Meaning anything hosted by YouTube is a ‘silent’ movie. Sometimes that’s fine. Though, mostly it’s not (especially with the recent unBooming).

I’m always looking for a ‘download’ link, or a QuickTime option – some alternative to the embedded Flash. None to be found. So, YouTube is YoUseless to me.

UPDATE: Peter in the comments pointed me to a MacOSXHints.com page that solved the audio problem (“the voodoo fix of launching and then quitting Garage Band.”) – it’d be nice if I could download the video and not be tied to a browser and internet connect to enjoy them.

Can you put the Apple iPod deal into perspective?

It is part of our overall digital strategy, something Bob Wright had laid out for us for more than a year now, which is to make our content as ubiquitous as possible, to have it be available on as many screens as possible. We want it to be on all the platforms.

Will TV as we know it die? How will TIVO and it’s brethren fair when all media is downloadable (legally) via the web?

I imagine there is going to be years of shakedown between these media formats. In the end, consumers will win, but there will be lots of victims in the process. I feel on demand, content when you want it– is going to win vs. hard copy (DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, TIVO).

*****
This just in…

According to this www.ilounge.com article. We may be seeing HBO joining the fray.

My brother and his family are a-1 Mac users…always have been. I’m a PC gal myself, having worked in less-creative-yet-nonetheless-fulfilling fields.

When my parents decided to join the Information Generation a few years back, they were more persuaded by the voice of my sibling over mine in our arduous discussions over choice of platform. They were sold by the “user-friendly” promise professed throughout the Mac world. My brother promised, “It’s easier for beginners like you to get started and maintain.”

Well..whazup?

My parents bug the bejeebers out of me with their little “this and that” that they can’t seem to resolve. They have a hard time resolving it themselves because “our ISP doesn’t know the wordarounds on a Mac.” They moan about all the attachments they receive from friends with PC’s that they can’t open.

My parents are true adopters. They don’t shy away from computer technology. However, they seem to be a bit stuck at times because they can’t get themselves over the hump of the computer platform dilemma.

They’re a bit stuck — ironically — as underdogs. A platform which should help them has divided them from providers and peers. The irony is the fact that — as beginners — they don’t know how to speak the language necessary to get them unstuck. For instance: “what are the questions I need to ask to resolve my problem?”; “how do I begin to explain this problem?”; and, “what, really, is the problem?”

It seems that true beginners can fall into a hole and fester. The irony lies in the fact that a certain level of technical savviness is needed to get out of that hole.

Consider this: Is the Mac really the more “user-friendly” platform?

It’s Christmas time, I like to dream, and it’d make my First Crack Podcasts so much easier.

I recently learned of an SFTP app that is actually a joy to use. I come from a Windows background so when I “switched” (re-converted actually) to the Mac, I didn’t care much for Fetch and ended up using MacSFTP. The little app that I found is named Fugu. It’s handling of bookmarks is not initially intuitive but once you learn how they are implemented, it works really nice.

Finally, are there any decent financial apps for the Mac? I use Quicken 2004 and it is about as poorly designed as Notes. Unfortunately, Quicken 2005 looks like more of the same.

Is Microsoft too busy trying to gobble up shares of services they know not that much about and in turn forgetting about what made them #1 in the sales of computers in the first place? Their operating system. The next version of their OS, dubbed Longhorn, keeps getting pushed back, and back… and back.

Do not get me wrong here, I like the fact that it appears Microsoft may be shooting themselves in the foot. I am by far not a Microsoft supporter, having worked on Macs since the mid-80s. And these recent forays Microsoft is taking into other areas is why I am not a supporter of them; they bite off more than can chew and are unable to manage their assets properly.

Take Longhorn for example. An OS that was supposed to be released in 2005 probably won’t be released until 2006, and it will be as a stripped-down version of what was originally promised. Some speculation is that 2007 will be the year of release. Meanwhile security vulnerabilities continue to plague XP and all of Microsoft’s earlier OS releases.

So, instead of concentrating on their bread and butter Microsoft is bound and determined to screw over their customers by not offering a 21st century operating system (we have been in the 21st century for years now…) that is safe and secure, but rather to gamble with a search engine and music store that only benefits Microsoft, not their customers. How can I claim this? Simple. While they are trying desperately to compete with the giants in their respective industries, Google in search and Apple in downloadable music, they are continuing to loose the confidence of their loyal customer base by releasing patches to their outdated OS and IE browser in the hopes that it will “tie ‘em over” until Cow is released, I mean Longhorn. Whatever. It is all a bunch of bull anyway.

“Yeah, but I will be able to download music and play it on my Dell music player and perform internet searches using Microsoft’s searching service. It does benefit more than Microsoft, don’t you see!?” This might be a sentiment out there. I am sure it is. What those people might not see is that there are plenty of ways to download music on a Windows machine (iTunes being the best, but many other ones that are compatible with the WMF file type) and incredible search engines already in place, like Google. I say again, “How does Microsoft benefit their customers by spending time and money developing these ‘solutions’, that they know nothing about, when, in the meantime, their OS sucks and the one in development keeps getting pushed back?”

Waiting…

Then there is the issue of Microsoft’s usability. Regardless of when Bovine is released it will be woefully inept compared to whatever Apple has at that time, and Unix, and Linux… It will assuredly be unintuitive, lackluster in appearance and, as good as its security may be when released there will be, in a very short amount of time, security holes; gaping huge monstrous holes will be found by hackers and they will be exploited immediately, pissing many, many people off. The pissed-off people will, again, wonder why they trusted Microsoft once more. “Why don’t I learn? Why why why…?!”

IMHO, the biggest thing Microsoft does wrong is not being the “responsible giant”. I do not have these serious misgivings towards Microsoft just because they’re the biggest or because they’re Apple’s biggest rival, it is because they are irresponsible and uncaring. They are so big and powerful they feel they don’t need to give a crap about their customers because they will continue to use and support them. They have gotten this way because people have blindly followed them in the past and Microsoft seems to be confident this trend will continue. And why not? Nothing has proven them wrong… yet.

Perhaps with the imminent doom of Microsoft’s music store and search engine and with the rise of Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Apple’s OS X and Linux OSes, people will start to get the idea that they are truly only a number to the Washington giant and jump ship. Join me now and let’s all collectively cross our fingers.

There is one other design element in the right hand side of those headers; upward facing double arrows. These are used to show or hide the details under them. The details are shown by default. I have no problem with this, pretty much standard fare. The problem is the “light switch radio button” performs the same function as the arrows. Bad. Bad Microsoft. I could not figure out, for the life of me, how to turn off these options. Like I said, 3 sections show up each with a coloured header bar.

Frustrated I started looking elsewhere within this window, at first to no avail. Then I scrolled down. That revealed to me 3 links, one of which deals with something new (the first link listed there) and the other two are the same as the first two coloured header bars, but now in reverse order! Oh Microsoft…

In order to toggle (yeah right, toggle) between “On” and “Off” you must click on the link at the bottom of this window (which again is hidden from first view). Another(!) window opens to reveal your options. NOW you can “flip the switch”. Kind of like walking down the hall from your bedroom into another room to turn on or off the light in your bedroom.

Being a long-time Apple user I guess I have come to expect brilliant usability in everything, be it computers, cars, books, audio equipment, whatever. Is Apple perfect? No. I find some things they do confusing, but what they do right, and this is a huge percentile, like 99%, they do exceedingly well which makes me less frustrated when things are oddly configured.

But hey, these are just my thoughts. Maybe someone out there can explain why Microsoft did this the way they did so it makes sense. I doubt it, but maybe. Let us know your thoughts on this usability concern or any other related… or not related. That’s fine too.

Get ready for a whole new experience.

- Microsoft Windows XP Professional Manual, Page 1

Truer words may never have been printed.

So, I wanted to set up a Windows development box at home to do a bit of .net work on the side. .Net is one of those Microsoft technologies that I’m actually warming up to.

Well, my whole new experience with windows turned out to consist of spending an entire Sunday upgrading my PC to Windows XP Pro, installing IIS, installing VS.net, installing SQL Server admin tools, and patch after patch only to have none of the items cooperate with each other. After 3 more hours of googling and trying every conceivable fix, I went to bed.

The next day, I enjoyed a lovely 4 hour session of wiping my hard drive clean, and reinstalling every single application.

Ah yes, the joys of Windows. It’s good to do this once in a while to appreciate the ‘other’ OSes that are out there that much more.

It finally struck me as odd last week during a tutorial at the UPA conference that everyone is focussed on technologies that make “the list” (shopping list) easier. We all moan about keeping and managing “the list” and desire the fridge that tracks your foods via RFID’s. We all crave the technology that creates our list based on recipe selections. But, wait…why are we so obessesed with “the list”?

Instantaneously it dawned on me that what I really want is a 180 from “the list” technology. I want an “unlist” technology. After all, how does “the list” technology help our lives when it adds administrative work to our chores? The technology gives us “the list”, and now requires we labor in order to comply with our end of the interaction. You must pick out all the items from “the list”, or you may not be having the 5-course dinner you’ve planned for friends. And, “the list” only drives you to buy tons of stuff…what happens when you’re left with tons of LEFTOVER stuff? Egads.

I want a technology that manages “the stuff” for me. I want to fill my Simon Delivers cart with all the veggies, cheeses, olives, pesto sauce, anchovies, pita, tahini, etc. that I crave. Pile it in; I know its feasible to eat a jar of tahini before it goes bad, and that I like it enough to eat it semi-frequently. “The list” is imbued with administrative work…chores, tasks, management and other hair-pulling time-wasters. Additionally, there are potential economic losses if you don’t keep up your administrative work. How many times have we thrown away food because we can’t keep up? We come home from our labor and become slaves of our bodily needs and culinary desires.

Please, let’s change our focus! No more brainstorming for aiding “the list”. DITCH THE LIST! We need a technology that knows what we have (based on our Simon Delivers invoices, perhaps), and spits out the recipes based on what’s in stock (in our own pantries!) When I actually use a suggested recipe, I give it a tick in the system. Within time, the system gets to know me and my tastes and preferences, and the suggestions continue and grow. Perhaps within even a bit more time, the system recognizes what delicacies I’ve lacked and makes some suggestions for new cheeses, or organic waffles.

“Recipe”, to me, is loosely defined. Recipes perhaps provide foundations, a la “Cooking Without a Book” (as ironic as it is, its my favorite cookbook.) I want to spend my time creatively, focussing on preferable herb/spice balances, diverse cooking methods and temperatures, etc. I really REALLY want to get rid of the time spent on food management.

I’ve gone back and forth about whether this technology should be driven by my preferred grocer or independently. My gut always returns to the independent vendor…I don’t want my food styles to be driven by what my grocer selects to stock. It should probably be a Web-based software application, since it can a continuously-changing database based on foods that go on and come off the market. It must be in touch with the real world of groceries. It must also be in touch with my region and the foods that are in harvest at the moment, facilitating a microbiotic diet.

Otherwise, in the meantime, if any of you know a service that can do this for me, please send along the URL.

Now, move this into the software world. People grumble about for profit publishers like Microsoft and Intuit. And those same people are happy to compensate a valueable shareware publisher.

Sounds to me like NPR is shareware. To explore this metaphor further, I’m on a quest for shareware that offers free mugs and requests you to donate more than once a year.

Thanks for your support.