.Mac must read

the Tao of Mac is an excellent blog. And has another excellent post up that is an absolute must read for anybody concerned about .Mac.

I will not ruin it by saying anymore.

Read it here.

A bad bad idea.

C|Net is reporting that Ryanair will allow mobile communications its planes soon. Using a satellite uplink mobile phones can be used, via and antenna in the cabin ceiling, allowing voice and data transmissions, for a fee.

There are two things I have to say. First thank God we are moving out of the dark ages on planes. And second that fee better be high for voice calls, because the last thing I want is to listen to so idiot blab on and on for hours, thinking all the while that they are a big shot for talking on their phone on the plane.

I don’t think my Bose headphones (that are noise canceling mind you) and my iPod can even drown out that idiot. Now I would take the trade off however of not allowing babies on the flights and instead being able to use your cell phone, that may be worth it.

.Mac blog, what a joke.

Ok so many .Mac users like myself has seen the recent post on the .Mac blog which basically asks for suggestions about what they should blog about. I am going to put aside the fact that this is dumb of them to do. And instead get to the bigger issue.

Perhaps instead of asking what I want them to tell me about .Mac they should kill that damn blog and get in gear with improving .Mac, that is what myself and many other subscribers are waiting for. I stopped holding my breath a long time ago, but for the love of God Apple please upgrade your services. You are only competing and staying alive and keeping me as a user because of how well you are integrated into OS X. This is a cheap tactic that I would expect of Microsoft, but from you Apple? No say it’s not so.

Please Steve, please give me a reason to say something good about .Mac.

Instead I am forced to say:

08/23/2006
Email was intermittently unavailable to a small percentage of members for 12 hours.

Calling Email Out!

I love Hawk Wings and through it I fond a link to an excellent post about email from Giles Turnbull over at Macdevcenter.com. In it he talks about POP, IMAP, and Gmail as forms of email and what needs to be done about email and the future of it. While Giles knocks Apple’s Mail program for its lack of speed with IMAP (he is right, but I’m not dumping it).

One thing that he brings up is how much POP sucks (it does) and how much better IMAP is (it is), and then he talks about gmail (I could really care less about that until they offer IMAP access). One point that I want to push forward about the lack of growth with email protocols is the absolute need for IMAP. IMAP is great and if you have no accounts that allow this get a Fastmail account.

The Mobile Internet, what of it?

I was reading C|Net’s piece about the Mobile Internet this morning, and it got me thinking. I want to warn you this is going to be a longer post, I am going to dissect what C|Net talks about in their article.

I am going to skip over their first part about how close we are to having a mobile internet because it doesn’t depend on what proponent you ask, there is no such thing as the mobile web, only limited mobile designed pages. That’s it, no room for argument there.

“I think what people really want is to be able to access the same sites they access on their PCs, but from their phones,” said Matt Hatton, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group based in the United Kingdom. “Once we can get the experience to look and feel more like the traditional Internet, more people will be willing to spend the money to pay for the services.”

First, isn’t that a deep thought there? Ok absolutely people want to access this stuff from their phones and they want the same look and feel. Duh.

FYI: HotSpot security

For those of you who use public hotspots: READ THIS

Gadget Etiquette a critique

Over at Gadgets page there has been a post by Laura Moncur about gadget etiquette in the form of six steps. I agree with some, but not all.

1. Only have cell phone conversations in private.

Ok so she does stop and say that if you don’t go to a private area then lower your voice. But really in private? No I disagree. I do think that it should be that you need to talk quietly and be courteous when you are around others. She does bring up and excellent point about making sure you don’t talk about sensitive information in public places, because you never know who is around.

2. When you’re with someone, don’t check your phone for voice mail, IM messages or email.

Hmmm ok yeah, I agree with this one, especially since your phone will vibrate if it needs you.

3. Even if the meeting is making your brain explode from boredom, don’t resort to your gadget.

I agree and disagree depending on what the corporate culture of your company is. In some instances it is acceptable to do this, if for instance it is the norm for your company to do such things that there is nothing wrong with this. I know of companies that will actually tell you if you need to put your phones and laptops away for a part of the meeting, and you can use it for the rest.

Symantec vs. Microsoft

So why sue a company that your company relies on? That is the question when it comes to the Symantec / Microsoft battle. Symantec acquired Veritas, and then promptly sued Microsoft for patent infringement in Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and the upcoming server edition. But yet Symantec products rely on Windows to sell their software and even more so they rely on new versions of Windows to sell even more software.

So why are they suing them? Well it is quite simple, Microsoft is over stepping its bounds by entering into Symantec’s market of security software. Symantec and the rest of the educated world knows that MS’s entrance into security software is bad for competition, they will integrate it to death into the core OS functions, to the point where it is down right annoying if you choose another company other than MS.

Why Linux will not succeed

Hold on, before I get into this I need to explain one thing I have a very limited understanding of Linux and what I am about to see is based on screen shots and other various information that I have seen. But given all that there is one major reason that people will not use Linux, and it is something that Microsoft, and Apple (maybe even Sun) understands.

That is design. That simple the look of the GUI for most linux systems is very outdated, and reeks of Windows 98. It is not just Apple that understands the importance of how your OS looks, Microsoft does as well (it pains me to say that). While you may be thinking Mac OS X is to minimal, and Windows XP / Vista is to colorful and cluttered.

Quick thought on Journalism

I just have something that has been bouncing around my head this morning, that is the phrase: “A representative was not immediately available for comment.”

What an annoying thing that is, I mean it is incredible polite and yet at the same time lazy. It could mean so many things.

For instance it could mean:

• The company did not care enough to comment.
• I have no f’ing clue who to contact and how to contact them.
• I am not well known enough to warrant a call back.
• I needed to get this out so I didn’t even bother.
• No one cares about this so I don’t need any body to comment.

And so on.

Very frustrating, just tell the truth, don’t beat around the bush with phrases like this.

I hate it when journalists do that, but alas a journalist was not immediately available for comment.