Half Byte

When Vista released, there was an almost immediate anti-Vista backlash among most of the tech press.  I called out CNet for it’s almost relentless barrage of anti-Vista postings and stories that were purported to be ‘news.’  It was not just CNet, though.  The most vocal anti-Vista site was, with out a doubt, PC World and all of its sister sites.  One writer, in particular, seemed to have a bone to pick with Microsoft and he used his bully-pulpit to spew his anti-Microsoft rants. 

Funny thing happened with Windows 7, however.  Just about everyone seems to like it.  Even PC World has a difficult time putting out anti-7 posts.  But, they do.  Especially any of the drek written by the aforementioned author, who will remain nameless here.  So…

What would you call a statement like “Windows 7 sales brisk?  Can’t give it away?” What would you say if I said that because I could not sell a copy of Windows 7 that I purchased for $50 (US) for $80 and no one wanted to buy it at that price and then I made the blanket statement that no one wants Windows 7?  Why, because I couldn’t sell it for that price, I could not ‘give it away’ because, you know, that’s such a deal.  Then, to my shock, I could sell it for what I paid.  Wow.  Windows 7 sales just stink.  No one wants it.  See, I can say that because I couldn’t make thirty bucks on it.  Sounds preposterous, doesn’t it?  Well, PC World didn’t think so and re-posted this ‘news’ from CIO.

Yep, some wannabe writer (no, not the one I mentioned above, for once)  for CIO actually posted this.  He bought the upgrade when it was offered for $50.  Then, while attending a Microsoft event, he got a free, autographed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.  Naturally, he installed that one on his computer and then tried to sell his upgrade to someone in his office.  That’s right.  His office.  He figured he would sell it in ‘minutes’.  Instead, he got one response from someone who wanted to put it on their Mac.  They offered sixty bucks.  He declined.  After no one else wanted it, he decided to sell it for fifty bucks, what he paid.  Shockingly, there was one taker.  So, from this one experience-and ignoring the real sales figures-this person concluded that no one wants Windows 7.  All of the real analysts MUST be wrong.  His conclusion, after all, is based in fact.  The fact that most people he works with use Macs and those who don’t already had Windows 7 or were not going to upgrade what they do have.

Color me convinced.  Windows 7 is a failure.  Microsoft needs to just concede its market to Apple, since PC World’s sister sites and magazines are mostly Apple related anyway.

Well, after taking this all to heart, I’m going out a limb here and will state the oh-so obvious:  Mac OS X is not worth anything.  See, now follow MY reasoning:  I work with two people who have Macintosh computers.  Neither one of them have offered to give or sell me one.  Thus, I can conclude that they aren’t worth selling or even giving them away.  And, since I know only two people at work who have them, I must conclude that they are just awful products since no one else has them.  Sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it?  Yeah, I thought so too.

Google Chrome OS.  Two words and two letters that add up to…nothing.  Google recently held a press conference, a dog and pony show, to show off what they have done, so far, with their new ‘operating system.’  If what they showed off is anywhere close to what they intend to release next year, then the words ‘operating system’ become meaningless.  What Google is doing is, essentially, a minimalist Linux with the Chrome browser grafted on as the UI.  Given the devices that this thing is being targeted, it really ceases to become an operating system and more of a terminal application.  Or, in other words, a browser device.  Less a computer and more a dumb terminal, akin to the old ADM-3A terminals from Lear-Siegler back in the late 1970’s and earl 1980’s.

To be fair, the virtual images floating around the ‘net are NOT from Google and were compiled from the source code that Google released after it’s press conference.  The image I am using is from the GDGT website. It barely qualifies as an alpha release, so much of what I am about to discuss could very well change.

First, the good stuff.

Since Chrome OS is, essentially, the Chrome browser, you pretty much already know how to use the ‘OS’ if you have used the Chrome browser.  The user interface is pretty much the same.  And since it is JUST a browser, there’s little in the way of setup.  Also, you have very little control over the look and feel.  This makes it really simple to use, so simple, in fact, that grandma and grandpa could get email and view those photos and videos of little Johnny and Sue without having to call the family tech support.  Your data is stored in the cloud, so backup is not needed.  Since it is not Windows (or Mac OS X) and lacks the ‘smarts’ of a real operating system, it is pretty much immune to viruses and, thus, anti-virus is not necessary.  All applications are web based, so there isn’t anything to install.  Sounds ideal, huh?

Now, the bad stuff.

It is just a browser, has little local storage, is designed for solid state drives ONLY, does not support local applications (but, supposedly, will have an ‘offline’ mode) and lacks any user customization (unless you know the secret key combinations to access a Linux terminal, but, then, there goes the whole simplicity argument.)  Keep in mind, this ‘release’ is barely an alpha release so much of this MIGHT change, but it probably won’t.  Google has stated that they intend this to be a connected device, i.e. always connected to the Internet. 

The one thing that people seem to gloss over are the internet provider caps.  As with streaming video, these caps could be reached pretty quickly, depending on how much you use your Chrome OS device.  With caps as low as 5 gb, one could hit them pretty quickly.  A few large documents, spreadsheets, a couple of movies, photo uploads and viewings and, tada…you’ve hit your limit.  Now what?  Granted, casual users probably have nothing to worry about and, I suspect, are going to be the initial target audience for these things.

While an inexpensive device running Chrome OS could be a useful tool, especially for family members (not necessarily grandparents, I over generalized there) who are not computer savvy or care to be or for those who just need or want to use web mail, surf the ‘net quickly.  For anyone who needs to do real work, however, this is not for them.  Yes, you can hit the web-based ‘productivity’ suites and, yes, you can store your data in the cloud, you cannot use it off line and you risk losing ownership of YOUR data, especially if the cloud based service you are using (it does not have to be Google) goes out of business or, for whatever reason, cuts your access.  If you lose connectivity, you may lose your data.  For me, this is a deal breaker. 

Personally, I don’t see much use for Chrome OS.  With cheap computers, Windows 7 or even a real Linux, the market for Chrome OS seems pretty small.  For it to succeed, it needs dirt cheap devices.  Under $100 (US) is probably the right target.  I’d go so far as to say under $50.  Maybe something like the ZipIt or something in the same form factor as the netbook. Anything more than that, however, would be a waste since the ‘OS’ would not be able to take advantage of the extra capability. 

Now, where is that ADM-3A?

Links:

• Download Chrome OS from GDGT
• GDGT Chrome OS page
• Engadget Chrome OS overview

Thanks to my lovely wife, I am now the proud owner of a Zune HD.  I must say, this is one sexy device.  Thin, sleek, beautiful screen and great sound all add up to a device worthy of the words sexy, great and killer.  I’ve been a fan of the Zune since I got my 30gb, 1st gen Zune a couple of years ago.  The Zune HD is the device that Microsoft should have released then. 

The Zune HD is one of those devices that you must experience to appreciate just how nice it really is.  Everything about it, from the packaging to the setup is well done.  Setup was very easy, much easier than the first gen device.  I, literally, connected it to my computer, which already had the Zune 4 desktop software installed.  It installed a driver, which took about a minute.  After that, the Zune software asked me for a name for the device and then asked me if I wanted setup the wireless sync, which I did.  It detected the wireless network in my home and sent everything that the device needed to access my network.  In just a few minutes, I went from a boxed Zune HD to one with a handful of songs, a few photos and a video and was ready to rock and roll.  I set it up on my laptop, which is why there weren’t many songs to sync.  I’ve got it on my desktop and syncing my content.  I found out that 32gb is easy to fill.  They need a higher capacity device as  I am sure most will have a much larger library than I currently have.

The Browser

One of the first things I had to try was the browser.  Having a device with a larger screen and decent keyboard that I could carry with me and get online is a huge plus and my Palm Pre was serving fine, but the Zune HD, with it’s larger screen, should fit the bill perfectly.  However, my first look at the browser was a bit of a let down.  All I was getting was these limited mobile phone pages.  My Pre gets the full desktop experience and I had thought that the Zune HD could come close.  Happily, it does.  I needed to go into the device setup and tell the browser to render the full pages and not the mobile versions.  Once I did that, I was good to go.  The browser works fairly well and is pretty quick.  There are a couple of things that were a bit unintuitive and a couple of nagging items, but, overall, the browser is nice and works well.

The unintuitive aspects of the browser include bringing up the on-screen keyboard and the fact that you have to backspace over the address in order to enter a new address…unless I am just dense, there’s not an easy to do this.  Bringing up the keyboard involved to taps: once on the status line and once on the line that pops up under the status line.

The nagging items include the fact that this browser is, apparently, based on Internet Explorer 6 and, as such, you get warnings from some sites that support ‘for your browser is being phased out’ or some similar message.  Also, no Flash means that some sites, like YouTube, are pretty useless.

As I said, though, most sites render fine and pretty quickly too, so the browser is a very useful addition to the device and works better most portable browsers do, especially those in Windows Mobile phones, the BlackBerry and other portable devices.

The User Interface

The user interface on the device is excellent.  It is all gesture driven, like the browser, and easy to pick up.  The one mistake I kept making was to hit the one physical button on the front of the device to go back to the previous screen or menu.  The button takes you all the way back to the top level menu.  To go back one screen, you simply tap the top of the screen, which is generally the menu name.

Certain aspects of the desktop software made it into the device’s UI.  For example, the mix view is there and you have the ability to pin things to the menu.  There are lots of nifty animations for the menu and other functions, all of which add to the user experience.  The UI maintains the flavor of the previous gen menu system while adding device specific features.  One change that I’m not overly wild about it the omission of the user selectable backdrop.  You can still pick a photo for this, but the only place I’ve seen it is the ‘lock’ screen.  Once you are back into the menu, the background is black.  I think that is OK, but I’d still like to pick a photo for that purpose.

The Screen and Video Playback

Photos and video, by the way, look stunning.  The screen is bright and very sharp.  In fact, the sharpness of the screen will make you think that the resolution is much higher than it is.  I’ve not used it in the sun yet, so I cannot comment on the complaints from some that the screen washes out in direct sunlight.  I’ll report on that once I try.

Video playback is smooth and the color is excellent.  The playback on my old Zune was less than stellar, mostly due to the decoding and color limitations of the device.  Zune HD handles many more formats and is capable of millions of colors. I could not try the video out since both of the docks that I have only handle composite or component video out, neither of which are supported by the device.  I was hoping I could use them, but it looks like I need to buy a new dock.  Also, it looks like video out from the earphone jack is not supported.  Oh well.

Applications

The few games that I have tried are pretty impressive.  Project Gotham Racing looks and plays great.  The device has an accelerometer built in and this game, as well as others, takes full advantage of it, better than some Wii games.  PGR relies on the device itself for steering.  To turn right, you tilt the device to the right and so on.  The game is fast and the graphics are outstanding, better than a comparable game on the iPhone or Nintendo DS.  I’m a huge fan of the DS, but Zune HD’s graphics are much nicer.  I think the only hand held with comparable quality is the Sony PSP. 

For now, the apps are free.  The games are ad supported in that you have to sit through a 10 second ad before the game starts.  Most of them, so far, display a quick ad for the Zune Marketplace, but a couple that I tried had Ford adverts.  The adverts are not obnoxious and if it means I don’t pay for the game, then I can sit through a short ad.  However, I do hope that Microsoft wakes up and really promotes development of third party games and apps for this device.  It is a great platform for both games and applications.

Once I have had more time with the device, I will post more thoughts and some tips and tricks that I’ll have picked up.

Microsoft is one company that just blows my mind, but not because of the great products they produce, though a few are mind blowing. No, they blow my mind over those products that they produce that truly are great but get little or no promotion from the company.  Products like OneNote, Windows Home Server, its Live Essentials Suite, Media Center and, of course, the Zune, are all great products that receive little or no promotion.  In my mind, each of those products are tops in each genre, yet few people even know they exist.  When my wife purchased the Zune HD, for example, the clerk did not even know what she wanted.  They had to be shown.  That just blows my mind.

This week is PDC 09, the Microsoft equivalent of Apple’s developer conference.  As such, Microsoft has been trotting its newest stuff and revealing all of the goodness in its new technologies for developers. They have already spotlighted Office 2010 and, today, released the public beta. I’ve downloaded it and have installed it but have not yet had much of an opportunity to explore it. I took a cursory look around OneNote, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access.  All sport a similar interface with the exception of OneNote, which still looks pretty much like the 2007 edition UNTIL you try to click the menu. Once you do, however, the ribbon appears and then it looks like the rest of the suite.

As previously stated, all of the apps in the suite feature online sharing and OneNote can be docked to the side of the desktop and become the recipient of drag-drop operations from any application. Where this is really useful, though, is if you have a browser window open and are doing some research.  You can highlight and drag information into OneNote.  The note is tagged with a link back the source.  You can index it and manipulate it as if you had typed it yourself.  Very useful and very intuitive.

I really like the small additions to PowerPoint.  There are numerous little changes, here and there, that, like Windows 7, add up to a more satisfying experience.  And, I think, that is, so far, my overall opinion of Office 2010.  I liken it to Windows 7:  The UI is more polished, performance (considering this is still an early beta) is very good and the little additions and changes all add up to a more satisfying package.  It just FEELS better than Office 2007, and I LOVE Office 2007.  Of course, I was in the minority, it seems, with Vista: I loved and still love the operating system, but Windows 7 is that much better. It isn’t one specific thing, but many little things put together nicely.

If you would like to try out the beta, then go here and download it.  One caveat:  If you choose the 64bit version of Office, you MUST uninstall your current 32 bit version. You cannot have both installed at the same time.

And while I am on the subject, a certain writer at InfoWorld is at it again.  This time, he finds all kinds of problems with the Office 2010 beta.  He says it is sluggish, ugly, and they moved everything on him again.  Oh, he also complained that he had to reboot AFTER installing the beta.  I don’t know what beta he is using, but none of this is true.  Oh, you do have to reboot…AFTER UNINSTALLING your current version of Office.  I did NOT have to reboot once the beta was installed.  Performance is good and, as for moving things…he complained about the send/receive button being ‘hidden’.  Nope.  It is plain sight, up where the Office Orb used to be (it is gone now.)  It was the first thing I noticed.  I have not had to hunt around for anything.  Even in OneNote, the ribbon is laid out logically and was easy to use.  He must be using an early alpha release. Or, he has not even seen it.  Not sure.

Also announced and demoed was Internet Explorer 9.  According to a real Microsoft reporter, Paul Thurrot, the IE 9 that was demoed is nowhere near feature complete and is, in fact, just a bare shell to demonstrate the engine.  Microsoft has not yet tipped its hand regarding UI stuff.  Maybe they have those copiers warming up, eh?  I kid, of course. 

Microsoft is addressing many of the very public criticisms of IE 8, including performance and stability.  Standards adherence is another area where they say they are focusing on by including support for HTML 5 and CSS3.  In the performance arena, they are including support for DirectX instead of GDI in the rendering engine. This should greatly improve the visual rendering of pages.  It also means that sites do not have to do anything to gain performance as the rendering engine will just do it.

Thurrot is speculating that a beta version will be available sometime around March with full release in October, 2010, the same time he expects Windows 7, SP 1 to be delivered.  Yes, Microsoft is already working on SP 1 for Windows 7.  Of course, the ink was not even dry on the Windows 7 packaging when talk of Windows 8 started.

Good things are happening with Microsoft…well, except the dancing employees in the Microsoft store, that is.  I’m embarrassed for them.

There are now a few public Office 2010 pages up on the Microsoft site.  There is a download the beta button, but, so far, it just gives you a message that the beta will be available ‘soon’.  However, you can get a glimpse of the geta by going here.  The screen shots look nice and there seems to be some nice new functionality. Once again, there will be Enterprise,Business and Home editions.  The Home edition will be of most interest to people who read my blog, so that is what I will focus on here.  Of particular interest is OneNote 2010.

OneNote:

Linked Notes is a feature that lets you jump to the source of your information with a single mouse click.  Versioning is also a new edition to OneNote.  Now, when you open a shared page, you will see the changes since you last opened the notebook.  It will also provide a version history that will allow you to go back to a previous version should you need to do so.

Windows search is now integrated into OneNote.  As you search for information, you are presented with a dynamic list of search results, as you type your query.

Perhaps the nicest new feature, and one that will kill the only advantage that Evernote has over OneNote is the web sync.  You will be able to access, share and edit your notes from just about anywhere.  There will be a web app as well as a mobile app that will, no doubt, be Windows Phone only.  Microsoft needs to realize that there are other Smartphone's out there and release versions for non-Windows Phone devices.

Other features include enhanced text formatting and better ways of organizing your notebooks.  But, the biggest difference in the application itself is the addition of the Ribbon UI.  Gone are the bloody menus and toolbars.  Good riddance!

Now, I realize that there are those who do not appreciate OneNote as much as I do and find more mundane things like Word and Excel far more interesting. So, for those of you who fall into this camp, here are a few snippets of Word and Excel goodness.

Word:

Word 2010 includes enhanced collaborative editing of documents.  The new co-authoring features allow for the editing of documents with multiple people at the same time. Presence is incorporated into the application.

Word on the web will also allow for sharing of documents as well as editing them from virtually anywhere without having to have Word on your computer.

Visual styling and effects have been enhanced and there is also a translation utility which will translate your document into another language.

Excel:

New analysis and visualization tools make tracking and highlight data trends easier. You will be able to insert tiny charts into cells to visually show trends for a row of data. Pretty cool stuff here, huh?

As with the other apps, you will be able to use web apps to edit, share and manage your spreadsheets.

Office 2010 looks like as great a leap in the suite as 2007 was.  2007 set a pretty high bar, but it appears that 2010 will jump even higher.

The public beta will be available ‘soon’.

Psystar, the Macintosh ‘clone’ maker, was dealt a major blow in its on-going litigation with Apple.  The Judge in the case has ruled in Apple’s favor, saying that Psystar illegally copies the Mac OS X operating system that it installs on the ‘clone’ machines.  Psystar, instead of installing OS X on the machines using the actual copies that they bundle with the machine, were using images made from OTHER copies of the operating system, a clear violation since they did not have permission to do so.  Had they actually installed the OS from the same discs they gave to customers, they may have avoided losing that particular argument. 

It didn’t end there, however.  In order to get the operating system to actually boot, they had to circumvent Apple’s EFI boot loader and encryption scheme.  The Judge ruled that, by doing so, they violated the DMCA.  That, alone, will hand them a heft fine. 

There were other things they were found to be in violation, but the DMCA violation and the illegal copies are more than enough to torpedo any remaining arguments that they have.  This ruling, by the way, was in the California case.  They still have a case in Florida, but, given the ruling in this case, the Florida case looks worse than the Titanic.  They should settle, if that is still possible.

Personally, I think this stinks.  While the illegal copying is wrong, that does not mean they don’t have a valid argument here.  Apple’s exclusion of non-Apple hardware is bad.  Yeah, I know, they have a right to control their products…but, remember, so does Microsoft and, yet, our government here in the States as well as the European Union, think otherwise.  Those two governing bodies should stick their long noses in Apple’s business as well.  What Apple is doing is, essentially, saying “well, you can only use our gas in our car.  You cannot use that gas in a Ford.”  They allow you to put other operating systems on their hardware, so why not Mac OS X on OTHER hardware?  Well, the answer is two fold and simple:  they want to sell their computers and if you want the ‘Mac experience’, then they need to control the whole package.  The other reason is that the do not know how to support the operating system on non-Apple hardware.  They can barely support their own legacy…oh, wait, they don’t.  They only go back a generation, not much further.  And if Joe User has a Dell and puts Mac OS X on their, they would not know what to do other than to say ‘talk to Dell.’  It is an expense they do not want.

Psystar was doomed.  I admire the spirit of what they did, but not the tactics.  They should have done it right by installing the same copy of the operating system that they gave the customer and not make the images (i.e. illegal copies.)  What a shame.  This will only embolden Apple to continue these ridiculous restrictions.  The fact that they actually went out of their way to lock out the Atom processor speaks volumes.  How anyone can still hold this company up high just baffles me.  And they said Microsoft was the evil empire. 

You can read more about the case here.

Well, actually, yes, they are for real. There is a catch, however.  Most of the movies are old, public domain movies and the quality varies a great deal.  I don’t mean the quality of the movie itself, though they do. No, I mean the quality of the download itself.  Some of the movies are from really old and bad prints, prints with missing scenes, out of focus transfers and poor sound.  If you look carefully, however, you can get some really nice copies. 

There are ‘staples’ of sites like this.  The original Flash Gordon serials, for instance, are all over the place.  Things to Come is another favorite.   The Captain America serials are showing up now and the old Dick Tracy movies are out there as well.  Below are some real gems I have found and where you can download them.  One of my favorite sites is the Internet Archive.  The films below are from the Archive.

“Non Stop New York” – 1937, BW

Stars John Loder and Anna Lee

The story of a young actress who witnesses a murder and then tries to make her way back to New York to save an innocent man.  Her trip to New York takes place on a futuristic airliner, complete with an outside observation deck.  The movie was labeled as science fiction, but it is more comedy than anything else. 

“Last Man On Earth” – 1964, BW

Stars Vincent Price

Story of a scientist trying to survive in a world full of vampires.  The story that the movie is based on has been made several time.  That story is ‘I Am Legend’.  It was remade in 1973 with Charleton Heston and entitled “The Omega Man” and, most recently, with Will Smith. 

 

“His Girl Friday” – 1940, BW

Stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell

Funny film about a newspaper publisher who drafts is ex-wife for a final sensational story before she re-marries.  Cary Grant is his usual debonair self and plays his role with a lot of flair.  Russell is wonderful as the reporter and the two have pretty good on-screen chemistry.  The download from Archive.org has a slight sound issue right at the beginning, but the copy is otherwise pretty good.  The problem is pretty short and right at the start of the movie.

 

“Things To Come” – 1936, BW

Stars Raymond Massey

The story of a man (Massey) and a decades long world war.  It chronicles the downfall and then rise of civilization after the war.  The film was shot just prior to the rise of Hitler and the beginnings of World War II.  It has really good special effects for its time and accurately predicts several technological advances such as two way television, helicopters, space travel and other things. It’s depiction of a space launch, while popular for the day, was way off:  they shot the capsule from a cannon.  That aside, the film gets a little preachy is places, but is still a worthwhile download.  Better yet, buy one of the restored DVD’s.  This is one of my favorite classic films.

“Transatlantic Tunnel” – 1935, BW

Stars Richard Dix

Dix plays an engineer who envisions a tunnel that will connect England and Europe to the United States.  Dix loses his family and endangers his own health to see that the tunnel is completed.  The story is a little thin, but Dix plays his character well and sub-plot with his wife is well done.  The special effects are pretty good.  The print was OK, but the aspect ratio seems off and, thus, does not fill the screen.  I find that a little distracting, but the movie makes up for it.

Archive.org also has television programs from the 1940’s and 1950’s.  Some of the best of classic tv is there and there is a small, but nice collection of programming from the long gone Dumont Network.  Programs like Captain Video and The Honeymooners can be found. 

There are a few good sites to go to for other public domain movies and tv shows.  One of them packages the programming in a way that looks like an old 1960’s UHF station that was trying to fill time.  It is called ‘Cult of UHF’ and offers it’s movies as podcasts.  You can subscribe via iTunes or Zune Marketplace or you can go to the site and download what you want.

Another site, also available as a podcast via iTunes or the Zune Marketplace is Archive Classic Movies.  This one has nothing to do with Archive.org, but they offer a decent selection of films, all public domain and free.  There are several films here that you will at the other sites, but this site seems to have somewhat nicer looking films.  They aren’t too dark, the sound is generally good and the films seem to be as complete as can be.

One note about old, public domain films:  because the copyrights have lapsed and the films are available in many places, there’s not been much attempt to restore them.  Many of the available prints are either from television stations where they were cut up for commercials and/or time constraints, theaters that actually trimmed the films for more showings during the operating day or films that just have missing parts.  Metropolis, for example, was originally two hours or so.  For years, the available prints were 78 to 92 minutes long.  Most of the prints were faded and in poor shape.  Fortunately, the film is good enough that it did attract several people who had the resources to restore it.  One re-release in the late 1980’s had a soundtrack added and the film was partially colorized, but only for effect and where the original was hand colored.  Metropolis is an exception.  Sometimes, however, a film can leave the public domain because someone claimed copyright on an element of the film.  Its a Wonderful Life is an example.  The film itself is still public domain, but some of the music used in the film is not. The opening music, for example, was still under copyright.  NBC television purchased the exclusive broadcast rights to the film and that is why it no longer shows up on hundreds of stations during the Christmas season.  Anyone can still offer the film, provided they remove the music.  Since this can be expensive, no one has done so.  At least, none that I know of, and I have looked.

As always, you need to be careful when searching for movies.  There are sites that offer more recent films, but if the price is free, then it is probably not a legal site and could not only get you in trouble with Hollywood, it could also cause problems for your computer. Practice safe computing and enjoy those legal and free movies.

CORRECTION: 11/24/2009

In the paragraph concerning Archive Classic Movies, I incorrectly stated that it had nothing to do with Archive.org.  In fact, it does. It appears to be a nicer front end to the moving images portion of the Archive.org site.  All of the links, as far as I can tell, point to the same movie on Archive.org.  Nonetheless, you can subscribe via iTunes or Zune Marketplace and it is a bit nicer than the Archive.org website.  My apologies for the mistake.

So, what’s going on with Apple?  Has the press finally emerged from the reality distortion field and started to report the problems with Apple software more than in the past or is it that there are that many more users who have not ‘drank the Kool-Aid’ yet?  No matter, the fact is that more and more problems are being reported about Apple products than I can ever remember reading about.  The majority of the problems come from updates as well.

Microsoft took it on the chin, so to speak, when Vista released to lack of driver support, application incompatibility and general displeasure with the changes made to Windows.  Now, it seems, much of that is happening with Snow Leopard.  There are tons of issues surrounding compatibility, hardware problems, lock ups and even loss of user data.  There were similar problems when Leopard released, but they were not highly publicized, at least, not like Vista.  That has changed.  A quick Google or Bing search for ‘Snow Leopard problems’ reveals a bevy of postings, more than any other version of the operating system.  Some of the problems have been addressed in updates, many have not.

And, speaking of updates, Apple updated the Apple TV software to 3.0 to handle some of the new features in iTunes and, in the process, broke Apple TV.  Among the issues are user content disappearing and dropped network connections.  Apple did something truly amazing-for them-over the weekend: they rushed out a patch to address the missing content issue.  However, they did not address any of the other problems users are having with the update.

The latest patch release of Mac OS X also affects the so called ‘hackintosh’ netbooks.  Apple, for what ever twisted reason, includes a kill switch for Atom based hardware.  Atom is the Intel CPU that powers most of the netbooks that are available today.  While no public reason has been given, speculation is that Apple wants to do all that it can to keep Mac OS X off of non-approved hardware.  Read that to mean all non-Apple hardware.  This is a truly hateful move on Apple’s part. Yes, it is their software and they can do what they want since they are not a monopoly.  Still, I fail to understand why they care so much.  The people who take the time to hammer Mac OS X into a netbook fully know what they are getting into and there is confusing Mac hardware with these barely usable devices.  I really do not get it.

So, I ask again, what’s going on with Apple?  Are they spread too thin?  I don’t know how many developers they employ, but I’ve read that it isn’t that many.  I’ve read it is as few as the number of developers who work just on Windows within Microsoft to the same number that Google employs.  Whatever it is, it is possible that they simply do not have adequate developers and QA people to fully test releases.  Apple really should take a page from Microsoft and release things like operating systems as public betas.  I suspect if Snow Leopard had had the same scrutiny as Windows 7, it would be a very different picture.  Of course, die hard Apple fans might not even bother with a public beta release since, you know, anything put out by the company would ‘just work’ anyway.

I certainly would hope that the shift that seems to be happening will continue.  It is about time that the tech press report Apple in the same manner they report other companies.  And, don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy about that these issues are affecting Apple’s users.  I don’t wish such things on anyone, especially on the Apple user base, many of whom have never had to really deal with such things.  At least, that is what I have been led to believe since the reporting has been pretty bad and any time I talk someone who uses an Apple product, all has been just fine.  I’ve met very few Apple users who have been up front about the products they use.  In fact, only one blogger/podcaster I know of has been pretty well balanced about the Mac and Apple in general.  Sam Caldwell, who puts out the excellent Windows 2 Apple podcast, tells it like it is, regardless of the machine he is talking about.  On second thought, if they were all like Sam, it would be one less thing for me to rant about…can’t have that now, can we?

I came across a few killer Windows 7 tips and thought I’d share them.  I will share the tips here, but look for the links to the sites where I got them as there is a wealth of cool tips tricks at those sites.

Add Flip 3D to your  taskbar  (from ON-10)

1. Right click your desktop and select NEW, then SHORTCUT
2. Type C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe dwmapi #105 in the LOCATION box.
3. Click NEXT and give your shortcut a name, such as ‘Window Switcher’ or ‘Flip 3d’
4. To change the icon, right click the shortcut and select PROPERTIES
5. Click ‘Change Icon’
6. Copy and paste %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\imageres.dll into the ‘Look for icons in this file’ box and press ENTER
7. Pick the first icon (or any that you want, the first is actually the one for Flip 3D) and click OK
8. Click OK again to close the properties window
9. Drag the icon to your taskbar
10. You can delete the icon that is still on your desktop-you no longer need it.

See more options on context menus

You can hold down the SHIFT key while right-clicking pretty much anything and you may see either a new context menu OR additional options to an existing context menu.  For example, the ‘Send To’ menu contains many more locations if you hold down SHIFT while right clicking a file and then selecting the Send To menu.

Add your own Send To locations

1. Open Explorer and dock it to one side of your desktop (using Windows 7 Aero Snap)
2. Open another Explorer window and dock to the other side
3. In one Explorer’s address box, type shell:sendto and press ENTER
4. In the other Explorer, select the location or application you want to add as a location and drag it to the other Explorer window
5. The newly created shortcut will now serve as a destination for any object that you right click and Send To.

Create Zune HD friendly videos with Windows Live Movie Maker

OK, so this is not strictly a Windows 7 tip, it is a handy one nonetheless.  If you have a Zune HD, you will want to be able to create Zune HD friendly videos with Windows Live Movie Maker.  The fine folks over at the Windows Live Blog have created two new profiles for Movie Maker that allow you to create videos formatted for playback on the device itself and/or on your HD television via the Zune HD dock.  Go here to read the article and download the profiles.

I’ll post more tips and tricks as I find them.  Stay tuned…

Companies, today, have many avenues in which they can interact with customers.  Quite a few companies, many who had (or still have) awful reputations for customer service have embraced these new avenues and are, albeit slowly, changing that perception and embracing a more open and honest relationship with their customers.

Take Comcast, for example.  This company has never been known as a customer friendly company.  Ask pretty much anyone who has had to deal with them for a problem and they will tell you just how rough an experience that can be.  Well, I”m happy to report that Comcast is trying to change that.  They now have people dedicated to helping customers via the Internet.  I have experienced this first hand.  I had written a post about an email issue and in short time, I got a response directly from them.  It was very nice and the person did a good job at explaining just what had happened.  I was OK with what they did, AFTER I got that message.  The problem was that the email they sent me was very poorly worded and, in effect, accused me of being a spammer.  The person who responded to my post explained why they did what they did (re-assign my outgoing port to something other than the default) and that went a long way to changing my opinion.  I also Twittered a couple of questions about the 250gb cap and I got several responses. Very nice.  Comcast not only monitors blogs, but also Twitter.  I can only guess that they also monitor My Space, Facebook and other social sites.  Kudos to them for doing that.  My only issue with this is that they really should retrain the front line people (as well as those who send out the emails) to be more friendly and upfront.  (Although I can certainly understand that they deal with many irate people on a daily basis.  I’ve worked retail and can understand how one’s patience can get might thin.  I won’t ding the front line office people too much.  They do an OK job, considering the people they deal with everyday.)

Other companies also monitor their own forums, Twitter, chat rooms and other social sites as well as blogs.  Companies like Microsoft, Apple and Palm all have people who respond this way.

Another impressive company is Peek.  Since I purchased my Peek, I’ve been actively reading the Peek community forums.  They also monitor and respond via Twitter (@peekinc) and email.  Many, if not most, of the questions posed in the company forums get an answer from the company (tmel is one person I see answering questions) and they do seem to try to address the issues they can actually fix and don’t get too defensive with criticism.  It is very refreshing to see such responsiveness – and politeness – from a commercial entity.

There is no doubt that the Internet and social media in general, is re-writing the book on company-customer relationships.  The few companies I mentioned here are by no means the only ones using the new tools, but they do stand out to me as good examples.  Comcast, especially.  They have had one of the worst reputations of any company that I have ever dealt with.  They are actively trying to fix that.  The steps they are taking are small, but they are also very important and prove just how effective things like blogs, Twitter and other such things really are. 

I, for one, no longer feel helpless or like I am being brushed aside.  Having this new toolset is very empowering.  There is a danger of abuse, though.  I certainly hope that that abuse – on the consumer side – is kept to a minimum.  It would be really bad if all of this progress got swept aside because a few people abused it.