Archive for December, 2007
Firefox is Un-Mac
I know that Mozilla put out the call to Mac users asking them why they felt Firefox wasn’t a good Mac citizen. I’m sure they got their fill of complaints. But as is the case with many developers when it comes to design, as hard as they try they just can’t see the difference between their version and a professionally designed version. For instance, check out the photo of the Proto Theme for Firefox Beta 2. To me, it’s like a polished turd. It looks close to the Safari design but details (which aren’t the Proto developers fault but rather the Firefox implementation) are decidedly un-Mac. For example, why on Earth are Firefox tabs so damn wide? They’re that wide across the board, not just on Mac. And what’s with the site icon on the tab? Not only do most of these icons suck but if they happen to have a white background or other poorly-chosen design elements, you’re stuck having to look at it on your tab. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I suppose but Firefox is just too clunky looking for me to use day-to-day.
Mac Malware Threat Increase is Like Vaporware
I am not naive enough to believe that my Macs can’t be hacked. But I do believe that the underlying UNIX base to Mac OS X makes it inherently more secure than Windows. I say inherently because the security is better at the core, from the start. You can make Windows secure but when it ships to you it’s as wide open as Kansas. I’m not putting any kind of call out to hackers to prove me wrong, I already stated that I know you can probably find a way into my Mac and you might even find a way to get root access and delete some all-important files. But you’d really have to try, you need to have expertise, there are no “script-kiddie” equivalents for the Mac.
I read an article on TUAW about NPR’s report on the increasing threats to the Mac now that it is gaining market share. That got me thinking. How many times have I heard people make this very statement? Not only have I heard it often, I’ve been hearing about it for years. So I started digging and I found this (February 27, 2006), and this (May 2006), and this (December 6, 2007), and this (Google Results).
My Mac doesn’t have any of the Norton utilities for destroying your Mac nor do I own any other anti-virus or internet-security software. I never have and I’ve been using Macs online for the last 12 years or so. Not once have I ever gotten a trojan horse, virus, spyware application or any other form of malware. But don’t get me wrong, I know that there are programs out there with bad intentions that are specifically designed for the Mac. My point with this is that everyone keeps saying that Macs are increasingly targeted by hackers because their market-share is increasing. But I have yet to see this happen.
I’m beginning to think it’s just a bunch of bull.
Steve Ballmer Knows
Read this: iPhone Leads All Windows Mobile Combined
Then watch this:
I can’t help but grin.
When Bigger Isn’t Better
Most people I talk to would like to see Blu-ray win the format war because it has a 20GB advantage over HD DVD. I am definitely not in that camp. I would rather see Blu-ray crash and burn due to the evil, anti-consumer executives who are making sure that if they are victorious, you will no longer own your content but will be a slave to the studio that licensed you that content for playback on a set device.
However, due to the rising sales of the PS3 and the rumors that Warner Brothers might go Blu-ray only, I was beginning to believe that Blu-ray was getting the upper-hand.
Which is why Google Zeitgeist 2007 made me feel a little better.
Kick Facebook
Beacon is evil. Plain and simple. There’s no way to sugar-coat this. If you haven’t deactivated your account or, better yet, demanded your account be permanently deleted from Facebook, you’re only feeding the fire.
But Facebook is Fun!
I know you like you some Facebook time. I know you like seeing all of your friends and what stupid things they’re getting into but you have to understand that the only way Facebook and their network of advertisers are going to learn that there’s advertising and then there’s just creepy is if you say it with your vote (or membership in this case, in other cases it’s dollars). You must abandon them for them to see that they’ve gone too far. Even if you’re of a younger generation that accepts advertising as a part of your life, you have to see that this is a major turning point. Have you ever seen Minority Report? Where the ads scan your retina, immediately finding out who you are and what products you’ve purchased so that they can change ads midstream and advertise to just you? That’s what this is. This is the seed that grows into that. If that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, you’ve got problems.
Don’t Take My Word For It
Greg Reinacker , Gigaom, Download Squad, Idea Shower, Silicon Alley Insider, and C|Net feel the same way.
You must leave Facebook.