WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
The weather forecasters tell me it's hot - very hot - here in sunny London Towne. Unfortunately, they seem to have neglected to notify the weather of this fact. It's overcast and the wind is cold. Still, it's at least arguable that they are better at forecasting the weather than software companies are at shipping programs that aren't riddled with bugs.
Yes, you guessed it, it's Microsoft patch time again, and this time round Apple are also getting in on the act.
There were two major stories this week that I've put on hold. The first is the story about the owners of the e-gold company being indicted for money laundering. The second is the decision of the US high court to inject a little sanity into the patent process. Both stories are still developing and need some thought and background to explain them, so I will be covering them in a future issue.
Moving on to other things, I'd like to particularly recommend reading the hilarious story of how the Economist magazine's chief information officer completely demolished the main thrust of Microsoft's MIX 07 conference in Las Vegas. (For example, "The way advertising works is you piss off 92 per cent of the audience to reach two per cent. Ninety two per cent of users find adverts distracting and they wish they had a way to switch them off.")
Well worth a read - the URL is in the scanner section.
And so to the serious business of keeping you up to date with the follies of the tech world...
Shorts:
The guys at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), sometime inventors of the Internet, are working on an electrode festooned tin hat that is capable of reading out the wearer's sub-conscious. Yes, really. Apparently the idea is that the attached computer will pick out details that the soldier noticed only sub-consciously and spot ambushes. I suspect that even if they succeed, they could be surprised at what the soldier is thinking about! In any case I would argue that this is a clear case of creeping conservatism and lack of imagination in DARPA. Why aren't they trying to tap into people's latent, untapped, unknown even, psi powers...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/no_no_not_the_mind_probe_aiiee/
On a less amusing note, Microsoft plans to issue another seven security patches on Tuesday. It also plans to release an update of its Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (Not to be confused with a Software Malicious Windows Removal Tool). Rumours that the latter tool removes versions of Linux in dual boot machines, are, I'm sure, not true...
What's not among the patches is a fix for the Microsoft DNS server bug that allows people to make changes to the server information without first being checked to see if they are allowed to make changes. Since this affects Windows 2000 and 2003 servers, I would have thought that fixing it would be top priority - unless, of course, Microsoft have sold so few of the servers that fixing server bugs has a very low priority!
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/e7Ks0HiOOq0G4V0FExW0EJ
Microsoft may be having problems getting its head round bug fixes, but Apple don't seem to be suffering from those sort of problems. They've just issued a patch for a 'highly critical' bug in their QuickTime player - both Mac and Windows versions. The patch comes out in less than a week after the vulnerability was reported. Well done Apple, ten house points and a gold star.
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/e7Fi0HiOOq0G4W0FEbE0EP
Sadly, the same cannot be said about Apple's manufacturing quality control. There have long been rumours about the iBook G4 having a design defect which causes it to keep dying on boot up after being in use for about a year. Apple denied that there was a problem and refused to fix what one wag termed 'iBook Sudden Death Syndrome'.
Now, however, the Danish Consumer Complaints Board has waded into the fray and sent one of the offending machines for an independent inspection. The result of the inspection? It seems that a design flaw causes soldering between two components to be stressed every time the computer is turned on and off. Eventually the joint breaks.
The claim has been hotly denied by Apple. But then, Apple always have been in denial about their dreadful quality control. They only get away with it because the people who suffer are Apple partisans who don't want to give Windows extra ammunition.
I seriously considered buying a Mac when I recently upgraded my computer. But after listening to the tales of woe - sudden death and cracked screens - from my friends who were Mac enthusiasts, even with the added attraction of dual Windows/Mac booting, I was put off by the unreliability. Sad really. I hope they get their act together soon. Lose ten house points for bad work. Could do better.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/03/danish_consumer_complaints_board_claim_ibook_defect/
There was an amusing little domain dispute heard here in the UK recently. Lockheed Martin attempted to grab the domain ukskunkworks.co.uk from its current owner, UKSkunkworks Ltd, purveyors of fine cannabis seeds and smoking paraphernalia. For the benefit of my US readers, possession of the seeds is not illegal in this country - just growing them! Also, so I'm informed, (not that I would know, of course) 'skunk' is a term for a particularly powerful strain of cannabis.
Lockheed Martin's case revolved around the idea that people immediately associated the term skunk works with the company, because of its 'famous' US 'secret' development facility nicknamed skunk works. The appeals panel was not convinced that anyone in the UK would have heard of Lockheed Martin's skunk works. (It is after all, 'secret' -AL) Furthermore, they were less than impressed by its suggestion that UKSkunkworks Ltd were carrying on an illegal business. Case dismissed.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/lockheed_martin_domain_case/
Annoyed laptop owners are starting to refer to Windows Vista as Windows Vampire because of its propensity for draining the life out of their batteries in double quick time. The problem is, it seems, the ultra-slick Aero Glass interface which gobbles up power like there was no tomorrow. It seems that you can only get a decent battery life by turning the flashy display off and going back to pre-Vampire style desktops. Considering that Aero is the only thing in the new operating system that most people are interested in having it for, this is, to say the least, a bit of a bummer.
Anyone like a copy of OpenDOS?
http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-6181366.html
OK, stop bombarding Michael Dell with emails demanding pre-installed Linux. Dell will provide consumer desktop machines with a Linux distribution on them. Again. The news was all over the press, but no one seemed to remember that Dell tried this once before and so few people bought it, that they stopped doing it for what were then sound commercial reasons.
Large chunks of the open source movement are celebrating, especially the Ubunteratii, but I think they need to spend a little more time figuring out how to push people in the direction of Dell and the Ubuntu desktop distribution Dell has settled on.
The crucial thing is that Dell is in serious financial trouble and in danger of going down the same route as the ever shrinking Gateway computer company. In that situation any low cost innovation makes sense - even that of providing open source operating systems. The jury's out on this one, guys...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/dell_linux_lives/
http://update.techweb.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/e7II0HiOOq0G4T0FEUz0EX
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=174DFE3:215D3E184FC552DC263B3E24894E4AD4EFF29049075316B4
Connoisseurs of schadenfreude will be delighted by a story in The Register this week. It seems that UK payroll specialist Northgate screwed up royally at the start of the month and failed to pay its own staff! An internal memo to the staff affected (my spelling checker suggests 'afflicted') claims that it was caused by an internal processing error. That reminds me about the subway driver announcement that the train was late 'because of delays'.
In the circumstances, I can only point Northgate to the Northgate web site where it states, "Payroll is a 'mission critical' activity; if people do not get paid, the company simply will not exist beyond the very short term." Exactly!
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/04/27/northgate_pay_booboo/
Geek Toys:
Got Vinyl? Then you need this latest geek toy - a USB turntable from ION. It really works too, and you can control turning it on and off in software. So finally you can digitise your vinyl collection without having to festoon the living room with a bunch of cables! Very nice.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/05/02/review_ion_usb_turntable/
Scanner: Other stories
The Economist de-rails Microsoft media love in
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/microsoft_marketing/
Survey: open source shows progress in public sector
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/oss_public_sector/
Digg in tough spot with DMCA debacle
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6180998.html
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barbara, Fi and DJ for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
6 May 2007
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html
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