Windows Vista "out of tune"
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: "The 'Wow' Starts Now," and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple's Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there's no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out.
Vista is a fading theme park with a few new rides, lots of patched-up old ones and bored kids in desperate need of adult supervision running things. If I can find plenty of problems in a matter of hours, why can't Microsoft? Most likely answer: It did--and it doesn't care.
Example: If malware somehow gets into your machine, Windows Firewall will not stop it from making outbound Internet connections to do its evil deeds. If you turn off that firewall in favor of a better one, the Windows Firewall control panel will admonish: "Your computer is not protected; turn on Windows Firewall." But the Windows Security Center will correctly tell you that a firewall is on and that you shouldn't run two at a time. Call it convistancy.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows, Vista, Malware, Apple
A DRM-Free World For Online Music
via the Apple website addressing some “rubs” against Apple for having a
digital rights management (DRM) that restricts iTunes music downloads
to be played on only iPods.
In the letter Jobs describes how the DRM came to be through
restrictions from the larger music companies who were concerned about
users pirating music through the iTunes website. The DRM was made to
protect downloaded music from being copied freely across the internet
and in turn gain the approval of the music companies which would then
allow Apple to sell their music online.
Jobs also points out that Apple is not the only company with a DRM
that restricts downloaded music to a device. “Music purchased from
Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased
from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music
purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is
the current state of affairs in the industry…”. He states that the
agreement Apple was able to make is still unmatched by most digital
music services which allows the music to play on an unlimited number of
iPods and up to 5 computers....
Apple's Not the Bad Guy
Friday, February 9, 2007
If the major record labels were as concerned about nurturing consumers of legal downloads as they are with preventing illegal downloads, maybe they wouldn't be in the financial downward spiral they're in right now.
Every chance they get, the labels are trying to make it less appealing to purchase legal downloads. Steve Jobs, loving his gig as the most powerful person is the music business, re-ignited his cat fight with the four major record labels this week by posting an essay on the Apple web site titled "Thoughts on Music." In it, he responds to repeated calls from Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony BMG that Apple makes songs purchased through iTunes available to be played on mp3 players other than the iPod.
His response is that the major labels should abandon the required DRM (Digital Rights Management) software...
