WinExposed

alternateorg on January 9, 2004

Despite Scott’s insistence that it’s impressive because Windows doesn’t have Quartz, WinExposé still seems like a ripoff of something to me.. No sure what it could be, though…

And the fact that it uses the same hotspots, the preferences dialog looks exactly the same (but includes ridiculous options like “Speed” and “Quality”), the behavior is the same, and includes the same 2 modes (application windows only vs all windows open) make me think Apple will be hot on their trail pretty quickly.

A case for fair use, as it doesn’t compete directly with Exposé/MacOS X? Or just another Windows developer riding the only coat-tails worth it?

Top 10 eFads

alternateorg on December 17, 2003

Top 10 Internet Fads, although he forgot prefixing everything with a lowercase ‘e’ or ‘e-‘. He also forgot the translucent-turqouise-everything fad, directly following the original iMac’s success. Which may or may not be considered an internet fad. I guess it’s more of an industrial design fad.

What's all this about crow, then?

alternateorg on December 15, 2003

Richard Forno’s response to last week’s latest Mac-bashing tripe. Who’s Richard Forno, you ask? Just a security technologist, author, and the former Chief Security Officer at Network Solutions.

Lance also fails to recognize that Windows and Mac OS are different not just by vendor and market share, but by the fundamental way that they’re designed, developed, tested, and supported. By integrating Internet Explorer, Media Player, and any number of other ‘extras’ (such as VB Script and ActiveX) into the operating system to lock out competitors, Microsoft knowingly inflicts many of its security vulnerabilities onto itself.  As a result, its desire to achieve marketplace dominance over all facets of a user’s system has created a situation that’s anything but trustworthy or conducive to stable, secure computing.  Mac users are free to use whatever browser, e-mail client, or media player they want, and the system accepts (and more importantly, remembers!) their choice.

…

If Lance is sleeping well believing that he’s on an equal level with the Mac regarding system security, he can crow about not being overly embarrassed while working on the only mainstream operating system that, among other high-profile incidents over the years, facilitated remote system exploitation through a word processor’s clip art function

One thing I noticed while reading the original “article” was this pervasive idea:

I was tired of the “We use Macs because they don’t get attacked by viruses and hackers” refrain from Mac nuts. I generally counter with what is apparently a secret carefully hidden from Mac zealots: “That’s because only a fraction of the world uses Macs. What’s the point of attacking a niche market? No one will notice!”

What’s the problem with this? He seems to think that because the entire mediocre business world relies on Windows and is ritualistically attacked by teenage hackers and worm-writers, that Windows is better to run. Like I care about the reason why no one writes virii for my OS. They don’t exist, it hardly matters that (he thinks) it’s because there are relatively few of us.

Killer

alternateorg on December 3, 2003

Ok, because my main tower has 3 hard drives and I didn’t want to buy a controller, the third hard drive (the smallest and least-important) is running on the ATAPI bus, where the CDROM was. I say ‘was’ because apparently running a CDROM and an HD on that ATAPI bus is ‘not supported’ by Apple or their implementation of ATAPI. This means that when I have the third hard drive plugged in, I don’t have the CD at my disposal.

Anyway, so I use the iBook’s CD drive, and connect to the mounted disc over the network. Nothing brain-busting here.

However, what’s incredible is that I just initiated an install over the network, and my wife closed the iBook, effectively putting it to sleep, taking away the CD for my use. I look at the installer and, unsurprisingy, it’s hanging, not responding, and not installing anymore, just stopped at whatever percent, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, as it’s being run from a machine that is now no longer itself running.

I turn the iBook back on and within seconds, it’s running again and installing the very same point it left off. No re-mounting the disc, or starting the install over. Astounding.

Feel free to jack into my plug

alternateorg on November 22, 2003

iPod users share audio ports with iPod-enabled passerby, envision wireless sharing via Bluetooth and Rendezvous in the future:

Sharing an iPod through its headphone jack is also a crude, low-tech version of what some predict is the real killer application of future iPods: transforming them into short-distance broadcasting devices by adding Bluetooth or similar radio technology, coupled with Rendezvous, an Apple-developed networking technology that allows devices to discover each other automatically

You be careful, there…

alternateorg on November 19, 2003

Bill Gates, the George W. Bush of technology:

Why isn’t e-commerce a reality? Why isn’t managing your schedule digitally with friends and colleagues not a trivial thing to do?

E-commerce isn’t a reality? What’s Amazon then? And I do a pretty good job of managing my schedule digitally with my Mac, iCal and iChat….

Long-shoe-horn.

alternateorg on November 17, 2003

I find it odd that Microsoft is basically bashing Mac OS X and yet at the same time copying it and taking until 2006 to do it.

Weaksauce.

In addition to the underlying WinFS technology, Microsoft is also adding a new file system concept called Libraries, which will organize like collections of data in Longhorn, regardless of where they are physically stored in the system. For example, a Photos & Movies Library would collect links to every digital photo and digital video on your system.

“I should not care about location when I save,” says Microsoft VP Chris Jones. “Why can’t I just click on my computer and it shows me my documents? It is a computer. It should know what a document is, what I have edited and annotated, what I have searched for before, and what other places I have looked for documents. It is not just documents on my computer I am looking for. It is documents I care about.”

Now, is it just me or do “Libraries” sound like iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, New Finder, Playlists, etc…

Also, the usability/searchability comment is almost word for word what Steve already said a couple years ago.

Netflix Fanatic Hijacked by Apple

alternateorg on November 17, 2003

Tai was always worried about something like this happening to us:

Over the summer, Cricket Media released Netflix Fanatic, a Mac OS X app that extended the features of the popular Netflix online DVD rental service. Netflix Fanatic enabled users to rearrange their movie queue and access a wide range of features without having to log onto the Netflix Web site.

Last month, the developer stopped sales and downloads of Netflix Fanatic. “Due to a dispute with my employer, I will no longer be developing or distributing Netflix Fanatic,” the developer said on his Web site. “If another company or individual takes up the reins or decides to develop a similar product, I will update this page with that information.”

What I wonder about this is whether Apple’s trying to roll this into a Sherlock channel so it can be distributed by them and streamlined into a more Apple-ish UI. Because that would rock ass. Boo-hoo for the developer, right? But the thing is, he signed something saying Apple could do that if it saw fit. Whether this is fair of Apple to do or not, I don’t know, but the guy always knew it was a possibility.

Doug switched

alternateorg on November 4, 2003

As we have common friends, I read Douglas Bowman’s weblog every few days. I have to say that I’m happy he’s switched back to Mac. As a designer/developer-ish kinda guy, I’m not surprised. MacOS X combines everything you need for most tasks involved in that kind of work in a very nice and fun-to-use package. So in an attempt to offer you some more fair and balanced look at how people move to the Mac and how they feel once they’re there (frustrations and all), check out that link. That’s the kind of post/comment combo I’m happier to see these days (check out my comment here for what I mean.)