Tech Inertia

Climate Counts does 10 minutes research.

One of Microsoft PR’s stories finds a clueless journalist.

You know, it astounds me sometimes the lengths to which Microsoft’s PR arm will go to planting stories that slowly chip away at Apple rise to dominance.

Climate Counts have done 10 minutes research and looked around on the internet to see if Apple is leading the fight in saving the climate.

Despite the fact that Apple make 4-6% of the world’s computers, and therefore they’re impact is quite minimal, and the fact that if Apple led the way it would  seriously impact on they’re ability to actually be a successful company that made profits and therefore stayed solvent, the amount of headlines they create far exceeds their size, so the bright lights are shone upon them more often.

For the record, Microsoft did better (marginally), but that because (obviously) they in the main make software, not hardware.

But the story from Computerworld is the culmination of a series of phone calls that started in Redmond, through their PR agency, which ends up with a weblink ending up in someone’s inbox, which then turns into a ‘newstory’.

I work in PR, I know how this works. We plant ’stories’ all the time with newspapers to the detriment of our competitors. Some are picked up by clueless journalists, some don’t. It costs us nothing either way.

I don’t blame Climate Counts, they are a pointless agency who seriously think that pieces of paper which show what a company is ‘trying’ or ‘aiming’ to do about climate change, will somehow help the climate.

The only thing that will help climate change are difficult and serious discussions with countries like China, Russia the USA (amongst many others), whose ignorance about global warming is damaging the planet, and people like you and me, who will have to stop travelling by plane and give up our cars for good.

Well we ‘aint ‘gonna do that are we? I need my car for work, and I deserve to spend 2 hours on a plane once a year for a well earned rest.

But I digress. I care about the planet, people who write anti-Apple, Microsoft sponsored drivel under the guise that they care about the planet is in very poor taste.

P.S.

Expect an informative and insightful take up of this ’story’ from the ‘totally impartial and not at all a 1997-based, Microsoft-loving, Apple-hating’ tech-writer, Jack Schofield at the Guardian’s tech blogs in the next few days…

Currently I have a PC in my studio that is connected to a USB printer, and this printer in Windows is being shared to the network.

I also have a couple of Mac’s that access this shared printer, and occasionally use it if the main workhorse A3 laser printer is busy.

This has worked fine on the Mac side, but occasionally, about once a month, the Mac’s connection to the printer doesn’t work.

The standard way to fix this is:

Test the PC to see if it still prints, 100% of the time it doesn’t, so we call in our in-house Windows IT spods to recreate the printer and share it again.

The Mac’s then work normally again, with no reconfiguration at all, they simply pick up the new printer and they’re good to go.

The mantra is, “If the PC prints, then the Mac will print also. Automatically.” This is why I use the Mac, it just works.

However, last week this wasn’t the case. The Mantra didn’t work.

As usual the Mac stopped printing to the shared USB printer. However this time, the PC printed fine.

So I asked the Windows IT spods to recreate the printer anyway. They did, it still didn’t work.

So I recreated the shared printer on the Mac and this is where we got to the bottom of the problem.

When you connect to a shared Windos printer on the Mac, it asks you for the login information for the PC. We knew this info, and we put this info in correctly, however the PC wasn’t accepting it, giving a ‘NT ACCESS DENIED” error, whatever that is.

So we thought the problem was with the Mac, and after half an hour trying different things, I gave up, telling the Mac-user to print to the A3 printer instead in the meantime.

I thought that was that, except next day the Windows PC wouldn’t log in to it’s desktop at all. The same log in info now wasn’t working on the PC either.

The spods came in, took it away, seemingly recreating the user with a new account & login.

Guess what, when I tried recreating the shared PC printer on the Mac - it worked fine.

So the problem was the PC simply deciding that it had had enough with that account and the only solution was to create a new one, which in turn solved our printer problem.

One day, Windows simply decides it’s not going to work anymore and needs massaging back to workability, and a whole career has been created around this concept.

I can see now why WIndows IT people are needed - and why they are scared sh*tless of the Mac.

Hold on a minute… what about security updates? 

Supposedly, in order to stop Apple from ‘bricking’ these Frankenmac’s, the Mac’s software update has been disabled by Psystar.

Now Psystar say that any updates from Apple will (presumably after alterations by Psystar) be posted on their support site.

Updates from Apple that correct bugs and add features are one thing, a user can live without these if needs be, but what about security updates?

Security updates usually come from Apple as separate entities, can we be certain that Psystar will a) be actually be able to offer them and b) after altering them to suit the specific hardware that Psystar is offering will they work effectively?

Apple has teams of engineer’s who know the hardware intimately, Psystar has, by all accounts, a unnamed brother.

Do you feel secure? I wouldn’t.

It’s gonna be a headache for Psystar, but I feel that they just won’t bother, all they want is your money.

But what does this mean in the long term?

Let’s say that Apple does nothing (they’ve done nothing so far).

Let’s say that Psystar’s Mac’s are a great success and sell by the boatload.

Let’s say that a really bad security vulnerability appears and Apple, as it’s duty permits, releases a security update.

This security update may also have code in it that brick’s Psystar’s Mac’s. Psystar then takes this update, examines it and somehow strips out the ‘bricking’ part. I don’t even know if this is possible, I’m not a programmer.

Even if they could, it’s going to take them a while to do this. All the time, the FrankenMac’s are vulnerable, and this happens, time, and time again. Apple releases dozens of security updates a year.

It’ll be too painful to update, and it’s not automatic so users just won’t bother.

This means that there will be a sizable proportion of Mac’s that are wide open to attack to malware & virus writers and Apple will be able to do nothing about it - it’s Psystar’s problem.

However, running the Mac OSX, Psystar’s problem IS Apple’s problem.

Psystar’s Mac’s will be the insecure bastard brother of the true Macintosh.

I think it’s very irresponsible of Psystar to potentially make the Mac-platform a target for virus-writers, simply just to chase a cheap buck.

Thinking this through - Apple, you really need to do something NOW, before this gets out of hand.

What’s always struck me about Apple since Steve Jobs’ return, is they never do anything without a very good reason. There’s no half-hearted attempts at any enterprise, once they commit themselves, there’s no ‘try’ there is only ‘do’.

There are no sacred cows, they think the unthinkable, and they will quite happily cut off a leg to save the patient.

So what is the ‘very good reason’ for Safari on Windows, what benefit does it give them?

Why did Apple release Safari for Windows in the first place?

Why does Apple actively put engineer hours behind it keeping it updated?

Why is Apple aggressively pushing Safari onto Windows users?

Why does Apple bend over backwards (or a least slightly lean over), when those same Windows users complain that the way in which it’s aggressively distributed, seemingly spurring Apple to change it to appease them? This is unheard of from ‘focus-group free’ Apple.

Apple would only put man (and woman) hours behind Safari for Windows, if it benefited them in some way now, or in the future. Look at iTunes for Windows - it makes Apple a fortune.

So is this about the money? Is it simply so all those Windows users will use the Google search bar, and therefore make Apple even more dough? I’d like to think it’s more than just that.

Apple’s overall game plan is to sell Mac computers, and other Apple hardware. It’s where they make the most money. The move to Unix, Intel, creating iTunes for Windows are all about exposing Windows users to the Apple brand and enticing them over - the halo effect if you will.

But Safari for Windows isn’t hardware - it’s software. So is this about giving Windows users a better browsing experience, to entice them over to the Mac?

Well I think it’s all this and more.

In the future, once the pipe is big enough, cloud computing will be with us all, at least for consumers and business, for content creators such as myself, the pipe will NEVER be big enough for cloud computing.

All your data will reside on the internet, and the conduit for all that data is a browser, and if Apple has it’s way, that browser will be Safari, for both Windows & the Macintosh.

So does that mean .Mac for Windows? You heard it here first.

But, in true Apple style, it won’t be the same on both platforms. Windows users will get the Windows .Mac, and the Mac users will get the .Mac that’s tied closely and seamlessly to Apple hardware, giving Windows users another reason to switch.