

Good news for Napster? I dunno, but it will certainly be interesting to see what the outcome brings.

In the wrong hands…

alternateorg on April 4, 2001

This is the last thing anyone needs. It’s called ActionBars, and it’s a GUI-driven application that writes what seems to be a Java applet for navigation on websites, complete with SOUND and rollover and clicked states. Like it was so hard to do in Flash, and like ANY site really needs it, especially using pre-defined color schemes, designs and soundsets. Wonder-fucking-ful. More power to the sub-par designer with no skill or knowledge of the internet. Maybe they should just bundle it with a Photoshop filter package.

To Be or not to Be

alternateorg on April 4, 2001

Rumor has it (from FuckedCompany, but I can’t find the story) the Be, inc is well, fucked. Laying off 25% of staff, and closing all European operations. Does anyone know if Jean-Louis Gassé is in France? Does that mean he’s laid off, too? Somehow, I doubt it, although it would probably be best for the platform, no? Maybe then the OS would run on PPC chips newer than 604s made in 1997.

My birthday was a riot

alternateorg on April 3, 2001

Yesterday was my 21st birthday. Most of you don’t care. But it also coincided with NCAA National Championship and my was school playing. This alone makes for anticipation of a fuckin’ outrageous birthday. However, after we lost things became just insane.

I’m in the crowd in one of the shots, but you can’t make it out. I wasn’t involved with rolling any cars or anything, but I did get some pictures that didn’t turn out so well because of the shitty quality of disposable cameras in the dark.

Just to clarify, I’m not into basketball and I really don’t think that rioting for sporting events is a reasonable thing to do. But it was a crazy birthday. Im afraid that every trip to the bars from now on will be a big let down in terms of excitement.

I always forget…

alternateorg on April 1, 2001

What is the correct wording of the response to a client who decides he’s an art director? Is it ‘Don’t let the DOOR hit your ASS on the way out,’ or is it ‘Don’t let your ASS hit the DOOR on the way out?’

I can never remember….

Orinoco; Bad Product, Bad!

alternateorg on April 1, 2001

SO, I sent a polite email request to an address posted at MacNN.com that was meant to send my support for the MacOS X versions of drivers for the lucent/orinoco wireless ethernet cards. You see, my girlfriend and I are in need of these drivers in our *total* conversion to MacOS X…. so anyway here is the shitty canned reply that was sent back to me;

—- ,

Thank you for your comments.
They are being forwarded to Product Management.

“Our current position is that we do not intend to support Apple MacOS-X at
this time.



The reasons for this decision are as follows:



1. Apple computers, both mobile and desktops, are equipped with non-standard
built-in Airport slots and antennas since late 1999. Apple’s intention with
this approach is to have customers with an Airport-equipped Mac to choose
Airport Cards as their preferred WLAN client products.



2. We have full confidence that Apple will continue to support Airport under
MacOS-X on Airport G4s, iMacs, iBooks and Powerbooks. This allows Macs to
be fully respected clients on Orinoco WLANs.



In addition to that we will continue our support for the older MacOSes on
the Apple platform. (MacOS 7.5.5, 8.x, 9.x). ”



So, as you can see it was time to unleash some corporate ass kicking — yeah, well, maybe not, but at least I’m trying :-)…


DEAR MR. MARKETING DEPT.,


YOUR CURRENT POSITION SUCKS, HERE IS WHY;


PEOPLE NEED AIRPORT (WIRELESS 802.11) ON OLD(ER) G3 LAPTOPS THAT DO *NOT* SUPPORT APPLE BRANDED INTERNAL AIRPORT CARDS!!! THESE CARDS ARE ONLY AVAILABLE FOR A NEW OR VERY RECENT MACHINE FROM APPLE, HENCE PEOPLE’S PURCHASE OF YOUR PRODUCT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I MEAN, ISN’T THAT YOUR PURPOSE AS A PERIPHERAL MAKER?

PLEASE DONT LET YOUR COMPANY COP OUT ON THEIR PRODUCT SUPPORT SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CANNOT FIND ANY ENGINEERS TO SPEND A FEW DAYS OF THEIR “WINTEL” OBSESSED LIFE TO TRY AND LEARN HOW TO WRITE A LOUSY (LITERALLY) DRIVER FOR MACOS X.



WHATEVER,
NEVER EVER EVER EVER WILL I EVER BUY OR RECOMMEND ANOTHER LUCENT/ORINICO PRODUCT AGAIN.



AND CONSIDER THIS POSTED ON THE NET AND IN FORUMS EVERYWHERE.

—



OH YEAH, PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO “PRODUCT (RE)MANAGEMENT”



By the way, just to be (more of) an asshole I mailed it in ALL COPS AND BOLD and included a link to www.alternate.org.

🙂