you want to start something?

Part of an email I got recently on the AUGD list:

I accidently clicked on the wrong link on the Reunion.com site and it created Spam from my Gmail account. I am sincerely sorry. I have called Reunion and have filed a complaint and requested a call back from a manager. I also called Google and the person that answered my call was very confrontational and insisted that Google did not have a relationship with Reunion and that any problem I had was my fault alone. If any one that has received the email sent out by Reunion is upset as I am here are the contacts for Reunion and Google.

The first thing to say is to take responsibility for your actions. An apology is fine but what’s this with phoning Reunion and Google. Is it their fault that you accidentally didn’t read a web page as you clicked through, accidentally clicked a link (which would have been explained) and accidentally entered your gmail username/password details to accidentally spam everyone in your address book, including a mailing list or two?

And with that attitude, I have zero faith that you were reasonable on the phone. Why? Well, because your demands on them were completely unreasonable.

Urging others to contact these companies in order to complain is the real sign of an Entitlementard. It’s the classic “I did something stupid and to make up for it, I’m going to find some customer support representatives and make their day hell because that’s what makes me feel better.”

Idiots like this should join the Free Software Foundation. Idiots like this make me ashamed to be an Apple User Group Leader.

Tags: Annoyances by mj
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Crass stupidity

Microsoft is allegedly crafting a completely brand new operating system, completely removed from the Windows code base…
…Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft, notes that it is “possible,” having previously heard of a secret OS project headed by former Microsoft Servers and Tools vice president Eric Rudder. He continues, saying that the project is most likely conceptual at this point, but of a more serious nature than ideas tossed about at Microsoft Research.

In other words, not a single line of code has been written.

Someone was recently railing on bloggers saying how they miss the cut and thrust of ’serious journalists’. Jesus Christ – if this is the sort of speculative shite that serious journalists consider to be news, then I think every blogger should just give up and go home.

This is turd. People rail when Apple releases something and there’s a load of hype. Compared that to this – Microsoft release NOTHING. Not even a roadmap, not even an admission of a research project, and this is news.

But then again – this is why blogging tends to be much better quality, much better informed and much more readable. Despite what TechWire says.

Tags: Commentary by mj
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Some people claim that their iPhones are starting to show cracks:

Critically, the owners all claim not to have abused their phones, only subjected them to normal use.

Hm, I call bullshit.

Why? Years and years of working with electronic devices. People bring them in with all sorts of abuse – dents, broken LCD screens, watermarks inside. And ninety percent of them didn’t do anything other than “normal use”. You have to demonstrate the sort of impact that would cause dents, try to convince them that LCD screens do not spontaneously break without external aid and show the fungus growing from the sugary-coffee mixture that they spilled into the speaker grille of the laptop.

Anyway – define ‘normal use’?

Tags: Commentary by mj
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The Mojave Experiment is a new push from Microsoft to see if marketing can fix Vista (where engineering failed).

Welcome to the “Mojave Experiment.” What do people think of Windows Vista® when they don’t know it’s Windows Vista? We disguised Windows Vista as codename “Mojave,” the “next Microsoft OS,” so regular people who’ve never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves. Now decide for yourself.

Wil Shipley writes:

Microsoft has managed to prove that if you have a friendly expert on a controlled machine (with Vista pre-installed) showing a carefully selected subset of Vista features to an ignorant XP user for a few minutes, the XP user will often say he finds Vista acceptable. Wow.

That’s just tragic. Absolutely tragic.

Tags: Annoyances, Commentary by mj
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…considering I’m in a barbers in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

photo posted from my iPhone

Tags: Uncategorized by mj
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