Bill Gates – we sincerely thank you…

I’ve written before of my total respect for Bill Gates, and I have tried to pass off his final curtain with the comments that it deserve (i.e. none), but upon seeing the total boot kissing, arse-licking, and circle jerk-fest that the media (including my beloved BBC) have foisted upon the world, I tried to put into words my feelings on the subject.

But I couldn’t, I’ve more important things to do, like have my sinuses painfully drained.

It’s a good thing then that Rixstep have posted thoughts that are inside me somewhere, but lack the time and effort to bubble to the surface.

Take a good long look at their ‘Despised by Millions” piece, it’s one of the best synopsis’s I’ve ever read on the contribution that scummy little geek has made to the computing industry, and the next time you see an article on how we should all be thankful for everything he’s done to for us over the years, simply post a link to this article.

It’s a pity we can’t grab PC user’s heads and force them to read it all the way through however.

Man gets Mac OS X to work with his printer…

Seeing as a 147 word article about a man printing a document with his Vista computer is considered news nowadays, I decided to partake my own experience along similar lines.

Today I had a document that I needed to print using my recently installed Leopard OS, on a printer I bought 3 years ago.

I selected ‘page setup’ and selected my printer.

I then selected ‘print’ from the menu, clicked ‘print’ in the dialog box.

A minute later the document printed.

The end.

And the penny drops…

Or rather the sprout does.

SproutCore is the name for Apple’s open source, platform-independent, Cocoa-inspired JavaScript framework for creating web applications that look and feel like Desktop applications.

Note the most pertinent part of that sentence: platform-independent, Cocoa-inspired.

Effectively – Cocoa for Windows.

Cocoa for Windows is something that’s been rumoured to exist at Apple, ever since it was mentioned (but apparently shelved), almost 10 years ago when Apple first bought Next, the fore-runner to Mac OS X.

Obviously someone’s been working on it.

The penny has dropped, because in a recent posting I wondered why Apple was devoting so many man-hours to Safari.

SproutCore will work in any java-compliant browser, but in order for Apple to make sure that this support continues, Safari for Windows has to exist.

However the vigour with which Apple pursues Safari for Windows (and MobileMe for that matter) seems to me to indicate that greater things are afoot and with SproutCore, we’re beginning to see maybe what those things are planned to be.

Hate my employer, but love my job…

A recent post on Slashdot highlights the fact that Apple’s wage structure is lower than that of say, Yahoo or Google, and to avoid a brain-drain, they need to compensate their staff now that there’s cash in the bank.

Now, while I can’t comment on the wage at Apple and whether it is a fair one, it seems that a point is being missed.

The wage that I get paid isn’t bad, but sometimes, after being given ‘another’ direct mail campaign to organise, in a timeframe that would make lesser mortals cower in the corner in panic, I sometimes admit to myself that I hate the company I work for, and if I had a choice I would work for someone else – indeed, I’m always on the look-out, and have been all the way through my career.

But, in this search, money is not my prime concern. Obviously I want a living wage, but I would rather be happy, than earn an astronomical wage. But what makes me happy? – using Apple technology.

I say that without a hint of irony – the only thing that motivates me in my current position, is that although my job is difficult, stressful and annoying almost all of the time, I enjoy and am happy in using the Macintosh every day.

The thought of doing the same job with Windows? I would be practically suicidal, because it wouldn’t be possible to produce the output I currently do – and remember: I use Windows & Mac everyday, I know both platforms.

That’s something that’s difficult to get across to Windows users – I actually like doing the work that I do, even if it stressful and means working 16 hour days sometimes, because Apple technology makes me smile; it works, it’s reliable and needs minimum configuration.

I had a Windows users, who passing through my department said of us, “Your one of those b*st*rds who enjoy their job, aren’t you?”.

I have 2 Windows computers in my department, and they have a support call almost every other day. Printing doesn’t work, can’t access the network – the list is endless. That’s why they’re not used for deadline-based, mission critical work – I (or our IT) spend more time fixing them than using them.

So coming back to that Slashdot article, it seems to me the reason why Apple’s employees are not leaving en masse for more money, is maybe because actually enjoying their job, using Apple technology day-in, day-out, is more important to them than chasing a few more dollars.

PPC is left out in the cold…

Sorry for the ‘cold’ pun, but I couldn’t help it.

So, ‘Snow Leopard’, (the next iteration of the Mac OS), is going to be Intel-only. The Power-PC, which has had a love-hate relationship with Apple over the years, is finally going to be discarded, sometime in 2009.

A lot of the PC-press is trying to stir up a sh*t-storm over this, citing Apple as abandoning their users, and forcing them to upgrade.

Well, I’m here to say that I think Apple is doing the right thing.

The department that I run has over half-a-dozen Mac’s and a couple of PC’s, and everyone of these Mac’s runs Tiger.

Not Leopard, but Tiger.

“Aha!” I here all the Windows-apologists scream, “Leopard is full of bugs! Here’s a Mac-loving ‘power-user’ and even he doesn’t even recommend it!”

Well, calm down, there are reasons why my department runs Tiger, and not Leopard (apart from a little iBook for testing).

Firstly, this is software – a lot of software. On top of the OS, I have about a dozen applications that I rely on being compatible, all the time.

Secondly, software has bugs. Mac software doesn’t have as many bugs as Windows software, but there are bugs. InDesign CS2 has 2 reproducible bugs that I can do right now – that cause a crash.

Thirdly, and talking of InDesign – it’s Adobe. CS3 (including 2) and Leopard don’t play well together – at all. Now I don’t care whose fault this is, it’s probably both Apple’s & Adobe’s, but I’m not installing Leopard on any production Mac until it ‘just works’.

However those half-a-dozen Mac’s are also all PPC. There’s not one Intel Mac in my department, so Leopard is a no-no until Adobe pulls its finger out, and therefore Snow Leopard is a bit of a non-starter for me as well.

Is that likely to change? Maybe, maybe not. The oldest Mac in my department is a 700mhz G4 – nearly 7 years old, and (touch wood), it’s still a production machine.

I do have the chance to bring Intel in however, I’m about to purchase another large format printer, and I need a Mac to run it on, but I’m stuck between buying a 2nd-hand G5, or a new MacPro.

Now most people would go with the MacPro, but as well as the hardware, there’s the software issue as well – all my software is PPC, not Universal.

So, it looks like I’m stuck for now, until one of the Mac’s die (7 years and counting), and I have to by Intel, and go cap-in-hand to finance to upgrade the software as well.

But my finance department is as tight as a ‘gnat’s chuff’ (English colloquialism, look it up), so I’ll be sticking with a PPC-based department for now.

 

I’m sorry, this is just too funny for words…

Yahoo! say buh-bye to Microsoft and team with Google.

“Yahoo said it expects the deal to generate $250m to $450m in operating cash flow during the first 12 months, and that it represents an annual revenue opportunity for Yahoo of $800m. The deal is for an initial period of four years, with an option for Yahoo to extend it for a further six years.”

Google (with Steve Jobs smirking in the background) was reported as saying: “This is big, bigger than the biggest thing ever (other than me).”

Microsoft was reported as doing nothing much, except staring wide-eyed like a rabbit in the middle of the road, waiting to be run over.

“As part of the deal, the companies also plan to make their instant-messaging services interoperate, Decker said.”

Bye-bye Microsoft Instant Messenger, and within a decade – bye-bye Microsoft.

God I just love the world at the moment…

My god, these people still exist..?

Live with it: Mac is not the greatest

Oh dear, I thought we’d already discussed this a million times on every forum in the known universe.

The public has spoken, and they want Mac’s, not PC’s – live with it.

I thought that people like this would just, y’know, go back to their server rooms or something, but it seems that every now and again, between chocolate bars, squeezing spots and the hosing down and reinstallation of Windows, they post flame-bait like this.

They can say anything they like, because they are journalists with a PC-bias, and we are just Mac-users who just want to tell everyone that there’s a better way.

We can’t say anything in retaliation because if we dare to speak up, we’re pigeonholed as blind cult followers.

All those stories you hear about Windows users switching to Mac and then wondering why they didn’t do it years ago, well that’s just lies put about by these ‘weird’ Mac people.

But you can’t win with situations like this, so I suggest to everyone that please, please, please when the next Windows-spod pokes his head from around the server-room door, and tries to convince you that all these Macs are a waste of time and you ought to be on Windows, just ignore him.

Please don’t reply to his article, even if it’s well meaning – he’ll just use it as ammunition against us.

If you want to post a retort, then start your own blog if you have to so you don’t give him the traffic that he most sorely needs.

In another few years these people will quieten down, after the people they work for/with start bringing in iPhones, and telling everyone they’ve just bought a Mac as well, and that they’d wished they’d done it years ago.

Still they don’t get it…

I’ve recently subscribed to a new podcast, ‘MacNotables‘ hosted by Chuck Joiner (a great name and a great podcast).

Episode #824 caught my attention, because it discussed in the main, the new Napster music store, and then the topic of the Amazon music store and why the music labels have given more favourable terms to other music stores at the expense of giving them to Apple.

Now I’ve discussed this before here, and I feel I make a valid arguement that the reason why this is happening is nothing to do with consumer choice, but is mainly about the music companies getting their industry back from Apple, so that they can control it again, and raise prices, re-introduce DRM, and make even more money for themselves.

But after listening to this podcast, I can see that even the most intelligent and insightful Mac-pundits simply cannot see the wood for the trees (or the music for the albums as it were).

Andy Inakto Innhakto Ihnatko, (who joking aside, have enormous respect for), is totally wrong here.

In listening to the quite heated discussion amongst the protagonists in MacNotables #824 episode, the conclusion I can draw from Andy is that he feels that Amazon’s music store is a good thing, and iTunes could do with the competition.

He uses iTunes to search for music and listen to the samples, but then goes to Amazon to buy it.

To save what amounts to a few bucks.

Every buck he saves erodes Apple’s dominance, and further entrenches Amazon’s.

Now I’ve nothing against Amazon, I use it all the time to buy stuff, it’s the way in which Andy, and others like him have been totally suckered by the recording industry to effectively allow them to, sooner or later, completely ignore Apple when they argue with them over pricing.

And when that happens, all those little bucks that Andy has been saving, will be won back when the recording industry is allowed to raise prices, because they can safely ignore Apple again.

Well done Andy.

OK, now Me is interested…

.Mac…

I’ve signed-up to the free trial now 3 times in as many years.

Every time I read about it online I think to myself, “that sounds good, and very useful, let’s give it a go.”

Every time I fully expect that I’ll put down my £60 and subscribe properly for a year, instead of just kicking the tyres.

But I don’t. I sign up for the free trial, take a good look around, try out a couple of things and just let it fizzle away to nothing.

What puts me off?

Well certainly not the cost. £60 for what you get is very reasonable, although you can duplicate a lot of it for free.

It seems to come down to me I think. I’m just not that well organised digitally, and a lot of what you can do with .Mac takes a certain amount of organisation and effort in terms of figuring out how to do things. I guess I’m just lazy.

But, now an iPhone is on my horizon (it’s still blurry and a way off, but it is there), .Mac seems to make more sense.

So I signed up again, and took a look at the iPhoto integration, and was very impressed.

No, scratch that – I actually verbalised a ‘wow’.

I know this has been around for a while, but posting a web gallery from within iPhoto to .Mac just blew me away.

I then started to play around with iWeb, and could see the potential there as well.

Actually, and really for the first time, I started to get it, I’ve started to see how .Mac can be part of my life.

 

But now we have ‘MobileMe’.

Not the best name ever, but I didn’t like ‘MacBook’ when I first heard it, and now it seems the most perfectly natural phrase.

Push services, full integration with iPhone, and much, much more for the same price as before, this is the icing on the cake.

It’d be nice if ‘Back To My Mac’ would just friggin’ work though.

OK, now I’m interested…

A while back I posted a piece that talked about the things that would have to happen in order for me to part with my hard earned cash and buy an iPhone.

Y’see I’ve used Mac’s for years. I’ve also used PC’s for years but, like any sane person who has to use both, side-by-side, day-by-day, I will always choose the Mac.

Apple’s products just have that certain something, the fit, the finish, the attention to detail, the tight integration – Apple products really do ‘just work’.

However I couldn’t bring myself to buy an iPhone.

Now, I’d like to I think it’s more to do with my aversion to smartphones, but even I could not bring myself to be wowed with iPhone version 1.0.

Too expensive, missing features, too restrictive (1 carrier), the list is a long one, and my god, I almost sound like a Windows apologist.

But, unless you’ve vacationed on Mars, you’ll notice that WWDC has just occured and Apple have released iPhone 2.0 – has my opinion of the iPhone changed? Kind of…

In my last article, I put forward a number of desires, that if satisfied, would result in me buying the GodPhone.

 

1) It’s not a smartphone. I don’t want or need to carry my life in my pocket, I have a brain for that. 
It’s still a smartphone, so not a good start. However I’m seeing that Apple are making the iPhone a platform (along with the Mac & Music), so I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet on this one.

2) Touchscreen? I think it would have to have this. 
Along with the above – it’s a platform with the touchscreen at its centre.

3)  Camera? Not really important, but OK let’s include it (2-3MP is fine), with the ability to download these pics to iPhoto as well.
An increase in MP’s would have been nice, but with MobileMe, iPhoto integration is a given.

4) Address book, contacts and notes that sync up (via Bluetooth) with Address Book, iCal & Stickies. This syncing is 2-way, so the phone must have the ability to input simple info. (Should be fun on the small screen, but that’s why I said simple).
MobileMe is the future here.

5) Email? Not interested. Life is stressful enough.
It’s still here – I’ll live with the stress.

6) Internet? Not practical on such a small screen, don’t want it anyway.
Not really applicable, but it’s nice to have, and at 3G speeds too.

7) Unbelievable, incredible, game-changing battery life – we’re talking weeks here, not days.
A pipe dream, but battery life has been increased. Gotta love the state-of-the-art OS at the iPhone’s heart here.

8) It must look exactly like the old iPod Nano, black, with a black screen.
A shame. I don’t think I’ll ever see this.

9) I am morally and spiritually against contract phones – it must be pay as you go.
And here we have our answer. Pay-as-you-go is now an option.

O2 have yet to release the pricing (pricing is announced tomorrow), but this is the reason I will be purchasing the iPhone on July 11th (or some time soon thereafter).

I’d expect about £269, I’m hoping for £199. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

 

Microsoft innovate at last!

Link from Mac Daily News…

Here’s a interesting quote from Microsoft to their ‘mobile partners’.

“It’s now my honor and privilege to announce a milestone that our partnership HAS ACCOMPLISHED. This fiscal year we WILL SELL nearly 20 million Windows Mobile smartphone licenses, making Windows Mobile one of the most widely used smartphone software platforms in the world.”

Emphasis is mine.

Is this now Microsoft’s approach? Instead of celebrating when they have reached a target, they celebrate in the past, BEFORE that target is reached (demonstrating breathtaking arrogance and taking their customer for a ride granted)?

Their innovation now knows no bounds – apparently as well as a ‘big ass table’, they’ve also developed a ‘big ass time machine’.

Humour aside, the hidden meaning of this missive, shows, unglazed how frightened Microsoft actually are.

Their ‘partners’ will survive, as Apple does not want to completely, unfairly dominate industries (like Microsoft do), but Microsoft is another matter – it has suddenly realised how vulnerable it really is.

Carpet bombing flaw in Safari is not a problem because…

 

Link from Slashdot to arcticle at The Register

So let me get this straight, a flaw in Safari, could allow a malicious attacker to download files (1, 2 or thousands) to your Windows desktop without your perrmission.

But the flaw doesn’t allow execution.

Because Apple’s not that stupid.

You know, to allow just ‘any’ file to just execute without permission.

So what’s the problem? Other than it being a ‘design’ flaw? It’s certainly not a security flaw is it? the files cannot be executed and therefore cause untold damage can they?

Ah, right but those files can…

By a flaw in Windows.

Not Safari, then.

So it’s Microsoft’s problem then is it?

That’s right it is.

And when will Microsoft fix this flaw?

No word on that. Yet.

I’m sure they’ll get round to fixing it asap, once they’ve blamed Apple for drawing attention to their SECURITY flaw, by a DESIGN flaw that Apple, quite rightly, didn’t really think would cause too much of a problem, because no company is stupid to allow files to execute by themselves.

Except Microsoft. Again.

 

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

 

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

Link: I’m going to write about people who I completely misunderstand.

This recent posting postulates the question, “Mac users don’t like others touching their stuff.”

The reasoning behind it is that because we pay so much (apparently) for our kit, we don’t like other people using it and supposedly breaking it.

But, as usual PC pundits fail to see the wider issue.

It’s because I don’t want ignorant PC users who see technology as a useless commodity, covered in stickers, touching my pristine Mac’s/iPod’s/iPhone.

It’s got nothing to do with how much I paid for it, it’s to do with the way in which Windows users treat their technology.

If I get another PC user coming up to my flawlessly clean LCD screen and smudge it with his or her greasy finger, I’ll scream.

I walk through our Windows IT department daily and see ugly tin boxes, covered in dust, stickers, pen marks, yesterday’s lunch wrappers and worse.

When the electrician’s come to my company and test all the electrical equipment, they have to put an ugly ‘tested’ sticker on everything. PC users are quite happy to have this sticker anywhere on their PC, I have almost punched said electrician for considering to stick it on the ‘front’ of my G5 Tower.

I had to loan a little iBook to a PC user once, I received it back a month later and it was filthy, and had what looked like jam on the LCD screen. I actually felt sorry for the poor thing and spent over an hour giving it a good clean.

PC users don’t care. PC users pay next to nothing for basement-spec PC’s. PC users think nothing of the hardware.

Am I weird? Probably, but I have to work with these computers all day, and I also have to be creatively active at a moments notice.

I, like most creative people realise that ideas best surface in a clean, ordered environment, where the equipment I use has had time spent on it’s look and feel (both hardware and software).

This is why we don’t like PC users, ‘using’ our equipment – they just don’t think that this is important.