‘Digital Manners Policies’ is a marketing term. Let’s call this what it really is: Selective Device Jamming. It’s not polite, it’s dangerous. It won’t make anyone more secure — or more polite”
Best argument for open-source software; now what about open-source hardware?
How to Protect Yourself From The New Mac OS X Trojans
The first rule of using a Mac is to always trust Adam Engst. I’ve been trusting him for 15 years, and I’ve never regretted it.
This issue isn’t likely too likely to bite any individual user, but the precaution is easy to take.
All that remains to be seen is whether the next patch from Apple requires us to put ARDAgent.app back before patching.
TechBlog: Mozilla hits its Firefox 3 download goal, and then some: 8.3 million downloads in 24 hours, including 300,000 from Canada.
(Via spreadfirefox.com and chron.com.)
Michael Geist - The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print: “The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print”
The gist of Geist’s piece is that a lot of Prentice’s proposed legislation sounds good until you read the fine print; then you realize your rights are taken away. This is shameless pandering to foreign interests at the expense of all Canadians.
Prentice is practiced in sounding reasonable — witness his performance on CBC’s As It Happens last night, in which he smoothly side-stepped the question ‘did you talk to representatives of American media companies when preparing this legislation?’ (I’m paraphrasing).
Most amazing to me is how we’re supposed to be relieved that we’re “allowed” to copy our music CDs to our iPods, but since DVDs are “locked”, we’re criminals if we copy our legally-purchased movies to those same iPods. Amazing.
Never mind the fact that the “encrypted” audio CDs that Liberal MP Scott Bryson (on the same broadcast) says are so common in the United States aren’t actually CDs at all: Phillips, the owner of the Redbook Audio standard that defines what is and what is not a Compact Disc, says that if it has copy-protection then it’s not a Compact Disc. But that’s another story.
It’s just over 12 hours until Steve takes the stage at WWDC, which makes this as good a time as any.
I think we’ll see the following announced tomorrow:
On a sidenote, I got a phone call from Bell this week, asking me if I was happy with my cell phone, pointing out that my package was okay since I wasn’t going over my alloted minutes, and letting me know that I could switch to any cellphone I wanted and get $150 off my renewed contract. I resisted the urge to ask for an iPhone.
I’ve had a cell phone for years now, and this is the first such call I remember. The timing is interesting, coming less than a week ahead of a possible new iPhone release and new competition from Rogers.
June 9 update — here’s my report card:
So, 6.5 out of 9: 72%. They were pretty conservative predictions, though, to be fair.
bynkii.com: “This is, without doubt, the shittiest installer I have ever dealt with.”
…in which John C. Welch uses the word ‘fuck’ as punctuation.
Mac OS X first to fall: “In the first attempted attack in the PWN2OWN contest, a security analyst breached the defenses of Apple’s Mac OS X using a bug in the Safari browser and won $10,000 as well as the computer that he compromised.”
(Via SecurityFocus.com.)
From the Daring Fireball post on Wired’s story on 37signals:
Long profile by Andrew Park in the March issue. Pretty good overall, but there’s an awful lot of ginned-up conflict. E.g. the last paragraph contains the sentence: ‘Call it arrogance or idealism, but they would rather fail than adapt,’ and suggests they’re somehow losing customers due to their emphasis on simplicity above all else.”
Doesn’t seem so “ginned-up” from here. Count me among the lost customers.
37signals have earned their success. They get an awful lot right in their apps, from lack of data lock-in to an admirable overall level of intuitiveness.
So why have I given up on them after trying to use Basecamp for nearly 3 years?
A big reason would be that “vetoing customer requests” is standard operating procedure at 37signals. Don’t take my word for it: it says so on page 62 of Getting Real:
Don’t worry about tracking and saving each request that comes in. Let your customers be your memory. If it’s really worth remembering, they’ll remind you until you can’t forget.
Or until they go away because they have better things to do.
It’s fine with me that DHH would say “fuck you” to this, but he doesn’t get to do that and have my money.
For people looking for something, um, less simple than Basecamp (on Mac OS X) take a look at OmniPlan, recently upgraded to version 1.5.
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Leopard Emerges from Beta as 10.5.2 Ships.
What is it with everyone’s obsession with Leopard’s transparent menubar?
If you’re using a desktop image that’s in any way useful — as in it’s easy to find icons on the desktop, you know, big blue sky, as opposed to some noisy, distracting pattern that camouflages everything you put on it — then it’s not a big deal.
I agree with Matt’s assessment that iCal’s new behaviour of requiring a double-click to show event details is still an annoying step backwards, though.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (via the Sydney Morning Herald):
However, [Torvalds] went on to say that both companies are using their operating systems to propel more software and hardware sales.”
Simply shocking. I can’t imagine what they’re thinking…
