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April 30, 2006
One Aussie Boy Scout vs Microsoft
It turns out that the testimony of Andrew Tridgell, the brilliant young Australian who gave us Samba, which allows Linux users to share Windows files and printers, may be the key to whether Microsoft will have to pay the European Commission that 497 million euro fine for abusing anti-trust laws. He might sound like a Boy Scout, but Tridge made some telling points. Describing how once a year, programmers from rival companies gather for a "plugfest," where they connect computers together to see how their programs interoperate - an invaluable service to the users of their software - he revealed a notable absentee from these events:
"We work around the clock for a week," he told a rapt courtroom. "We torture our machines in the pursuit of interoperability."Tridgell illustrated the way Microsoft's reticence stalls innovation by showing the court a paperback-sized storage server, which he said can be turned into a work-group server with the aid of the information that Microsoft doesn't want to share. Once it gives over the protocols, he explained, "Microsoft no longer has a stranglehold over the world's networks." That, essentially, is what this case will decide, what with the US judicial system proving to be completely inadequate against Microsoft's tactics: whether one company's profits should take precedence over the rights and interests of everybody else."'Can you do this test with Microsoft?" Judge Cooke asked.
"Yes, but they don't turn up," Mr. Tridgell said.
Later, Mr. Tridgell explained that for the last six years Microsoft has boycotted the event: "They used to come. It used to be held in Seattle, close to Microsoft's headquarters."
Posted by cw at 11:04 AM
April 28, 2006
Inside the Motorola Razr ... a real software mess
Just sent the latest Bleeding Edge column, with a little more information for subscribers on problems affecting the Motorola Razr phone on the 3 network ... and for that matter, other networks. We think we've finally sorted out all the delivery problems, but if you haven't got yours, please let us know.
Posted by cw at 06:47 PM
Amex: the card phishers prefer?
This looks pretty scary. American Express has warned US customers about the mysterious appearance on its secure Web site of a pop-up dialogue box inviting customers to disclose their Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, and date of birth ... you know, the sort of information that phishers would find very helpful indeed.
Amex describes it as a "hoax", which seems to be an understatement. They suggest it's a virus, and point customers to some not particularly helpful advice. If it is a virus, it's a particularly alarming one. But we haven't seen any reports that such a virus is on the loose, let alone any evidence that anti-virus definitions are picking it up. We'd suggest you take particular care on any financial sites.
Posted by cw at 03:31 PM | Comments (3)
Microsoft: tough times for leeches
The big question that arises from the fact that Microsoft missed analysts' expectations with its third quarter earnings report is just where did $US2.4 billion in extra expenses go? The cost of doing business at Redmond was up a staggering 49 per cent. The consensus in the investment community seems to be that Microsoft is preparing a major new initiative, although nobody can quite work out what.
There's disquiet in the camp, with suggestions that Microsoft has devalued the term "innovation", and that new software features simply don't qualify.
And MiniMicrosoft finds a certain irony in the fact that Steve Ballmer is boasting about setting some sort of benchmark in firing "underperforming" staff, given that the company doesn't seem to have lifted a finger to sack executives who've presided over a series of debacles ... most particularly, perhaps, Ballmer himself. Who knows. Maybe that $2.4 billion has been set aside as a termination payment. It would probably take that much to pay him off.
Some observers are suggesting that it's the beginning of the end for Microsoft, which, given the guarantee of substantial income from the new Office suite and Vista is absurd. For it to lose that revenue, there would have to be massive uptake of Linux and open source products. There are very good reasons why Linux etc should take off, given the substantial new investments - in both hardware and the OS - that Vista will demand. But somehow, we can't see that happening.
There seems little doubt , however, that when it comes to new product lines and business opportunities, Microsoft is floundering. It's always been a dud when it comes to genuine innovation, but in the past it's been able to buy the brilliance of other companies. The business model it pursues was pioneered, in fact, by the leech, and other parasites. Nowadays, companies like Google and Yahoo! - hell, even Rupert Murdoch - seem to be sucking up the new blood.
Worse, Microsoft seems incapable of delivering those essential, money-making major revisions in a reasonable time frame. In our view, Ballmer, and a lot of the top-level management should go. We don't expect that to happen.
Posted by cw at 03:00 PM
April 27, 2006
The semi-old "new" Internet Explorer
Look. You might not have noticed that those highly-paid brains at Microsoft Research Labs and all those developers have come up with much in the way of amazing benefits for users, but think of it this way: they certainly seem to have extended the meaning of the word "new". How else can you interpret the fact that the "new" beta version of Internet Explorer 7 looks, well, incredibly old. Even with all the improvements, IE 7 still doesn't quite match Firefox or Opera.
That's why we didn't bother posting about this momentous event yesterday. Instead we went looking for some tips. And some add-ons, that will allow it to do things that the other "old" browsers already do. Like, for instance, auto-fill forms. According to the official IE Blog, that site is brand new, and inviting submissions. (We thought, momentarily about suggesting they add a link for Firefox.)
And if you find a site that won't work properly with IE 7, you can spoof it into thinking it's dealing with IE 6 with this tool.
Posted by cw at 09:31 AM | Comments (3)
April 26, 2006
Bleeding Edge is about to move, and grow
Sorry about the relatively light posting, but we are preparing for a move to a new server with a lot more space and bandwidth - which will allow us finally to separate the forum from the blog, and prevent those desultory hijacks - and we're also finalising a bit of a re-design.
We'll have some tabs which we hope will make the whole thing more approachable, and we'll probably include a subscribers' only section. (Going to have to talk to Wilbert about that one, which we should have done ages ago, but as usual, we've been distracted.)
Let's know if you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see, and, of course, if you'd like to subscribe (so we can pay for all this), please feel free. Just drop us an email, and we'll send you the details.
Posted by cw at 06:36 PM | Comments (5)
April 24, 2006
A suggestion: customise Google
Here at Bleeding Edge we were playing around with the Google Suggest search tool this morning. It's a great example of AJAX functionality, and it helped us pick up a site we'd probably not have found.
By coincidence, we also happened on a new Firefox extension called CustomiseGoogle, which [surprise, surprise] allows you easily to enhance Google searches. It includes a Google Suggest option. And there are movies to show you how to get started.
Posted by cw at 11:20 AM | Comments (2)
April 23, 2006
Your [extremely] power-hungry PC
Here's a sobering thought. The average PC in Stand By mode consumes anything from five to 60 watts or more of electricity. In Britain, they've calculated that while a single PC is supposed to be "sleeping", it's actually consuming a considerable amount of energy.
We're having problems working out precisely how much energy, mind you. What do you make of the following statement: "If a million PC users switched to a more efficient power supply, it would save almost the equivalent of 250 million litres of gasoline a day." We're assuming that the phrase "a more efficient power supply" means, umm, one which doesn't actually use power when the thing is supposed to be off.
But it can't be right, can it? Wouldn't you expect those million PC users to be just a touch upset - not to mention completely broke - if collectively their computers were guzzling 250 million litres of gasoline a day? We expect they mean 250 million litres of gasoline a year. Or have our admittedly puny mathematical skills completely deserted us?
Although, possibly those devious little bastards have somehow worked out a way to sneak out of doors while your sleeping ... and they're supposed to be sleeping ... and siphon petrol out of your, and your neighbours' cars.
By the way. Just watched Roman Road on ABC TV. A lovely little show with two fine actors, Alan Davies and John Gordon Sinclair. Too bad they don't make shows like that in Australia. They probably don't have enough money left over after Big Brother etc.
Perhaps if a million Australian PC users got more efficient power supplies and sent their collective savings off to the television networks, we might get to watch something that wasn't tailored to the tastes of a voyeuristic schoolboy. Or alternatively, could we pull the plug on a million Big Brother watchers, and confiscate their petrol money?
Posted by cw at 10:15 PM | Comments (3)
April 21, 2006
Buying pens on the cheap
We were shocked today when we walked into a W.C. Penfold's store in Bourke Street to discover that the Uni-Ball Jetstream rollerball pen that we raved about below was on sale for ... $5.13. That's a pretty hefty mark-up, given that the RRP is just $4.30. Even the Carlton newsagent where we made our most recent purchase was cheaper, at $4.60.
So we did a bit of a search, and came up with a place at Ferntree Gully which sells cheap pens over the Internet. It has them for $3.39 (inc. tax). You get a 5 per cent discount if you buy 12, and local delivery costs $6.60. We've ordered 20. If you can find a cheaper source, let us know. We do SO resent being ripped off!
Posted by cw at 04:45 PM | Comments (7)
The new, improved Bleeding Edge subscription
Over the past couple of days we've been fiddling with an external mailing list manager to handle the Bleeding Edge subscriptions. It's an additional expense, but we hope it's going to simplify what's becoming an increasingly tedious and not altogether error-free process. If you're a subscriber, you should have received an introduction to the list, and the latest column on DVD burners.
We've also started adding more information to these despatches, so that subscribers get substantially more information than appears in the print version. There's some helpful information in this one on how to get the best possible MP3s from your audio CDs, and some additional stuff on PC magazines. We're thinking seriously of including a monthly summary of what's available in the most popular titles, so subscribers can decide whether it's worth buying a particular issue.
If you haven't yet subscribed, let us know, and we'll send you details. We're working on making it the best $25 investment you'll ever make in computing.
Posted by cw at 04:06 PM | Comments (3)
April 20, 2006
The best rollerball pen?
What with constantly taking notes and writing diary entries, Bleeding Edge is always on the look-out for the perfect pen. We've been through the expensive Cross/Sheaffer/Mont Blanc phase, and decided that they're really not worth the money. We've tried the Fisher Space Pen (not worth the money), and finally settled on throw-away roller balls. For quite a while we used the Artline series - largely because that's what the Financial Review offered in the stationery cabinet - but found them just a little scratchy.
When gel pens came out, we tried a couple, and although they were beautifully smooth - particularly when writing in a Moleskine diary - they tended to dry so slowly, that the ink often smeared.
A couple of weeks ago, while doing our usual prowl through the pen racks in a newsagents in Chapel St, we came across the Uni-Ball Jetstream. It comes in .7 and 1mm versions,. We bought the thicker one. We've since bought several more. It has our vote as the best pen on the market.
Uni-Ball have used a new solvent in developing the ink for Jetstream pens. Rather than using aromatic solvents which are employed in most ballpoint pens, the Jetstream ink provides what the manufacturers call "new rollerball ink". They say it provides superior "ink lubrication".
What we noticed is that there's much less friction at the ball tip, so the line flows beautifully across the paper.
And because it dries in roughly one second on most paper, it doesn't smear. That will make it particularly popular with left-handers. (We know about things like that because we've got a left-hander in the family.)
The other thing we like about the pen is that the barrel is rubberised, so that it feels very comfortable to grip. From memory they cost about $4.30. The only irritating thing about them is that they're refillable, but the local importers aren't bringing refills into Australia. They say the sales volume doesn't justify it.
Posted by cw at 11:05 PM | Comments (9)
April 19, 2006
Microsoft "fix" breaks PCs
Have you suddenly started having problems saving or opening Microsoft Office files? Has your PC suddenly started crashing, or throwing up weird dialog boxes? This might be among the helpful new features built into Microsoft's latest critical patch, which seems to have been somewhat more critical than anticipated.
According to eWeek, the "fix" has been causing problems with Office, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Google Toolbar and Kerio Personal Firewall. Some Windows users complained about problems accessing special folders like "My Documents" or "My Pictures" after installing the update.
The patch has also been causing difficulties with third-party applications from Siebel and Hewlett-Packard and causing system hangs, crashes, and the appearance of strange dialogue boxes.
Didn't Microsoft tell us that its leisurely approach to releasing these updates was to ensure quality?
Posted by cw at 02:46 PM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2006
On privacy and being Smith, Jones or Marieke
Don't take this personally, but if your name happens to be John Smith, or, let's see now, Joe Brown. Or any variety of Jones or Gray, Bleeding Edge isn't going to be able to do business with you in future. We've just read the Next cover story in The Age this morning - a fascinating exploration of online privacy issues, and were struck by the following piece of advice from private investigator Chris Cooper, to those for whom being a nonentity is nirvana:
Change your surname to something generic such as Smith or Gray. A lot of effort goes into determining which records apply to which person. Ten billion Google searches for John Smith may hold all the information you need - except you just have to go through and work out which relate to your John Smith!You can see the implications. If your name happens to be, umm, a touch generic, people are going to think that you've got something to hide. So while we know that Smith, Jones, Brown etc are perfectly respectable names with a noble heritage, it's pretty clear they've become an unacceptable liability in the digital age. We know that it's a slight imposition, switching from the name your parents gave you - and the oldies are probably going to be upset - but it's in your own best interests to adopt a more identifiable surname. Or possibly an unusual
Marieke Hardy explains in the story that she was "outed" for her left-wing blogging [WARNING: although Marieke has a sweet young face, her language would stop a bullock in its tracks] by a newspaper columnist - could it have been that horrid Andrew Bolt person? - despite the fact that she "didn't promote a connection between her online and real-world selves".
Marieke claims she "feared a network backlash when the connection between her online life and work life was made", and possibly, for a split second, she did, although the fact that she declared, when she was outed, "We're in The Bolt. We've Made It. I want to tongue-kiss you all. And I will, if you turn up to the Les Savy Fav gig at the Corner" sort of, makes you think that really, she didn't mind a bit. So go ahead. Be bold. Get a blog and call yourself Marieke Smith. And we'll trust you implicitly.
Posted by cw at 09:31 AM | Comments (3)
April 17, 2006
Away from the madding blog
What a lazy Easter. Bleeding Edge has been doing a bit of reading, a bit of cooking - a couple of dishes from Jamie's Italy, and Donna Hay's Off The Shelf - Cooking from the Pantry (which I bought four or five years ago and never looked at until recently) - watching the second series of Deadwood (around $37.50 at Big W), playing cribbage and taking the dog for a walk. One thing about Deadwood. Can there be a more fitting name for a character than Al Swearengen? He generates enough obscenities in an average episode to kill a bullock. All in all, it was so much more relaxing than battling Easter traffic.
It also gave us a chance to have a good look around the Bleeding Edge forum. There's some extraordinary stuff in there, posted by Stephen, and Anandasim, and GTO-Pontiac and Bazcaz, and Paul among others. Check out General Software Stuff, for instance, or Best Freeware, for instance, and you'll find some great software and other tips. And Stephen's unrelenting campaign against SMS spammers makes fascinating reading.
So we spent a part of Easter feeling grateful to all those people who make Bleeding Edge more than just a blog.
Posted by cw at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)
April 12, 2006
Podcasting can be oddcasting
You might never be on radio, but at least you can master the jargon. We got the link from Charles Arthur, of The Guardian, who's discovered that sitting in front of a microphone - even for a podcast - can be surprisingly demanding. And what with there being no sense of time, or for that matter place, and an enigmatic audience, he suggests that it's difficult to know how, and to whom to address oneself.
On the other hand, we've found the Radio National podcasts - which regard it all as a simple extension of radio - seem entirely appropriate to the new medium. And - the queue forms below to attack us once again for our resistance to the charms of G'Day World - some podcasts seem contrived, self-conscious and ... well ... fake. On the other hand, not having listened to it for quite a long time, maybe it's now as absorbing to us "poddies" as LNL. Somehow, we doubt it.
Posted by cw at 06:17 PM
April 11, 2006
Bulk buy your technology
Ever on the alert for ways of saving Bleeding Edge readers money - it seems only reasonable given that we spend so much time recommending you buy stuff - we've started to check out this site. Would you believe a 24-inch Dell 2405FPW monitor for $1020? An Aeron chair for $1000?
The way it works - purchasers join together to choose desirable products then make a bulk purchase - is an obvious [well, now that somebody else has thought of it, it's obvious] extension of consumer power made possible by the Internet. We've been doing the same thing with our single malt whisky purchases.
Anyone used them?
Posted by cw at 09:33 PM | Comments (1)
Getting value for your money
We'd love to know how much money the Bleeding Edge column has saved for its readers over the years. We suspect it's in the millions. Take this morning's email from a Green Guide reader who went shopping for a BenQ FP202W monitor after our recent column:
I priced the BenQ monitor at Harvey Norman at QV in Melbourne during the week. The sales rep was very knowledgeable -”You want the model referred to in Bleeding Edge!” However they want ~ $950 for it. I think your column referred to a price quite a bit lower than this – care to inform me?We've had a couple of e-mails from readers who were able to use that column to get wide-screen computing on a budget and are loving it. And yes, we passed on the details to the reader, as a result of which he'll be saving a few hundred dollars. From just one column.
We spend untold hours making sure that the column isn't just a review of a piece of software or hardware, or an opinion dashed off in an hour or two, which is what you get from most technology columns. Bleeding Edge is full of useful tips and hints and resources that will save readers time, money and frustration. We spend untold more hours - and hard cash - providing this blog and the forum for readers. We could make a lot more money if we just dashed Bleeding Edge off in half a day, didn't respond to e-mails, didn't provide the blog and the forum, and took on some well-paying freelance work. Instead, we prefer to keep the faith with our readers.
We're asking readers now, to keep the faith with Bleeding Edge. For just $25 a year, you can have the column e-mailed to you. You can get bonus columns and more information. You can even ask us where we found those prices that we come up with, from reliable vendors.
Why not email us at subscriptions@bleedingedge.com.au for the details?
Posted by cw at 10:01 AM | Comments (1)
Where the buck never stops
Oh dear. Now that Trade Minister Vaile has bravely pointed out where the AWB buck stops [incomplete story] - why of course, it stops with the Foreign Affairs Minister and all those public servants who unaccountably failed to show him all those cables - and what with the Foreign Affairs Minister today, no doubt, also bravely acknowledging where responsibility lies ... with all those public servants who unaccountably failed to show HIM all those cables ... and what with the Prime Minister declaring "I did not know. My ministers did not know. And on the information that I have been provided and the advice that I have received from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I do not believe that the department knew that AWB was involved in the payment of bribes" - apparently nobody knew - why of course there's going to have to be massive sackings of public servants. That's what we like about the Westminister system of government as practised in Australia. It ensures responsible government.
Posted by cw at 08:58 AM | Comments (3)
April 10, 2006
Fraudband: our looming broadband disaster
Bleeding Edge has been trying for years to draw attention to the fact that Australian consumers and businesses are being forced to pay too much for inadequate "broadband" services. Time and again, here, and in The Age and on ABC Radio, we've written and talked about the tremendous cost to Australia's international competitiveness of the broadband debacle. We've not been alone in this.
The Government's own Broadband Advisory Group reported three years ago that "next generation broadband" [the sort of broadband other countries enjoy, as opposed to the pretend broadband available here] could produce economic benefits of between $12 billion to $30 billion per year. That seemed to echo a claim by IT analysts Dataquest, the previous year, that "true broadband [more than 10Mbps] could incrementally increase US GDP by up to $US500 billion per year for the next 10 years. Britain's Broadband Stakeholder Group estimated broadband would increase that nation's GDP by GBP22 billion by 2015.
The following year, a report by the local branch of the international accoounting firm KPMG pointed out the likely consequences of failing to keep pace with more enlightened countries: "... Australia could be in serious trouble. Lower productivity, a massive imbalance of intellectual property trade with the rest of the world, loss of digital content creators (talent emigration), loss of remote higher education to foreign institutions; the list could be endless.Such a scenario would have very real negative consequences for the economy."
Its report, "Australia's Broadband Future - Leaders or Laggards?", was yet another call to action for the Howard Government.
"Australia is coming from a position that is way back in the pack when viewed globally. Furthermore, many of the nations ahead of it, certainly the leaders, have prioritised broadband and set specific targets against multiple criteria that they measure and report on frequently. They are driving so hard that Australia is barely keeping pace even now." It informed the Government [as if it already didn't know] that "the aim must be to become as big a net exporter of [digital] entertainment and information as we can".
It speculated on a novel solution: using some of the money Australians pay for the provision of infrastructure to actually provide infrastructure, rather than building surpluses for the government to spend on getting itself re-elected: "Under almost any scenario that seeks to accelerate the national, next-generation infrastructure, the government may be required to provide some of the investment at levels significantly ahead of those made to date."
The Australian Telecommunications Users Group pointed out around the same time that the entry-level retail broadband plan in Canada was 10 per cent cheaper than that available in Australia, yet it offered six times the download speed, and 30 times the free monthly download capacity of the local product.
Two years later, on Saturday, the Financial Review [PAY WALL ] runs a front page story calling our so-called broadband offerings "fraudband", and reports that "connections costng $30 a month in Australia "are at least one quarter the speed of similar offerings in countries like Canada and the UK". It points out that this is hurting our economic well-being.
It'sa good story, but it isn't a new story. And perhaps a better story would be why it isn't a new story ... to analyse why, after years of complaints and warnings, the Howard Government's broadband policy is still little more than a collection of meaningless slogans. Why the Opposition has done such a dismal job at applying pressure through effective alternative policies. And why Australian commerce and industry hasn't been screaming for action. The silence has been positively eery.
There's a better story, too, in detailing the increasing number of cases where Australian companies are already being forced to move operations overseas, because Telstra still insists on hitting them with crippling volume-based charges, which makes it impossible for them to compete internationally.
It is now too late for Australia to avoid some of the consequences of this massive failure in telecommunications policy. Unless there is immediate action, we will cop the full disaster. Meanwhile, we've got an American at the head of the chief instrument of our broadband failure, who seems intent on miring the nation in this costly, anti-competitive mess. And the Government is still dissembling.
Ironically, it seems though, that the American Government may be far more effective at stopping the Telstra rip-off than our own Government. They've just slammed the anti-competitive implications of the plan to boost Tlestra profits and stuff the competition, by imposing a nationally-averaged ULL fee.
Posted by cw at 09:43 AM | Comments (5)
April 07, 2006
Sex. Sells. See.
For a while there we thought we'd have to turn Bleeding Edge into a beauty blog in order to achieve Wealth Beyond Our Wildest Dreams, but we've been forced to change our minds. Has anyone counted the number of comments on Sam and the City? There's thousands of them. Literally thousands of highly talkative people.
What people really want to share with the blogger these days, is umm, their views on infidelity, how many people they've slept with (or whether one should count), "hooking up", why women cheat, and basically everything that custom once dictated should be shared only with intimate friends. If anyone.
Everyone gets to be an advice columnist to the lovelorn, or share their doubts, uncertainties and innermost secrets. Does this mean they no longer need friends to talk about this stuff with? Or that they get a wider range of responses? That they're more honest and open? Or just boastful? Does it signify a better adjusted society? Or a more prurient one?
We'd welcome your opinion on this, because, we're, well, amazed. And stumped as to what it might mean.
Posted by cw at 10:43 PM | Comments (5)
Got the latest info on wi-fi interference?
If you're a paid subscriber, you should have received the latest column on detecting wi-fi networks, and steps to take to avoid wi-fi interference. This one has some more information than we could fit in the print version, including a cheaper alternative. If you're a subscriber, and you haven't received it, send us an email.
If you're not a subscriber, ask us for the details so you too can share the benefits of having a searchable database of an entire year's columns, plus other benefits like bonus columns and additional information.
Posted by cw at 08:06 AM | Comments (2)
April 06, 2006
Australia: "broadband" tragic
Yet more shameful evidence of the absolute disgrace that is Australia's communications policy - you know, the one that was almost exclusively centred around flogging Telstra off for as much as possible? At yesterday's Netherlands-Australia Broadband Roundtable organised in Sydney by communications analyst Paul Budde, we discovered that Australia, with around 10 per cent of the population connected to broadband Internet, sadly trails the Dutch, at 22 per cent.
That, however, isn't the half of it. The Dutch don't count anything less than 1mbps as broadband. (Neither does anyone else, by the way.) Only Australia - make that Telstra - dares to claim that those pathetic 256kb services which probably represent the majority of Australian connections are "broadband".
And while Telstra tries to hold the Government to ransom over its yes-we-will/no-we-won't fibre-to-the-node network plan, the city of Amsterdam is already at work on delivering FTTN to every household. The first 40,000 houses are being connected right now, at a cost of 60 million Euros - 10 per cent funded by the city council, and the remainder by industry.
Why are we putting up with this? Why isn't Australian industry jumping up and down, emitting specks of foam? Why are we rudderless and pathetically adrift, while the Howard Government and Telstra hold the entire country to ransom, and fritter away its future? Are we alone in thinking that this is a major public scandal?
Posted by cw at 09:47 AM | Comments (6)
April 05, 2006
It's official: Apple does Windows
Apple has released the public beta of Boot Camp - software which allows users to run Windows on the new Intel-powered Macs.
All you'lll need is 10GB of free hard disk space and a blank CD. Oh. And a bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional. Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows - you don't have to go looking for them on the Internet - and you'll be able to choose whether you start up in OS X or Windows simply by holding down the Option key at start-up.
A final version will ship with the next version of OS X - Leopard. Apple shares gained $3.68, or 6 percent, to $64.85 in premarket trading. Microsoft shares climbed 22 cents to $27.86.
This could get interesting.
Posted by cw at 11:57 PM | Comments (2)
Some common sense about games and violence
We direct the attention of our zealous censors - those bright sparks who established a new precedent by banning a graffiti game on the grounds that it might infect our young Aussies with an uncontrollable urge to grab spray cans and cover every available space with their, umm, art - to a judgment by US District Court Judge George Caram Steeh in the matter of the Entertainment Software Association (et al.) vs the State of Michigan over a law banning the sale of video games to minors.
Judge Steeh observed, among other things, that in the absence of evidence to support claims that video games are somehow worse than other media, because they allow players to control the amount of violence, rather than passively watch it, "it could just as easily be said that the interactive element in video games acts as an outlet for minors to vent their violent or aggressive behavior, thereby diminishing the chance they would actually perform such acts in reality."
He also described the position of medical associations that video games have a negative impact on minors as lacking any scientific justification, and merely representing the policy or political views of their governing bodies.
It's fascinating to put that judgment against the wisdom of our censors, who, on the convenor's casting vote, decided that Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, was in fact a training simulator for street artists, and a free ad for Montana Gold paint. We'd love to know which of the other members voted for the ban. We note, for instance, that Anthony Hetrih, the 35-year-old father of a young child, has "a background in marketing and communications, holds a Bachelor of Education, majoring in design and has a demonstrated and long-standing professional interest in the effects of computer games on children". He "is currently researching for a guidebook for parents on the subject of computer games". We rang him and asked his view on the US decision. He wouldn't comment. We asked him to contrast it to the local decision. He wouldn't comment. We asked him what his general view was on violence in computer games. He wouldn't comment. He wouldn't comment on anything because he said it might affect his ability to sit in on any deliberations on computer games. But he's ringing the convenor, just in case there is something he can say. Given that he's claimed to be an expert on the topic - on the strength of reviewing a lot of games for magazines - we'd like to know more about his expertise.
Posted by cw at 10:45 AM | Comments (2)
The bad publicity growth plan
We can't help wondering if the analysts might have overlooked an interesting angle on new Internet usage figures that indicate massive traffic growth at social networking, blogging, and local information sites. The big winners seem to be blogger.com, Wikipedia, MySpace and Citysearch. Rupert Murdoch is no doubt grinning from ear to ear, given that he paid what now looks like a bargain price for MySpace.
What we found fascinating was the fact that MySpace's rapid growth seems to have been influenced by the fact that it "made headlines when some men were arrested and charged with assaulting girls they had identified on the site". And at Wikipedia "traffic soared 275 percent last year following widespread media play over the posting of fake biographical material and similar controversies regarding the site's accuracy". If anything, Brendan Behan's observation that there's no such thing as bad publicity may apply even more powerfully than it used to.
Posted by cw at 08:50 AM
The multi-screen wealth plan
Uh-oh. We're already well behind on the Bleeding Edge plan for achieving, you know, Wealth Beyond Our Wildest Dreams (WBOWD), and now it looks like we're never going to catch up if we don't have three screens on our desktop. That's the latest secret Bill Gates has divulged to one of those business magazines whose editors keep churning out these interviews that show you how to be a billionaire in 1000 words or less. Obviously Bill's been reading the company's research on multi-screen productivity gains.
We wonder what he's using. The Matrox TripleHead2Go? On the other hand, is Steve Jobs more productive using one of Apple's 30-inch Cinema Displays? Apple's white paper suggests that he is. Bill could even afford to have three of them.
Posted by cw at 08:05 AM | Comments (2)
April 04, 2006
Trusting Bill Gates
We once wrote an editorial in the Financial Review taking the Government to task for inviting Bill Gates to address Cabinet (rather than instituting anti-trust proceedings against his company), suggesting that Gates had nothing whatsoever to teach us about anything but sharp practices, but our low opinion of his, and Microsoft's ethics is positively flattering, compared to Bob Cringely's latest column.
Cringely suggests that Bill Gates even screwed his best friend and co-founder, Paul Allen, as a result of which Allen has taken extraordinary steps to protect himself from further Gates' bastardry. He suggests a few Microsoft executives are secretly ashamed of the company's conduct. Those we've met seem pretty good at hiding it. As we've pointed out elsewhere, they've mistaken the atmosphere for oxygen.
Posted by cw at 09:11 PM
Blogging beauty
We realise we've been terribly lax in not helping you attend to your cosmetic needs, but it seems there's an awful lot of beauty blogs, and some of them are making real money. So, maybe, we should forget about all this technology stuff and start writing about umm, nude lipstick.
Posted by cw at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)
April 03, 2006
Blogging the law
WITHIN the next 12 months, every academic in an Australian law school should be blogging on a regular basis, or seriously considering their future in academia.La Trobe Law School's James McConvill suggests in The Age that blogging could tip the world of academic publishing on its head, given that it allows more readable, as opposed to turgid articles to appear immediately, rather than several months later, and to attract an audience of thousands, rather than, say, three.
"So government funding is being pumped into a system that is based on an interpretive community of academics competing for the article with the largest number of footnotes and most sophisticated use of prose," he observes, and asks, "Why not reallocate that funding towards law academics reaching out to the world through effective blogging? Blogs can be easily found through a simple Google search (unlike many Australian law reviews, which are still only available in hard copy via the library, and American law reviews, many of which are accessible only via Westlaw or Lexis), making them a handy source of research for students, practitioners and other academics.
"Moreover, the succinct and contemporary nature of blog posts help to make the law understandable and accessible - promoting the fundamental principle of the rule of law." Hmmn. That can't be bad, can it? As we observed over at Razor, there's a couple of good Australian legal blogs, but the Americans are well ahead of us.
Posted by cw at 12:17 PM | Comments (3)
Notes on computer-induced marital disharmony
The latest research from the Bleeding Edge Computer-Induced Hostility Research Centre reveals that as much as 25 per cent of marital discord arises from the fact that in all but a few relationships, one party involuntarily adopts the role of computer support person (a position we have dubbed "Technology Slave"), and the other slips naturally into the position of aggrieved user.
The qualifications for the latter, important post - which we have dubbed Supreme Commander Technology (SCT) - are that one should have extremely high expectations of computer hardware, software and communications technology, and absolutely no understanding of how it works.
This allows the SCT to expect immediate fulfilment of any demand made on Slave, free of any knowledge of consequent hardship and any expectation of appreciation for any work performed.
Indeed, the job description for any SCT requires the ability to regard all sacrifices made by those in the position of Slave, as the consequence of their incompetence and neglect in the performance of their central duty ... which is that SCTs should never, under any circumstances, experience any difficulties with technology.
Furthermore, the SCT must believe, with unshakeable certainty, that any malfunctions, delays and disruptions in service are directly attributable to the Slave's malevolent partnership with technology. Under the contract between the SCT and his or her Slave, any expenditure on technology on the part of Slave must be interpreted as a wasteful indulgence, and that any subsequent problem should be directly attributed to any new installations and/or updates.
Any observations from SCTs and Slaves on the topic, may be included in the White Paper we are preparing for the next meeting of the Technology Slaves Association, after we recover from the latest prolonged session under the desk. This familiar position was pressed on us this morning, before breakfast, when our resident SCT decided - completely without notice - that a piece of software had to be made available in another room this morning, despite the fact that (a) there was no PC in that room, (b) the necessary software was at the Bleeding Edge Cave, several kilometres across the city and (c) we have an urgent writing deadline to meet.
The incident turned into a complete - and completely predictable - rout for the technology slave when we managed to locate a PC and get it set up and networked within 15 minutes, but unfortunately forgot that unlike the USB mouse we managed to track down, the keyboard used a PS/2 plug. When we muttered something like "Can't get the bloody keyboard to work," the SCT - whose knowlege of the term "hot swappable" is precisely zero - offered her skills as a problem solver, by turning the advice we have so freely offered her in the past back on us: "Why don't you re-boot? That might fix it?"
We knew, dammit, the minute she opened her mouth, precisely what she was going to say, and precisely what the effect would be. We now have an SCT who is absolutely certain that when it comes to technology, she definitely knows what's best. Sore: Supreme Commander Technology 1 - Slave 0.
Posted by cw at 08:08 AM | Comments (3)