Those hacky Russians…

alternateorg on July 24, 2001

Have you heard about this Sklyarov / Adobe / EFF thing? As it turns out, basically, Adobe’s encrypted PDF and eBook software is crap, and easily cracked. So at DefCon, Dmitry Sklyarov gave a little speech on how easy it was to crack it, and expressed distress that Adobe charges customers thousands of dollars to use it. He didn’t release his cracking software, he just explained it and pointed out the holes in Adobe’s security. Now, any self-respecting software company would hire this guy in a second, and make him Vice President of Keeping it Real, but no, Adobe decides to send the Feds after him and have him sent to prison. Cool. So the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) met with Adobe this week and the software giant has backed down on their charges, with Dmitry’s release in the hands of the Federal Govt. One of the EFF’s main points was that Adobe abused the DMCA and used it to arrest someone in a situation that it has no real control over. I think it’s pretty sad when companies suppress people like this instead of giving them the credit they deserve. I mean, the point is that the higher-ups at Adobe don’t know a god-damn thing about software or how it works, and so when a VP says ‘There’s this guy, and he cracked our software, and now he’s telling people that our copy-protection scheme sucks,’ and their knee-jerk response is to get them thrown in prison, because they don’t understand 2 things: 1) The hacker actually did something good for Adobe, because if they listened to him and fixed their software, Adobe’s customers would learn of it and be even more eager to buy it and 2) Bad software is something that needs to be FIXED, not ignored.

Microslut IIS (It Isn't Secure)

alternateorg on July 23, 2001

This story about Microsoft IIS (IIS is their web server software) is so funny, It took the media and most of IT about 5 years to figure this out? I knew IIS was shite the first time I ever installed it. Especially with WinNUkePro and NTAttack and other Mac GUI based windows attacks in all the Hotline rooms… That alone made it fairly obvious.

I ain't sharin'

alternateorg on July 22, 2001

Has anyone else noticed that VersionTracker, the Mac-users best-kept secret now has Windows and PalmOS files? Bah to that. I say let those guys find their own shit… VT used to be ‘the Macintosh software source’ not ‘the everybody’ software source.. Now it’s just like Download.com or TuCows or any other useless software site. You ever tried to find software for Mac on Download.com? Terrible. Worthless. VT used to be the only place where any Mac software could be found, and I sincerly hope it doesn’t change just cause they gotta track Winblows crap now. The only other OS I could see happily coexisting on VersionTracker would be Linux, but they’ve got SourceForge all to themselves, for the most part.

'You're not supposed to fly into the walls, Kev…'

alternateorg on July 20, 2001

From the ‘Things don’t ever change, do they?’ department… I sort of unoffically took this week off, as my projects all seemed to be in a waiting period or didn’t need to be started for a few days. So what did I do with me semi-time off, the first I’ve had since, ahem, October of last year? Well, I found myself re-enamored with the whole ’emulation’ syndrome.. you know, using an app called an emulator to play games that you have no business playing on a 32bit processor and a 32mb video card… Games like.. Super Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3… Super Dodge Ball, Castlevania, Baseball Stars, Casino Kid, Super Mario World, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Blades of Steel, California Games… the list goes on and on. And what I noticed? I instinctively thought of calling up scott and asking him where the ‘magic fairy who gives you a better boomerang’ was in Link to the Past.. I found myself still adept at Captain Skyhawk, but atrocious at Starfox, which was to be expected. Things never really do change, but I can still kick all your asses at Quake 3 Arena, no matter how many times my cousins beat me 20-0 at Baseball Stars.

We take it for granted…

alternateorg on July 20, 2001

We Mac users are blessed with a great interface and desktop. This is absolutely true. Even MacOS X, despite its departure from the classic ‘Mac’ look is much better than the alternatives, as is proved in this usability report on the GNOME desktop for Linux. It’s really quite fascinating how the Linux/open-source/geek world seriously has no idea on how to make an interface usable. I recommend reading it, as it’s fascinating how many things were done wrong, and how great OS X is, really.

Bit of a yawner

alternateorg on July 18, 2001

Macworld keynote this morning:

1. 3 new PowerMac G4s: 733, 867 and dual 800…Funky new enclosure that was accurately reported by MacOSX.org last week.. only they look a little better for real, but still, no actual presentation of it, just pictures on the screen… CDRW in the entry-level, SuperDrives in the top 2. Giant hard drives in all.. I think 40, 60 and 80. Price points: $1699, $2499, $3499

2. Faster iMacs (no more Dalmation and FlowerPower): 500, 600 and 700 G3s… CDRW across the board.

3. Apps for X: Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, Maya, FileMaker, etc. The only ones available today are FileMaker and Maya.

4. MacOS X 10.1 available today as Software Update download… Movable dock, DVD playing, burning CDs in the Finder via a new ‘Burn CD’ menubar icon, super fucking fast, etc.

There was other stuff, most of it not important.. you just keep waiting until he smiles and says ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ which he didn’t say today, except the thank Apple employees and their families. So kind of a boring Macworld, but in these economic conditions for computer makers, especially with the EOL of the Cube, you can’t expect them to make too much of a leap. Still.. kind of disappointed by the lack of any change to the TiBook whatsoever.

At leat now running Linux on it would be useless..

alternateorg on July 18, 2001

In the course of my design career, I have had the utter privilege of using Macintosh computers just about exculsively. Now, it has been my experience that while the people who design the world do it on a Mac, the people who use the world do it on Windows. It makes a little bit of sense, and it’s something I’m sort of fine with. And now, if you’re a MacOS X user, you can run Windows on your Mac, as well as X. VirtualPC is nothing new, but hey, it’s on X now.

So I didn't get home until 1:30, but still…

alternateorg on July 17, 2001

I urge you all to get out and do what I did last night: Play a little Quake with some friends, walk down to a record store and pick up the brand-spankin’ new Saves The Day album, ‘Stay What You Are’ (website done by our friends at Liberation Media).

And once you’ve browsed said record store and have made sufficient fun of the pictures of Mudvayne and Slipknot on the cover some retarded metal magazine, go see Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for a rollicking good animated ride. I should warn you, though: some people co-occupying the theater with us were less than enthused with the movie at its end. These people are morons, and do not understand science fiction: All science fiction has a plot that is so basic it is almost childish, while simultaneously being nearly impossible to understand. What sets good science fiction apart from the bad (say, Final Fantasy from Wing Commander [both based on video games, actually]) is the quality of the acting and the quality of the special effects. At least, that’s my opinion, but I digress. Some people didn’t like it because the plot borders on cheesy, but if you’re someone I would like, you’ll be too enthralled with the quality of animation and the bad-ass-ness of the computer interfaces and machinery used by the characters to pay much attention to the plot.