Tech Talk
The Zealots Respond: We’re Not Zealots, We’re Fanatics!
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006Jeff Porten is responding to my Being All That Apple Can Be Rambling (which was in response to his original post, Spending my summer in Boot Camp) with multiple posts on his blog, The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy.
For sanity’s sake, the ensuing discussion will take place on his blog, since my Ramblings don’t have comment capabilities. I’ll keep a running list of links in this post, though, so those who are interested can follow the discussion more easily:
1) About the Cult of Macintosh
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Et Tu, Google?
Monday, May 1st, 2006Frequent readers of this blog know how much I love Google. Heck, with the exception of a few friends of mine who read this fairly regularly, almost everyone who comes here does so because of Google. I’m a big Google fan (and even a shareholder).
So it is with great sadness that I report that Google has begun playing the accuse your competitors of unfair practices game with Microsoft, the Justice Department, and the European Union. Many levels of hypocrisy abound:
[Internet Explorer, version 7] includes a search box in the upper-right corner that is typically set up to send users to Microsoft’s MSN search service. Google contends that this puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors.
The move, Google claims, limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990’s.
Actually, after a lot of hand-wringing (and a new administration), the DoJ dropped the case about integrating the browser into the OS. It was the European Union that finally nailed Microsoft for anti-trust practices, and that was over their inclusion of a Media Player in their OS, not a browser. We continue:
The best way to handle the search box, Google asserts, would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7. It says that could be done by asking the user to either type in the name of their favorite search engine or choose from a handful of the most popular services, using a simple drop-down menu next to the search box.
The Firefox and Opera browsers come with Google set as the default, but Ms. Mayer said Google would support unfettered choice on those as well.
Uh huh…I guess they never noticed this completely unfair, choice-limiting feature of Firefox and Opera until just now, right? Or perhaps they’ve been privately fighting for its removal all along, and the press just never covered it? Or maybe it’s only unfair when the feature doesn’t point to your product, and it lives in a browser that has 80%+ market share?
Microsoft responds with a couple of good points:
Giving users an open-ended choice could add complexity and confusion to the browser set-up process, while offering a few options would be arbitrarily limiting.
MSN [is] not always the default search in Internet Explorer 7. When downloaded, the new browser inherits the settings from the old Microsoft browser, version 6. But the search default in that program was based on a feature called AutoSearch that Google says was not widely used.
So again, limiting consumer choice is only OK if it’s in a feature that no one uses? But here’s the icing on the cake:
[Google sponsored] a study . . . conducted by Tec-Ed, a research firm. It found that only a third of users could master the four-click process to change the default.
Seriously? 67% of web-browser users can’t master a four-click process? I highly suspect that what the study really showed was that 67% of browser users didn’t bother to use the four-click process to change the default. But that doesn’t sound as good to an anti-trust lawyer, now does it?
What’s not mentioned here at all is the Google toolbar. Download statistics are not readily available (since you can download it from multiple places), but I’m willing to bet that a very significant portion of the IE installations out there (half? maybe more?) have the Google toolbar installed. That means there’s a search box right there on the screen that will take users directly to Google’s search results. Of course, there are mitigating factors here: you have to install the Google toolbar yourself – it doesn’t come pre-loaded with the browser. On the other hand, the search box on the Google Toolbar is just below the address box, making it more convenient than the one in the upper-right corner. Also, there is no way (four clicks or otherwise) to change the toolbar to search with another search engine. And before you declare me crazy for suggesting that Google build a tool that allows people to search with their competitor’s site, allow me to point out to you that this is exactly what they’re asking Microsoft to do, and in fact, Microsoft has already done it and Google is asking them to make it easier! There’s even a beta version of the toolbar available for IE v7…
For shame, guys. Why not take a more novel approach and declare your indifference to the IE search box, market the hell out of your own toolbar, and tell people they should use your product because it’s better (which I happen to believe it is, by the way), rather than appealing to some trumped up assault on their free will?
Categories: Tech Talk | 8 Comments »
Boot Camp – Being All That Apple Can Be
Sunday, April 30th, 2006My analysis of the implications of Boot Camp are up in the Ramblings section.
Fans of Jeff Porten’s Spending My Summer In Boot Camp will see distinct parallels, of course…
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Solution to MSOffice “Not Responding” Error
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006Once again, the power of Google saves the day…
The other day, Windows automatically downloaded and installed a number of patches (as per my instructions – I used to look at each one, but I never, ever said “No,” so I just changed it to automatic. Go figure…). For those who are finding this through a Google search, the patches were: KB915597, KB890830, KB911565, KB911562, KB912812, KB908531, KB911567, KB892130 and KB890830.
Anyway, after the patches were installed, my Microsoft Office 2003 Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) all began exhibiting a quirky problem: If you did File…Open or File…Save As, and tried to navigate around the folder tree, the program would freeze up, eventually giving a “Not Responding” error, and forcing you to close it.
I had visions of backing up all of my data, reinstalling MSOffice, reinstalling all the LiveOffice patches, and praying the problem went away. But before I did any such thing, I typed “MSOffice Save As Not Responding” into Google, and it led me to this Google Groups discussion on the problem. The last poster in the thread, a guy named Tom [Pepper] Willett, found and linked to the Microsoft Support Page that detailed the problem and provided the (2-minute) fix.
To summarize quickly: The problem is an incompatability between the recent Windows patches (specifically, patch #KB908531) and Hewlett-Packard’s Share-to-Web software, which gets installed on your machine if you have HP PhotoSmart software, an HP DeskJet printer, an HP Scanner, some HP CD-DVD RWs, or an HP Camera. The Windows patch installed a program called VERCLSID.EXE, which “validates shell extensions before they are instantiated by the Windows Shell or Windows Explorer.” I have no idea what that means, but basically, it makes MSOffice freeze up when you try to navigate the folder tree.
The Microsoft page gives you an 8-step process to correct the problem, which involves adding a line to the Windows registry (they even put the line in a textbox so you can cut & paste it without having to re-type it yourself). Basically, what you’re doing is putting this HP software on a “white list,” so the VERCLSID.EXE program doesn’t trip over it. Problem solved – and I didn’t even have to reboot the machine.
Now, here’s the amazing part: the Windows update came down late Thursday, April 13th, or early Friday morning. The first post about the problem in the Google Groups thread was at 1:44AM on Friday morning. Within 48-hours, 12 people had weighed in, and the last person had posted the link to the Microsoft-authored solution (which was posted on April 15th – the site doesn’t specify the time).
All hail Metcalfe’s law: “The value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users.”
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Reykjavik Starbucks – now with WiFi!
Thursday, April 13th, 2006The latest survey of global broadband access ranks the US 12th in per capita broadband. Iceland took the prize with a whopping 26.7 broadband users per hundred.
Well, of course – what else is there to do in Iceland?!?
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
A New Sniglet
Thursday, April 13th, 2006Remember Sniglets? Words that should be in the dictionary but aren’t? Why did they ever go away?
Anyway, I need a new one: what should we call that feeling you get when you accidentally type your password in the UserID field, and it shows up as actual characters instead of asterisks? You know – that feeling that everyone can see it now, even though no one is looking at the screen but you?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Switch….back?!?
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006It’s hard not to laugh at this:
Apple Computer’s new software for installing Windows XP on an Intel Mac could leave the computer unable to boot back into OS X, users reported.
In installing Boot Camp, the hard drive is partitioned for OS X and XP. Installing the latter went without a hitch, but the machine would no longer boot back to the Mac operating system, according to users.
To be fair: they can get back by reformatting their hard drives and starting over. Also, this is a beta product, so we must expect such things. And, it should be said, the software is getting good reviews in lots cases – this is just a bug that some voluntary beta testers came across, and one that Apple is addressing right away.
Continuing on my thread from earlier posts, though, I’m more concerned about whether or not this dual boot machine is a “pure” XP machine and a “pure” OS X machine when it’s all working properly. If it’s native Windows within the hard drive partition, but not down to the hardware, it might start sputtering when it gets to things like corporate ESD (electronic software delivery) systems that push (Windows) software to desktops over the network.
If Apple’s goal is to enter the PC hardware market (a big assumption, but one I’ve been making all along), then a couple of problems at the outset could leave network administrators wary, and kill the whole deal. They need to put out some technical white papers on what they’ve done to make the geeks comfortable…
Categories: Tech Talk | 4 Comments »
DabbleDB – What a Cool Company…
Monday, April 10th, 2006Check this out: Jeff Porten blogged about a product called DabbleDB on his blog, linking to a video demo of the product.
I watched the video and commented on it, and less than 48 hours later, someone from the company responded to my commment with more information. This means the company has folks trolling the blogosphere looking for comments about their products, and then actively engaging potential customers with direct responses. That makes them not only a cool technology company, but one that absolutely gets how to do business in the hi-tech world.
Bravo, guys. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for you. And for others who are hearing about them here, definitely check out the video above…
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I Hope They Don’t Change Their Commercials…
Sunday, April 9th, 2006GoDaddy, of risque superbowl commercial fame, has moved its Web Server farm to Microsoft technology, seriously messing with the market share data. The only sign as to why they made the change comes from the standard, double-speak from their COO:
“Microsoft provides an efficient and scalable operating platform, while also providing the performance needed to handle our extraordinary growth.”
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sounds like code for “it works and its cheaper.” In any case, here’s an example where Microsoft is NOT the monopoly (or even the industry leader), competing in a well distributed market…
Categories: Tech Talk | 4 Comments »
More on WinMac
Thursday, April 6th, 2006I’ve got to hand it to those folks over at Apple – they’ve always got a trick up their sleeves. The common zeitgeist was that Apple was going to let the hacker community solve the “run Windows on a Mac” problem, then judge its popularity, then respond with support for the idea only if it seemed viable. Well, the hackers did their part, but less than three weeks later, Apple released a beta version of the supported solution: Boot Camp. Obviously, they had this cooking while the hackers were doing their thing. In any case, Boot Camp, which is in beta now, but will be built into the next version of OS X (Leopard), allows users to select between the Mac OS and Windows XP at boot time – no emulation required. So, users who want/need a Windows environment, but prefer the Apple hardware will now be satisfied with just one machine.
As I mentioned earlier (WARNING: Link contains long, screed-like comments war between me and Jeff Porten), this is has the potential to be a huge financial win for Apple. Not only have studies predicted the potential sale of an additional one million machines (22% increase in sales, 80% increase in market share), but these studies don’t even address the corporate market. If the architecture on these machines is pure (i.e,. the Windows environment is an exact duplicate of what you’d find on a Dell or Compaq machine), I believe Apple can expect to quickly capture some portion of the much larger, and more sustainable, corporate PC market. Wall Street seems to agree with me, sending Apple’s stock up roughly 16% in just two days, increasing the company’s market cap by more than $8 billion. Some analyst quotes:
“In short, we believe this news, more than any news in recent memory, provides a critical boost to Apple’s ability to gain share in the PC market” – JPMorgan Chase
“By doing this, Apple has made a tacit acknowledgement of what many have already said, which basically is: If you’re serious about home computing or small-enterprise computing, you need Windows. There’s no way around it. . . . Apple machines are excellently manufactured, and the performance is far superior. Now you can go in, look at those gorgeous Mac Minis and MacBook (Pros) and view them as a normal PC. You can run XP and never touch OS X, if you don’t want to.” – Forrester Research
Ironically, the only sourpuss in all of this is Apple itself, who has taken a tack that lies somewhere between what I was saying and what Jeff was saying (big surprise there, huh?). They’re positioning this as a way to “make the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch,” as opposed to a way for Windows users to buy & use higher quality hardware. They’re also clearly backing away from any association with Windows or its very public security concerns (perhaps to protect their brand identity, as Jeff suggested). Their website warns:
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.
Ultimately, I think the marketing will follow the market. If the majority of Boot Camp users are Mac users that use Windows sparingly (i.e., only when necessary), then we’ll see the “Switch” ads again. If, however, the majority are Windows users that like the improved graphics, bigger & nicer monitors, etc., and pop over to MacOS occasionally to try something new, then I think we’ll see “Apple is better than Dell or Compaq” ads.
In any case, we won’t see any of this for a while now (mass market appeal won’t happen until the Leopard release, and then it will take some time for corporate America to vette the platform and agree that it’s fully compatible with what they have today). Maybe when all the ’07 budgets come in???
Categories: Money Talk, Tech Talk | Comments Off on More on WinMac