Truly frightening article on various aspects of Vista.

Came across this long and highly detailed article, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, on the extent of copy protection in Vista, Microsoft's new version of Windows. It's very technical and I'm not sure I understand it all, but the parts I do are just unbelievable. If you're planning on upgrade, and you use your computer for playing music or videos or anything like that, you must check it out. The title says it's just a cost analysis but it's much more than that. Very well written by someone who clearly knows what he's talking about. For one thing he says the copy protection is so extensive that it will not only affect Windows users, but virtually everyone who uses almost any kind of system at all.


And dig this part:


There's much, much more. I really can't believe this. You need permission from Hollywood studios to design a new driver or graphics card. The article seems to state, although I'm not really clear on this, that Vista won't even allow you to make backups at all, even of your own private material. That's inconceivable to me, but I think that's what they're doing.






Craigslist approaching a billion hits a month.

Craigslist, the famous community center founded in San Francisco, announced that it is now approaching one billion hits a month. Its job postings are now more popular than any others.

What's really significant about this is how their success is happening despite their doing virtually everything the so-called "experts" say is impossible. It's mostly free, with the only income being from job postings in SF, and now NY and LA, and even those postings costing much less than in other job boards. It doesn't use any flash or fancy graphics at all. It doesn't advertise, or accept advertising itself. It doesn't appear to use any of the "search engine optimization" techniques that have become so popular. There's no registration required, free or otherwise. Nothing at all, except useful content created entirely by the community of users itself, and has spread exclusively through word of mouth. Pretty amazing.






20th birthday of the Mac.

The SF Chronicle marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Macintosh today. A bit too much of how it "changed the world" for me, but I guess in a way it did. I got my first one that year, Model 1, 128K with a single 400K floppy. I was so excited. Oh well, won't go into what I think of Apple these days, and especially of Jobs, or of what might have been. Just wish they had focused more on making inexpensive computers that worked well for the "rest of us", and a little bit less on saving the world.

But can't praise the Mac itself enough. Near twenty years of use, more different models than I can count, and I don't think I've had as much as 48 hours of downtime total during that time. Pretty much no problems at all. I just turn them on and get to work. Always. Really amazing. And still today. I look at all of the people I know using Windows and watch them struggling with their virus programs and installation hassles, and I just laugh.

The people running Apple don't know diddley about the computer business, in my humble opinion, but the people there who do the technology are just first-rate, and deserve plenty of kudos. I make both comments after years as a Mac developer too, not just as a user. They're just a niche company today, but if you ever get tired of the viruses and all of the other Windows problems, an alternative certainly exists.

Oh, one more comment. I thought then, and I think now, that that "1984" commercial was the worst single commercial that I've ever seen in my entire life. What a piece of garbage. It in every way symbolizes what is wrong with Apple and why it's become effectively irrelevant as far as computing goes. They had an absolutely great product, and one which was substantially better than all of the competitors', and what do they do: they insult their potential customers by calling them idiots and lemmings. Talk about arrogance and lack of marketing savvy. And it's all about image, not a damn thing about the product itself. Almost a textbook example of every mistake you can make in an ad and marketing campaign. And even today, as indicated in the Chronicle article, people still talk about it as if it was a great thing. The fact is, if there are lemmings in the computer world today, it's the bozos who continue to hero-worship Jobs even after their share of the market continues to go down and down and down. Exactly like those people jumping off the cliff.

Just had to get that off my chest. Every time I think about it I get a little sick to my stomach. When will they wake up? You don't sell "lifestyle", you sell "computers." Period.






Keeping track of web pages.

The NY Times has an interesting article on the various ways people use to keep track of pages they visit. Apparently bookmarks are not proving all that useful, and folks are mostly relying on search engines to find pages they want to visit again.


I think that part of the problem with bookmarks is the growing tendency of web designers to use the Title tag as a way of inserting keywords to promote higher search engine ratings, rather than simply using them to make easily recognizable bookmarks. The page title is what is stored when you select 'Save Favorite' to record them.

I like the suggestion of being able to annotate bookmarks when you add them. I've wanted to do that for years. And I'd also like to be able to select the folder that you store the bookmark in at the time you make it. But, most importantly, web designers need to focus on user needs rather than their desire to promote higher page rankings on Google.

But the real problem is Microsoft's browser monopoly. As long as they're allowed to keep giving it away for free, and thus destroying the market for alternatives, the state of the art is going to remain awfully low. I've been working with hypermedia for twenty years now, and have a lot of ideas and new approaches I'd like to try, but it's hopeless.

The same with the ebook market. They released Reader a few years ago, which they have never maintained, updated or promoted. But it was enough to destroy the market for more creative programs. With some help from the bozos at Adobe, and the extremely limited approach they've taken with Acrobat and PDF files.

And, to be fair, Apple's monopoly and desire to control all of the programs for the Mac is just as harmful. I've been reading about a so-called "resurgence" in the tech industry, but as long as Jobs and Gates are running things it will remain stagnant. I can't believe people continue to let these two adolescents run things like this.






Almanacs and the internet.

The FBI recently warned people to be on guard against people carrying almanacs, claiming that these handy reference works could be used to research potential targets and such.


Many sarcastic comments have been made about this, many pointing out that maybe the finest American who ever lived, Benjamin Franklin, himself published an almanac. But what just occurred to me, is that the internet has effectively made almanacs obsolete. All of the information in them, and infinitely more besides, is easily available over the web. Train and plane schedules, abbreviations (???), weather reports, you name it.

So is the next step to shut down the web, and/or to arrest anyone carrying a PDA or portable computer as a potential terrorist? Are they going to start searching and questioning anyone seen in an airport terminal using a computer? Or writing something in a notebook? And aren't there still internet terminals available to the public in airports?

It's pretty funny actually. But in a way it's also rather frightening, since it seems to imply that the FBI is unaware of the amount of info available on the net, and that they really believe that they can actually prevent people from accessing it. Almost pathetic.

And what about chat rooms, discussion forums and so on? Not to mention good old fashioned telephones and faxes. All of which could easily be used to organize a terrorist plot. And what is a "suspicious way" of annotating an almanac? Using a yellow hilighter? Underlining words? Unbelievable.

Another rather strange policy is that of fingerprinting people arriving at airports and cruise ship terminals. I understand the value of this, which actually could be used to trace people. But they are exempting people from Europe, Canada, Australia and other mostly-white nations. Which is absurd. If they're going to take these measures, then take them and make them effective. But to take them while leaving such glaring and obvious loopholes in them indicates an extraordinary degree of incompetence, and an incredibly unrealistic view of the modern world. There are, for example, millions of Islamic people in Europe.






Classic Mac visitors outnumber OSX ones, 5 to 1.

Apple, along with the rest of the Mac community, at least those writing on the web, seem to have entirely relegated the Classic Mac OS to the dustbin of history. If you browse the Mac sites you might get the impression that virtually all Mac users have moved to OSX by now. But in perusing my referrer logs, I notice that visitors to my sites using the Classic Mac OS (Systems 7, 8 and 9) outnumber the OSX ones, and by nothing less than a whopping 5 to 1 ratio.

Can't say I'm that surprised tho. I was using OSX for a while, and liked it too, but sold my Emac a while ago, and have been using System 9 on an older Mac ever since. Can't say I notice many differences. It's a bit slower, but not that much. One of these days I'll get a newer Mac, but I don't seem to be in much of a rush.

If you are still using the Classic Mac however, I still have the older Hypercard versions of my ebooks available for free downloading. Go to the library ebooks home page, and scroll to the downloads section at the bottom. They still work great, better than ever, in fact. They also work great with the Classic OS running inside OSX. It's a nice HC program, if I do say so myself. The stacks are available in several versions, some that require HC players, which are also there, along with some saved as independent Mac apps. Put a lot of work in it, and it still runs rings around any other ebook program on the market. Even got a five-star review from MacUser back in 1996. For what it's worth.

And, also in the "for-what-it's-worth" department, I still think Jobs made a huge mistake when he decided to stop supporting the Classic Mac OS. He ought to take a look at his referrer logs as well. "Stupid is as stupid does," someone once said.






Spam to and from California to end Jan 2004.

California Governor Gray Davis today signed into law a bill that prohibits spam both to and from California as of the new year. Amazing. Articles from the LA Times and NY Times. And apparently they're serious about enforcing it.


This should have ramifications far beyond California. For one thing it's the spammer's responsibility to make sure the recipient doesn't live in California, not the other way around, so they'll at least have to go through their lists and make sure. And another is that many of these so-called businesses are centered in California, so at the very least they'll have to move.

This is great. We may actually get our computers back. I must confess. At first I thought the California recall was a huge joke, but they sure to seem to be churning out the legislation here lately. Some of it may be ill-considered, or sloppy or such. But damn, for once the politicians are really getting off their duffs. Nothing anywhere could ever restore my faith in so-called American democracy, but it's rather interesting. Naturally the real test is in the enforcement. There are tons of great laws on the books, both in California and the US. The problem isn't the lack of legislation, but the lack of enforcement.

Now how about some limits on how many TV commercials can be shown in any given time period? I'm really getting fed up at this. It's killing TV.






Should Microsoft be held liable for security breaches?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wonders whether Microsoft can be held legally liable for the problems caused by the numerous flaws in its software. It's an interesting question. There's no denying that they know about the problems, and have known for some time, and that they have repeatedly claimed that these problems are not that serious.


It's also well known that technologically at least there is no reason for modern software to be susceptible to viruses or to have anywhere near this degree of insecurity. (I've been using a Mac for 19 years now and have never even seen a virus, much less been infected by one.)

The problem is, as the article discusses, is that software makers have bribed the powers that be to give them an exemption from consumer liability laws. That is, no matter how defective their products, they cannot be held responsible, not under any circumstances. I've developed software myself, and certainly don't see how it differs in any way from other types of products. Manufacturers should be held liable for producing defective products, software the same as any other type.

Anyway, it's a nice lengthy article, which goes into the problem in some detail.






Microsoft exploiting the holes in its own software.

Business Week reports that Microsoft, who of course makes the software that has the security holes in it, is now getting into the business of protecting people from its own products.


So the fox is charging the chickens for protection from the wolves. OK, business in America.



The Other Side - Twisted animations.

The Lazy Guide to Net Culture led me to this utterly ridiculous site full of silly animations, most with a very definite attitude. Someone named Mata with the matazone. Flash required.


Don't miss The Ace of Spaces - A singing kitten animation, the first full length flash music video I've ever seen. Pretty trippy. Woman in an Office is also rather interesting.

This is a nice way to display old photographs. And this is sick, sick, sick.

This art is definitely advancing. Lately I've seen some beautiful pieces of work.



Guardian's Onlineblog

The Guardian seems to be the first major paper to really get on the blogging phenomenon. Besides their regular weblog page they have a separate Onlineblog where they cover blogging and related issues. Pretty nice page and links as well.

Here's some interesting comments on blogging itself.








Amazed at the effort behind a web site.

After transferring everything over, and redesigning the sites and such, I'm again amazed at just how much work and time-consuming details are involved in getting a good-sized site up. Goodness. It just eats up the time.

I guess it's worse for me since I'm an eternal perfectionist and can futz forever, but even so it's a real challenge. Trying to deal with PERL, PHP, mySQL, MovableType, the browsers, Mac and Windows, mail settings, domain name stuff, nameservers, and on and on and on.

I don't think I'm going to be redoing this one for quite a while. Will add on to it, but I think I'm going to let well enough alone.

I must say that the software is starting to get very good and even well documented. Movable Type is very well done, and with good documentation and online support as well. So is the forum software, Invision Power Board. My new domain hosts, ipowerweb.com are also pretty good, with extensive user control over the settings and good help. I'd recommend any of them. I also use easyDNS.com for domain name management. They're really good as well.






Just stunned by how bad the new Blogger is.

Just can't believe it. I mean it's not even remotely close to being workable, much less professional. Can't republish my archives, can't even view anything other than the last 50 posts I made, can't search posts, and on and on. Absolutely no documentation, no help, no support forum that I can find, at least not on the Blogger site, nothing at all.

From the Blogger New FAQ:


Well I guess that's true. There are no archives at all, so I guess there can't be any misposted ones. Again, this is a Google operation. They bought Blogger a few months ago, and they're responsible. Simply no excuse for such shoddiness from a company with so much technological expertise.






Apple moves into the future, at least a little.

MacCentral offers a nice roundup of news from Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference.


This actually sounds interesting, at least from the technological perspective. But not from the marketing one. Unfortunately Apple, all by itself, is simply not capable of producing enough machines fast enough to create an installed base large enough to develop for. At least that's my feeling, and has been since Jobs pulled the plug on other manufacturers when he came back in the late 90s. But they sure do sound great. And so does Panther.

I note however, that their stock is up around 50% over the last few months. I think though that that's from their new music center, which has been a bit hit, there being a lot more music fans than there are Mac fans. The stock price actually declined a little after yesterday's announcements.






Comments by Haloscan aren't working today.

I added Haloscan comments last week, which I basically really like. But their server seems to be down today, and when that happen loading my blog gives lots of script errors. And as someone who supposedly makes his living do web coding, I don't ever want people to see script errors. :) So I took them off, at least temporarily.

Maybe I'll try them again later, but I think I'll probably just move this to MoveableType sometime this week. I've been wanting to do that anyway. Blogger is great, but it does have its problems. And I think it'd be better if the blog and the comments were all on the same server anyway. That way it's either all there and working, or it isn't. It's too bad though. I actually got my first comment over the weekend. Darn.

Some people say one shouldn't criticize free services like Blogger and Haloscan, and that I should pay for the pro versions if I want better service. Well, maybe so. But I think things should work properly. If the free versions don't work, then I just assume that the commercial versions also probably don't work well either. If you can't do something right, then you shouldn't do it at all.

And I've also learned that paying for something is no guarantee of it working right either. I've paid for both Radio and Manila, and I can't say they're any less buggy than Blogger, which is free.



What is a RSS feed?

The Christian Science Monitor has added RSS feeds to its sites, along with a simple explanation of exactly what a RSS feed is. Also contains many links to various news aggregators.






Kudos to Microsoft for suing spammers.

You may have heard that Microsoft has just filed some serious lawsuits against some of the largest spam companies. Good for them. Even if they don't win, and I think they might since they're filing under Washington state's rather tough anti-spam laws, it should have a bit of a chilling effect

It's time people dealt with this problem. The costs of it are just enormous. God knows how much time is being wasted, how many computer resources tied up and so on. I mean, what's the cost of a productivity loss of 15-30 minutes a day for everybody in the world?

So good for Bill et al. They get trashed a lot, but occasionally they're good for something. (I've never been a major MS basher, even though I'm a longtime Mac user. They've long been the best Mac developer around, and have been so since day one.)



Danny Goodman is still on it.

Via Marc Canter's blog. Slashdot reviews the newly released second edition of Danny Goodman's "Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference. Glad to hear that's out. The first edition has been my bible for many years. Just as his Hypertalk and Applescript books were before that. If you want to learn modern HTML or Javascript he's the man to see. His own site is at dannyg.com. Lots of help there.






Amiga fans want Mozilla.

Amiga fans have pooled their money, over $3,000 so far, and are offering it to anyone who can port Mozilla to the Amiga. What a great idea. Via BoingBoing, always an interesting stop and a great way to avoid real work.



Technology moving backwards?

If you've been working with computers for more than ten years or so, you've probably noticed that features once standard have seemed to disappear since the web came along.

For instance, the lack of "undo" in the Blogger posting area, and most other web writing tools as well. Fancy dancy new Mac with OSX, all sorts of fancy dancy blogging tools, but it can't do something that was basic twenty years ago.

From the perspective of a web designer, I'd also note the disappearance of dialog boxes, menus, and a number of other useful innovations that were once a standard part of software. Panes, a subset of windows introduced in the original Mac Toolbox, have practically disappeared since they were labeled frames on the web. Heck, I once had round windows in my Mac software. Too much for the squares tho, I guess. Too bad, I miss the round windows. They were cool.

But hey, we have lots of discussions and pontifications about what a weblog is, and how they're changing the nature of software.

One possible definition: a method of word processing and epublishing that doesn't have undo or other basic text editing features, doesn't allow you to incorporate standard programming functions such as if-then-else statements and loops, and which normally doesn't allow the user to read the text in the many different fonts that they paid for when they bought their new fancy dancy computer. :)






A web designer's fantasy and nightmare.

The folks at strangebanana.com, have a site that generates an endless variety of random designs. It works too. I gotta say that whoever did this certainly knows how to code.

If you want something a bit more refined, there's a collection of open source web designs here. "Open Source Web Design is a community of designers and site owners freely sharing designs as well as design information." Good idea.

As someone who makes his living doing web design I have to point out that just a design is not enough. It's kinda like getting an architect's plan for a house. But you really still do need someone to build it for you. The devil is in the details. (I hope :))






Dance the Night Away.

A friend of mine sent me this silly link. Go ahead, it'll cheer you up and get your toes tapping. Great graphics, and not too long a wait for it to load. Don't miss the dancing baby near the bottom.



Spam suggestion, and thoughts on advertising.

This spam thing is getting way out of hand. Why not simply continuously spam every politician in the world until they stop it?

God, what I wouldn't give to just have one single day without some lazy, greedy American trying to sell me something that I don't need and don't want. It just never ends. Turn on the radio, turn on the TV, turn on the computer, go to the movies, pick up the phone, drive down the street, stop by the grocery, go here, go there, there's this never-ending assault on your consciousness, this constant attacking that keeps you always on the defensive. Buy, buy, buy. It's like living inside a cloud of mosquitoes. And if you buy something, they just come back for more and more, and give your address to other parasites so that they in turn can harass you.

More and more I come to think of advertising as an invasion of privacy, and as a violation of my right to live my life the way I want. This never ending assault is as damaging to my mental well-being as second-hand smoke or other health threats are to my physical health.

Maybe we should take the war on spam to a higher level, and ban advertising entirely, at least in public places? You know there really isn't any statistical proof to show that it works. The web has provided the first opportunity to ever actually measure its effectiveness, and the statistics show that the click-thru rates on ads is less than one percent. The same with telemarketing. Ban it in public places and on public airwaves, and require private businesses to post signs warning that advertising is present in the same way they post signs warning of the presence of toxic chemicals.

I guess the response of most people to this would be to ask how companies would be able to let people know about their products. Hey, they don't need to do that. "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." If you have a really good product, people will spread the word themselves. They'd be glad to.

Personally I've long since come to the conclusion that if someone is advertising something that means that the product isn't good enough to stand on its own, and that they need to push it. And on that basis I pretty much make it a point not to buy anything that's advertised. :)

This constant assault on people is exceptionally damaging to children.






Tech support reminder: details matter.

As you may have noticed, no posts from yesterday. This is because I switched to a new dial-up account from Verizon, and spent all day trying to get it to work. After three calls to knowledgeable and very helpful tech support, hours backing up, reinstalling this and that, learning more than I ever wanted to know about keychains and passwords on OSX and how their fancy voice activated help system works (pretty well actually), and all sorts of fun, the fourth tech finally told me that I needed to put a "VZ/" before my user id so the local phone number would recognize it as a Verizon account. That was it. Live and learn. ;)






Who will pay for software?

In one of his "DaveNets", Dave Winer expresses doubt about whether people will pay for software, music or anything else on the net, and concludes that they won't.


He has some good points to make, but I think he's projecting the fact that people may not be willing to pay for his software into a conclusion that people won't pay for software at all. No, they won't pay for software that's very buggy, and for which the company does not offer professional level support. No, they're not going to do business with a company that doesn't respond to customers' inquiries or complaints, and that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for people to pay.

For instance, on Userland's order page for Radio it states: "We also accept checks, purchase orders, and wire transfers at an additional charge." Why is there a different price for people who don't wish to pay by credit card? It doesn't cost any more for them to process. (Actually it's less; there's no percentage taken out by the credit card company.)

But that's not the real point, which is that when I (twice) emailed them to find out what the cost was if I paid by check I never even received a response. No wonder people aren't buying it. I have since purchased both Radio Userland as well as a Manila site from Weblogger, a separate company that offers Manila hosting, mostly because I'm interested in the technology and wanted to check it out. I've since found that the software is so buggy and the customer support so poor that I simply can't rely on it. The HTML in the templates is the sloppiest I've ever seen.

So I'm writing this blog using Blogger. Not as many features, and it has its own problems, but it works. It's so much easier to use than Radio there's just no comparison. That's probably why Google bought Pyra, not Radio Userland. I'll probably soon move to Movable Type, since it seems that it's a good product, and that the people behind it are focused on making it work.

I see no problem with people paying for software or music or anything else. If the quality is good, and the company offers good service. I don't want to be critical of Dave, who's done a lot for blogging and the computer industry. But these claims that people don't pay make it more difficult for others who do good products.

I also have to question the claim that "our economy is based on software." I don't think so, and I'm surprised that since the dot-com crash people continue to make this claim. Software is just a tool used by other industries. It's not an end in itself, and it really isn't all that important to the economy.

Actually, the arts (film, music, writing, etc.) are much more important to the economy now. He also says that our culture is based on software. I don't think so. It's the stars of the art world that lead the culture now. Amazon is making money by selling the products of writers. Apple's major recent success is in selling music. It's the movies AOL Time Warner makes that now subsidize AOL, not the other way around. Without the artists who create these products these people are out of business.

Addendum: Dave adds more thoughts on the subject. He says there's been some discussion on his piece, but I notice he doesn't link to any of it. Curious.

I still don't think his arguments hold much water. He claims that software costs money to produce, and that people aren't paying. But if that is true, then how is that the web continues to exist? How is it that I'm able to post this very comment. Obviously, the system is working somehow. The folks behind Blogger _must_ be making some money, or why would a big company like Google buy it???






Wikipedia.

Speaking of writing online, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia which anyone can contribute to, either by contributing a new article or editing an old one. An absolutely fascinating idea. Have some expertise to offer? There's an entire page of requested articles to stimulate your imagination. (There are also plenty of articles that could use some correction and/or additions. But that's what's great: someone says something you think is wrong you can just dive in and change it on the spot.)






French Minitel celebrates 20th birthday.

BBC article. Minitel is a "proto-internet" started by the French telephone company as a way of saving money on phone books. It has since become adapted for chats, bill payments and much more. Although changed by the web, it is still going strong.


That is exactly what ebooks need.






Ask Jeeves joins the no pop-ups bandwagon.

CNET News reports that search engine Ask Jeeves is the latest site to ban the ever irritating ads. Although the article notes that they will be replacing them by targeted ads in search results. But it's still encouraging. It almost makes me hope that maybe some day we can deal with the spam as well. At the same time it also indicates the continuing difficulty in finding ways to fund the net, through advertising or anything else.

In an unrelated note, I noticed that the CNET News web address is "news.com.com." Yes, a double dot com. Don't know why I find that funny. The official name of the Moscow Times, one of my favorite news sites by the way, is Moscow Times dot com, although it's actual address is dot ru. Interesting the way language evolves.






Thanks to Wikipedia, a public encyclopedia.

Got the Irish terms for their government from the ever-better Wikipedia, a user created encyclopedia I recently stumbled on. It's a great idea. Any user can edit any page. No article on a topic yet? Then write one. See a typo, misspelling or other error? Correct it on the spot. Here's the entry for Ireland. And Sinn Fein means "Ourselves Alone." I didn't know that.

I really should look up the HTML-entities for the Irish characters in the Gaelic words below. Is being lazy a good excuse? Oh well, I'll fix it soon.






Javascript and DHTML goodies.

Stumbled on a wonderful site by Angus Turnbull, while looking for Javascript menu scripts. One of the best implementations of those I've seen yet (they actually work, for one thing), along with all sorts of other stuff. Very slick stuff by someone who obviously knows what they're doing. And all free for the taking. And even some humor to go along with it.



Apple announces fourth quarter results.


New York Times article here. That works out to just under three million a year. Is that enough to warrant developing for OSX?



Motorola selling its PowerPC division?

The New York Times reports that Motorola stock plummeted more than 20 percent on a very bad third quarter. And, most important for the Mac, there are rumors that they may sell their semiconductor business, which presumably includes the PowerPC.


This sure would be major news in the Mac world if it happens. Heck, losing a major semiconductor business to the Europeans, would be a very big deal for the US at large. Especially one of the most technologically advanced ones.

Everybody's been talking about OSX while ignoring this ever-growing crater at the foundation of it all. At the moment OSX runs only on machines with Motorola chips, and Apple is the only purchaser of those chips. Given the tech downturn I just don't see how they can continue to produce these on a cost-efficient basis.

IBM also makes PowerPC chips, and has recently announced new advances in them, but whether they're prepared to meet all of Apple's demands is highly questionable. That would amount to a major new investment at a time when, as they say, the chips are down. (Sorry ;))






Nice review of OSX in Tidbits.

There's a nice overall review of OSX in the current issue of Tidbits, here. It gives individual grades to it in different areas (hardware compatibility, ease of software development, etc.), altho I think they may be a bit too high. Mostly B's and B+'s. Especially liked this section on how Apple has moved away from encouraging people to make their own applications, which is almost certainly the reason for the almost infinitesimal market share and rapidly declining stock price and profits. When will they learn that the whole point is to make it usable by the users?



It really may not be accurate to say that "Apple" doesn't like Hypercard. My impression is that there are plenty of people at Apple who love it, and who would like to see products like that out there. It seems to be only Mr. Jobs who doesn't like it, and of course, if Jobs doesn't like something then no one else has the right to like it either. But with the rapid meltdown of Apple's stock, profits, marketshare, and every other statistical measure of business, I can't see him being there much longer. The "cult of personality" and pictures on Time magazine notwithstanding, he's killing the company. Slowly but surely bringing it from a billion a month company to a billion a year one. Sad, to say the least.

I know the "faithful" don't want to believe this, and want to believe that fancy-dancy technology is saving it, but the figures just don't tell that story. And yes, I realize that the entire computer industry is having troubles, but if you look at the statistics Apple's decline is worse than the rest, and at a time when they have stunning new products out, and at a time when the anger at Microsoft has never been higher, and there's never been more opportunity to encroach on their territory. Why they don't have a new, killer OS for x86 machines is beyond me. But I guess, it's the same as Hypercard. Jobs doesn't want it, then it just doesn't matter.

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