The Instapundit writes:
THE BROWSER UPGRADE I’D LIKE TO SEE: One where the tab that’s the source of the autoplay audio flashes or something so I know which one to shut down. (Bumped, in the hope that someone will notice.)
Heh. (H/T, rep3)
Mary Jo Foley asks the question over at ZDNet. (H/T, Wombat-socho).
I suspect the correct answer is, “It’s a desert topping that tastes like floor wax.”
But that is the level of success achieved by most products that are “solutions” in search of real-world problems.
That’s the opinion of The Register. (H/T, Wombat-socho) Their article describes the OS as underperforming, overly closed, and running on a device (The Surface RT) that competes with Microsoft’s OEM customers. It criticizes Microsoft’s poor advertising campaign.
Everything the article mentions is a valid criticism, and, taken together, they’re more than enough to sink the product, but the article misses the principal reason for the failure. There was no real niche for The Surface RT as an ubertablet, and Microsoft, unlike Apple with the iPad, has not been able to create one. Other than a few techies, no one I know who wants a lightweight portable device wants a “tablet.” They all want iPads.
Zune. Vista. The Surface RT. Windows 8. When will they fire Steve Ballmer?
Smitty writes about another reason to hate IT and ISPs.
John Paczkowski has a post over at All Things D, “confirming” that Apple will release an “iPad Mini” this fall. This will supposedly kill off Android tablets for the holiday buying season.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I’m typing this on an original-recipe iPad that I have been using since the first day iPads were available with 3G. It has replaced my Mac laptop for most applications. It completely replaced my HP/Linux netbook as a mobile device. Indeed, the only other mobile device I still use is my iPhone. All the 7-in Android tablets that I’ve tried were too small to be useful as a laptop replacement and too large to useful as a phone.
I have a Kindle Fire, and I use it around the house for viewing content available in Amazon’s ecosystem. However, I don’t see it as competing with my iPad; what it replaced was my iPod Touch. So I’ll bet that any new product from Apple won’t be aimed at competing with Android tablets in general. The real competition is from Amazon and the Kindle Fire, and the killer response isn’t an iPad Mini. It’s an iPod Maxi. There’s the product line that needs refreshing.
We’ll see.
I’m reminded of The Ransom of Red Chief.
Smitty takes a look at that question when he considers how the government grew to reach critical morass.
Which operating system has more systems deployed: Microsoft’s Win*, or the various Unix flavors (with Apple’s line standing far closer to Unix)? Linux, in particular, is wrecking all non-desktop comers (supercomputers, routers, servers) because Linus Torvalds is ruthlessly anti-bloat. The U.S. Code is far more like Windows, with its tendency to add more layers of noise atop the existing crap, without insufficient trimming of legacy crap.
Ruthless focus on first principals is the difference between Apple under Steve Jobs and Microsoft under Steve Balmer. It’s the difference between George Patton and William Westmoreland. It’s the difference between spectacular success and meh.
And, yes, all the computers in my business and my household run either some form of Mac OS or Linux, and all my families mobile devices run iOS.
(H/T, Of Arms & the Law) The federal courts have gone to electronic filing for documents, and the District Court for DC has asked all of the lawyers admitted to its bar to participate in some online training. The email to attorneys contains this notice:
SPECIAL NOTE TO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ATTORNEYS/STAFF:
The WebEx web conferencing website is not accessible to DOJ attorneys/staff due to internet blocks set in place by your IT department, therefore you are unable to register for a webinar training class or participate in the WebEx training room session itself.
OS 10.8 is up and running smoothly on my MacBook Pro.
Stacy McCain has a post up about Neal Rauhauser’s claim that
… policy intel for 700+ Congressional staffers runs through a system I built and I back up the natsec editor. I hear stuff average bear does not.
Uh, huh.
If you read down to the UPDATE, you see that the system he is probably talking about is a blog called Progressive Congress News. To find out what Progressive Congress News really is click here. A bit of fisking is in order.
… system I built … probably means that he did some coding. The link above says that
Progressive Congress News utilizes existing online tools, as well as internally-developed software, to create an aggregated news feed for Congressional staff, activists, and politically-engaged citizens.
Sounds like a left-wing RSS feed or some such.
… back up the natsec editor … probably means that when the real guy went on vacation that they let Mr. Rauhauser post something.
I hear stuff average bear does not. They have meds for that.
This guy is truly a legend in his own mind.
UPDATE–I’m beginning to see tweets and posts interpreting this as Neal Rauhauser claiming to have access to national security information. I sincerely doubt that would be true. Even to have access to a federal government non-classified computer system requires a background check that I doubt Mr. Rauhauser could pass. If 20 % of the stuff I read about his background is true, a check for access to classified information would quickly turn up items that would possibly result in his immediate arrest. If he is being given access without a clearance, someone is risking a long time in jail. If Mr. Rauhauser is claiming access to classified information, I hereby award that claim a genuine Paul Klipsch lapel button.
There’s a piece of malware that has infected PCs (and some Macs) that will cause users to lose access to the Internet on Monday, 9 July. It works by spoofing IP address and sending users to fake websites. The FBI will shutdown the temporary Internet system they set up as a transitional safety net for infected computers at 12:01 a.m. EDT Monday.
Few Macs were infected because Administrator privileges were required to install the malware on Mac OS X.
If you think that your computer might be compromised, go here to check your system for the infection.
… and admits that Steve Jobs was right about Flash on mobile devices. Android installs will end after 15 August. More here.
I wasn’t going to bother with commenting on the Microsoft Surface, the tablet they unveiled yesterday, but …
UPDATE—The Daily Caller has a gallery of other Microsoft fiascos.
Computers, mostly in the Middle East and most of those in Iran, are being found with a new virus which is being called Flame or Flamer. This virus appears to be gathering intelligence by taking screenshots and recording sound which are then forwarded to its command-and-control servers. It’s a much large program than Stuxnet. Unlike Stuxnet, it doesn’t appear to be designed to break what the computer is controlling. It appear to simply be spying.
Wired has some details here. Of course, the rumor mill is pointing fingers at Israel as the source of the virus.
UPDATE—And here is the BBC’s online report.
What browser are you using? Odds are, if you’re not on a mobile device, it’s Chrome–unless you’re in the US or UK where Internet Exploder is still number one. (If you are on a mobile device, you are likely to be using Safari).
Safari and Chrome, which both are based on the open source WebKit project, really are the best browsers out there. Opera is nice, but always seems about one step behind these days.
If you’re using a Windows PC and still suffering with IE, give Chrome a try.
Back when I was single, I used to have to spend 20 or 30 bucks before a woman would tell me I was ugly. Now there’s a 99 cent app for that, the Ugly Meter. I bought it and tried it on myself. I scored 9.5 out of 10 on the ugly scale. Mrs. Hoge, on the other hand, scored zero—which is not surprising; she’s a very beautiful woman.
UPDATE—I’m told that Angelina Jolie scored a 2 out of 10.
There were earlier hobbyist computers, but the Apple II was the first real personal computer. It was introduced on 16 April, 1977.
Posted from a Macbook Pro.
UPDATE–As an engineer, I was an early adopter of desktop computing. Before the Apple II was out, I had an HP9830 in my office, and then a Tektrinix 4051, followed by an HP9836. I didn’t get a “home” computer until 1985. My ancient IBM Selectric typewriter had died, and an Apple IIc and a letter-quality printer were cheaper than a new Selectric. These days, my household contains a Mac Color Classic running Mac OS 7.6.5, a desk lamp iMac and an iBook running OS 10.4, two PPC iMacs running 10.5, an Intel iMac and a pair of Macbooks running Snow Leopard, a MacBook dual booting Lion and Mountain Lion, an original OLPC laptop, and an HP netbook running Ubuntu 9.04. And my son is still using that Apple IIc for retro gaming. [Posted from my iPad.]
One of the agencies in the Department of Commerce has been knocked of the Internet by a cyber attack. It’s back to paper and pencils and fax machines.
Oh, and guess which department issues the IT security standards for the federal government. Yes, that’s right; it’s the Department of Commerce.
(H/T, Vodkapundit for both)
Do Not Track Plus It’s a free browser plugin for the most commonly used browsers. Not only does it block companies from tracking your web browsing, it really speeds up your page load times. BTW, other than asking for your email address if you comment at Hogewash!, I don’t keep track of visitors. However, DNT+ shows that four companies attempt to track me when I view this page. DNT+ blocks all of them.
Bonus for Safari users—JavaScript Blacklist It easily lets you blacklist entire web domains from running JavaScripts. For example,
Here are a few more that are a bit borderline. JavaScript Blacklist does not block these by default, but you can easily add them in the preferences.
Jazz Shaw wonders if the Crackberry is toast?
Well, not exactly. But there’s a lot for fuzzy blue-green stuff growing on it.
The Blackberry was more than a one-hit-wonder. However, RIM has not kept up with the rich user features and user experience of Apple’s iOS. Even more telling than the fall of the Blackberry was the abject failure of the Playbook tablet.
To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different; it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination—and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.
—William H. Gates, III
