Category: Commentary

Aidan is likely to be a little annoyed.

Why?

Because I saw a thread about Mac calendaring solutions on Slashdot and couldn’t keep my fat gob shut.

There’s some work being done on this – using iCal on Mac OS X as proper groupware using SyncServices. Initial release will support Mac OS X only – further releases will link to Sunbird and Vista Calendar. Just started investigating the possibilities of linking to other online calendaring solutions (30boxes etc). There is a working prototype but it’s not released yet. Stuff will be posted on sourceforge as well.

Because

a) I’ve given the game away nearly a MONTH ahead of schedule.
b) This server could get a lot of traffic (and that means ££)
c) We’re not finished yet!

So, yeah, if you’ve just arrived from Slashdot, watch this space.

Scott Stevenson blogs about Dvorak’s recent headline. He then follows up with a good reason why Apple won’t be following Microsoft’s model.

Revenue is not important. Profit is important.

Technically, Microsoft’s model of selling the software and not hardware is a better indicator for success. The costs of CD and packaging duplication are incremental whereas the costs of creating another entire computer and loading the software are considerable. Selling software is technically an easier business to be in.

I don’t think Scott makes enough of the point that Microsoft’s model has only ever worked for Microsoft. there aren’t a lot of OS vendors in recent history but apart from NeXT, I can only think of two – Be and SUN.

SUN still sell big iron hardware and some also-ran workstations but it’s plain that making their operating system free to download and making it x86 compatible has made no difference to their market share. Combine this with their ability to make worse business decisions than Apple and it’s not surprising. But it goes to show that even making your OS free doesn’t guarantee success.

Be is the best example. They quickly transitioned from making their own hardware to making BeOS run on Apple’s PowerMac which I spent some time playing with. Then they pushed their OS onto Intel which is around the time I lost interest as I didn’t own any x86 hardware. They then limped along for a few years before being torn to pieces and sold to Palm. Where are they now huh? With a pinch of salt, we can see how Apple transitioning to a Microsoft model might be fraught with difficulty with one little difference – the apps. Be had nothing competitive, Apple has an entire back catalog of very compelling apps that only run on Mac OS X. I must say however that with Apple’s recent move to Intel chips, an old Be application Sheepshaver is now providing “Classic” emulation for the new hardware in a new and interesting ironic twist.

The slow uptake of Linux and BSD on generic x86 boxen also shows that making the operating system free is not enough to beat the Microsoft war machine. (And no, Linux is still a distant and falling third place behind Mac OS in the market share arena).

So, I’ve digressed. Revenue is not important. Profit is important.

This is a corollary from “Cash is King”. Sales without profit mean you’re losing money. I’m sure that Apple’s shareholders might like Apple to move from a $1500 computer company with a 27% margin to a $150 software company with a 80% margin assuming the unit sales increase to make up the difference.

This last point is important. The unit sales would need to take a massive upswing – perhaps even an order of magnitude. Apple sells a million Macs every quarter. If they started selling ten million copies of Mac OS X every quarter, then yeah, we’d see an upswing in “Mac” market share. The costs of supporting these users with their patch-quilt PC systems would be a lot higher however.

In our business, revenue will mean nothing. Profit will mean everything. In all businesses, cash is king. If you don’t have cash, then people don’t get paid and it doesn’t matter what the size of your order book is – if you can’t fulfill the order then your business dies. eBay recently bought Skype for example – though it’s going to take more than a decade at Skype’s current revenues for the cost to be paid back. That’s a long term investment for sure – but the hope is that the revenues and profit will grow. Luckily eBay has deep pockets. So – if you can’t get the cash now, then you have to find someone who has….

Anyway, I’m off…have a good weekend!

(That said, I don’t think Apple really cares about the people out there loading Mac OS X onto generic Intel systems. Okay, they just served a DMCA violation notice to the OSX98Project forums but that’s them protecting their code and may mask their intent.

As for Dvorak. He’s just looking for the Mac faithful to give him ad revenue. Ignore at will.)

Over at “Creating Passionate Users” is a blog post which essentially says that until a user is aware of your product, it is a “Schrödinger’s Product”.

I’m not going to go into the detail because you can read it for yourself.

Essentially – until a user encounters the product, you don’t know if it is alive or dead. When the user becomes aware, then you know. For instance, if the user likes the product then it is alive and if the user dislikes the product then it is dead. Obviously each user makes this decision themselves but don’t be fooled – a product for whom the vast majority declare the death sentence is unlikely to stay alive for long.

So, how do you influence this decision – a decision which may be made within the first 50 microseconds of the user encountering your product. Again there’s a list on “Creating Passionate Users” not surprisingly. My own list is as follows:

• solve real problems (so your users can get on with the cool stuff)
• make it invisible (or at least so easy to use that you second guess yourself)
• create deep feelings of loss (for when the user isn’t able to get at your product)
• listen (because the best source of product ideas are your customers)

I don’t really buy the user testimonials thing – and it ostensibly didn’t work out well for Apple and their Switch campaign (which, though it was successful, wasn’t a big deal). The end user should be able to try out your software – and make up their own mind!

I blogged about this recently but I do think the “next big thing” is not web sites that enable the building of social networks (Sorry Mr Andresson, sorry 30 boxes) but rather “rich” interfaces to social data.

I remember speaking to the Jebus about this and Orkut. The thing that sucks with Orkut is the interface. Make it into a nice Cocoa-ified interface and it becomes easy to use.

Similarly, 30boxes, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft are all getting into the calendaring space – because a calendar along with an address book is the basis of a social network – not only who you know, but who are you near and when.

Okay, for sure, Marc Andresson knows a lot more than me about making a million bucks on the internet and there are some smart cookies behind these other companies that obviously make me look like a straw chewing irish yokel sitting in a puddle in comparison – but I think I’m right.

I should be a pundit, really.

My employer has given me the option to purchase a laptop of my choice as a ‘salary sacrifice’. This means that I’d be paying for the laptop before tax, and therfore saving about 40% of the cost. What’s that translate to? Well, a $3200 Mac Book Pro would then cost me $2000. That’s mighty tempting.

I’ve written the first part of a tutorial for Og, an Object Relational Mapping tool which is part of the Nitro suite. I’ve been using this a lot over the past few months, and I thought it would be useful to provide a gentle introduction to Og. While it only covers some basic aspects of Og, it is still useful in its current form. I will add more to it over the coming weeks.

You can get it from the Downloads page.

It’s that time again. What time? Oh, a Linux advocate is out with a tour de force on why Mac OS X annoys him. Strangely enough it doesn’t start with a “Linux is teh roxxorz. MACsX not run on cheap-ass PC” which is the usual refrain. No, Chris is a little more discerning.

While being a PHP coder, Chris admits he’s not a power user, instead restricting himself to four apps. His web browser, his email client, his instant messenger and the GNOME terminal. To be honest, my apps would be Safari, Mail, iChat and Terminal. I do use the others (Address Book, iCal, iTunes) but they’re more background than the rest. I use TextEdit too but only for reading documents as the alpha-blended semi-transparent black-with-green-text Terminal I use is perhaps not the best for reading large amounts of text. It just looks sexy!

I. Chris disagrees about the menu bar location in spite of usability studies. Being an Linux geek and not a Mac OS X geek he’s missing out one major point – the speed at which Mac geeks work. Now, I’ll put money on a Linux geek against a Mac geek when it comes to Terminal but I’ve seldom seen anyone beat a Mac geek for general work due to the consistent keyboard shortcuts and the benefits of being able to hit an infinitely tall target (the menu bar) when mousing around. Much quicker than the general “orbiting” of a target that a window-attached-menubar causes.

II. Chris confuses closing “windows” with closing “applications”. I’m actually glad that Mac OS X has this distinction but then Linux is faster at spawning processes than Mac OS X so I guess it’s okay for every window of Firefox to have it’s own process. I’m a little stumped why he describes Apple-Q as being “dangerous” as there is NOTHING dangerous about it. It’s just as dangerous as closing a window in Linux. In fact, less so because it will CONSISTENTLY ask to save data if data has been modified. So he has a hundred processes running? So what? I have 65 running and most of them are invisible to the casual user being system daemons. I don’t see his point here and I think his argument is very muddled.

III. Maximising is broken? Chris misses the point here and betrays his Windows heritage. Linux should have an extra button to allow him to maximise to content just like Mac OS X. There’s no point in filling a screen with white space (or grey space) around your data. In a document-centric approach, maximising to the content makes a lot more sense. He claims it’ll make him accidentally bring other apps forward when he clicks on them. My answer – he needs more mousing practise and maybe the top-of-the-screen menu bar would be a good addition to his workflow.

IV. For a smart guy, he really tests the limits. Apple-Tab switches applications not documents. If I minimise a document it’s because I’m not working on it. It takes enough time for a document to come out of the dock that it’s not an instant thing. Working with several open windows as well as the desire to create new windows easily and quickly makes this a worthwhile addition. Again he’s expecting it to work like Linux and hasn’t taken the time to actually work with it in a real situation. He’s ripe for Unsanity to come out with a load of crashdump-causing mini apps just to replicate behaviour from his old operating system. And he’s not being consistent. When you use a app-switcher on Linux and Windows, it doesn’t automatically take all minimised windows out of the task bar and put them up on screen. Why would it!!!!!

V. On my laptop keyboard I see Function, Control, Alt and Command. This is one more than a desktop keyboard which has Control, Alt, Command simply due to the constraints of using a laptop and not a full extended keyboard. As a result, this is really a nonsensical annoyance. As for right-click? Use the right button of your mouse?

VI. Okay, he’s definitely using a laptop because these keys are definitely on a desktop keyboard. Now, I’d like him to show me a generic PC laptop which has dedicated keys like this. My last PC laptop, a DULL Latitude, had multiple functions littered around the right hand side of the keyboard meaning that I had to hit Function-Delete to get a proper Delete. But this is still a criticism of Mac OS X? I’m guessing here but I think this guy uses a desktop PC for his Linux use and a Mac laptop. It’s the only explanation.

VII. Aha! He only has one 12″ desktop which he gripes about. Chris – seriously, when you buy a 12″ laptop, then you get a 12″ desktop. Think about it. There are third party solutions for multiple desktops – why not go and use one! Multiple desktops are a third party add-on for Linux as well, remember. You can’t very well apply double-standards and then gripe about it. Oh, well, maybe you can….

VIII. “The Linux clock kicks your clock’s ass”. Okayyy, taking this with a pinch of salt because on my machine right now I see the clock on my top menu bar and I see the date and month on my dock (in iCal). There are also third party clocks out there which will either replace the one in the menu bar or provide a floating clock. Again – this is another “I have a gripe but as I am applying double standards I can’t really complain”. Linux has a clock, yes…very similar to the Mac OS X one.

intelmac:~ mj$ date
Mon Feb 13 08:56:55 GMT 2006

Honestly, Chris…..

IX. iPhoto, even in the 06 version, is STILL a little sluggish but then there’s nothing I’ve ever seen on Windows or Linux to even compare to it. One helpful friend suggested I use The GIMP. I gave him a mouthful of expletives.

X. Safari sucks? Oh this is based on keyboarding around a web page. I think that it’s time he grabbed a copy The Missing Manual for Mac OS X before spouting again.

The problem with this sort of thing is that it’s the wrong forum. Some of the comments address this sort of thing but the last time I saw it being addressed properly was when two MAc geeks attended their local Linux User Group. The Linux geeks were crowding around the two Mac laptops with questions and there were gasps of awe as well. The thing that blew them away, strangely enough, was Romeo/Salling Clicker. When we left, there was a little group of Linux Alpha geeks crowded round one terminal furiously writing code to get their bluetooth adapters working….

See – that’s how to resolve these things. With beer and pizza, free WiFi and a projector. And some laughing.

There are some things I like about GNOME/KDE. But the disadvantages outweigh the advantages every time. Which is why I use Mac OS X.

Fraser Speirs has a couple of posts bout the “niceness of things” and the “seriousness of software”.

I can’t say I agree with his assessment of software. Some software he includes as being “ikea” I have come to depend on whereas some “nice” software I find to be annoying and frustrating. I guess a lot of it is in the expectations and I have presumbaly vastly different expectations from Mr Speirs.

He refers to “Mac Polish”, a post from Justin Williams. I must say I agree with some of it as well. I’m not particularly bothered by keyboard access unless of course he means it has well assigned keyboard shortcuts. I tend to rely on the Mac staples anyway.

Anyway – more important than “Mac Polish” is something called “function”.

Our first app you will likely interact with once. It should become part of your life, essential as the operating system itself, but it’s not something that you’ll see every day and in my opinion that will be no excuse for having poor UI.

Robert “Bobby” Scoble is usually a cool dude DESPITE working for Microsoft. Well, that’s unfair as there are lots of cool people working for Microsoft – we don’t normally get to meet them though. In todays post he misses the point. It’s not that there’s special love for Google, there’s just an article how universities are outsourcing their student email service to Google. Of course this is an attack on Exchange/Outlook right on the front lines.

And no, when MSN is the recipient of such outsourcing it’s not really an attack on Outlook because DUH, they’re owned by the same company. Plus Google is working with TWENTY universities as opposed to your ONE. So there’s TWO reasons why it’s news.

Compare:

One university ditches Microsoft Outlook for Microsoft’s MSN.

Twenty universities ditch Microsoft Outlook for Google GMail.

Bobby turns it into a “pro-google” conspiracy in the blogosphere. Hey Bob, that’s called Paranoid Schizophrenia.

I notice in the comments that everyone brings up the “Google Censorship in China” and the “Google gives personal details to the Us government” memes. Of course Microsoft would never do this. Oh hang on….they didn’t even TRY to resist the latter and I know they’ve bent over backwards to deal with the Chinese government in the past, even censoring their own dictionary!

The whole blog post reads like a playground whine “Why does nobody like me?” Rants like that are NOT going to make people feel the Microsoft love. I much prefer it when you’re telling us about the cool things you see every day in work rather than how hard up you are because Google gets a good headline.

PS. Sorry about the “Bobby” remark but I’m trying really hard to be a pundit LOL

A genius on SiliconValleySleuth writes:

PS: If you still want to argue that OS X doesn’t have security holes, you haven’t been looking at the security updates that the company has been publishing. Then you’re probably also ignoring the fact that OS X last year logged more security vulnerabilities than Windows XP.

That’s the beauty of the internet, anyone can write on it (yours truly included).

I don’t care if Mac OS X has logged more security vulnerabilities last year than Windows XP. That tells me there’s developer interest in more than the latest widget and it tells me the company is taking security seriously. Also, a lot of these vulnerabilities are not specific to Mac OS X but are with respect to the open source underpinnings which, on 90% of consumer Macs out there, are going to be theoretical only.

Security vulnerabilities are okay if logged and patched. And the writer claims that Microsoft is better at logging faults because they have the experience? Exsqueeze me? On one hand Apple is bad because Mac OS X logged more security faults and now Apple is bad because Microsoft has more experience? That’s great logic. If anything it tells me that DESPITE their experience, Microsoft still has a LONG way to go before they address the gaping holes in their security model. Vista (go buy it!), for example, has some great new security features (go buy it!) which seem cloned from Mac OS X specifically.

Exploits in the wild are A BAD THING ®. And exploits in the wild is where Windows shines. Sure, not many security vulnerabilities logged last year, but that doesn’t matter because we have MyDoom and Netsky and Kama Sutra plaguing us on Windows.

The core of this article comes from Security Focus. Who owns SecurityFocus?