How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Being in the Internet communications business I typically have several major PC platforms running in my office for testing and research purposes. My Windows XP box died several months ago and I had not replaced it. I think I was simply avoiding the issue.

Yesterday I bought a new Windows PC. It is a HP Athlon 3500+ with 1GB RAM, 250GB HD, LightScribe Drive, media card readers galore, USB + FireWire on the front, PCI Express slot for when I want to go crazy with Quake 4. Pretty quiet box. The Athlon throttling feature is pretty neat. The hardware is great, and all for 600 bucks. On the front there is a HP sticker that asks boastfully “Can your PC do all this?” Well, no. My Mac can’t do all that. And certainly not for 600 bucks. For 600 bucks I get a Mac Mini that doesn’t even burn DVDs.

The thing that wrecks it all is Windows.

Windows, Windows, Windows. God how I hate Windows. What an inelegant OS. Why do I need to go through this again?

An example. Only one. I bought a 802.11g USB dongle so I could get on my wireless network and not have to string cables. I installed the driver from the included CD as instructed. I plugged in the dongle. I didn’t work. I didn’t recognize any networks. So I found a little configuration program that came with the CD. It seemed to work, but wouldn’t acquire an IP from the router. So I found a box deep in the network configuration setting “Let Windows Manage this Wireless Connection” or some such thing. So I checked that and it was able to get an IP. What the difference was I shall never know. Then I restarted my machine. The network would not come up. I had to go through the same process again because Windows wasn’t saving my preferences. I will have to do this each time, apparently (yes, I ran all the Windows updates). I had the dongle plugged into one of the the USB ports on the front. I wanted to move it to the back, so I unplugged it and plugged it in again. “Found New Hardware” appeared on the screen. Windows insists on installing a driver each time I unplug and replug the dongle. Amazingly stupid.

Add this to Norton and Windows fighting with each other over who gets to be my firewall (I already have one so I want niether) and you have the following: a really nice piece of hardware ruined by lousy software. Already.

I hate Windows.

Moblogging with pictures

Testing moblogging clients…got photos working…u*Blog client on Palm OS 5.4 is the one I like the best. Vagablog works well too. If you know of any others, please let me know.

Steve Jobs’ Next Moves

Digital convergence. The buzzphrase has been around for a long time. Steve Jobs is at the cusp of making it real in the entertainment industry, and is starting to make moves that bring his intentions into clearer focus. With the recent revelations about the new iPod interface, the idea of digital convergence suddenly struck me like a bolt of Pixar lightening. Having a clickwheel appear on the touch-sensitive LCD screen of an iPod with a full face display is a great idea. Bigger screen. No need for mechanical input. Brilliant. What next? Here’s what’s next: [Read more]

Fly! Be Free!

Run, doggie. Run like the wind. Run from all the madness.

Show dog goes missing at JFK airport

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — A dog that won an award at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week escaped from its cage at John F. Kennedy International Airport, setting off a search.

The whippet broke free at about noon Wednesday, said Tiffany Townsend, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports.

Port Authority police were working with its owners to search the area where planes arrive and depart, she said. The airport, in Queens, covers more than 4,900 acres.

Owner Jil Walton told the Daily News that she feared for the dog’s life. Vivi, a brown-and-white whippet, was headed to California after the nation’s most prestigious dog show.

“When it’s cold she’s not happy,” Walton told the newspaper. “She’s a skinny little thing and I don’t know if she’ll make it. That’s what’s killing me.”

Barbara Nyby, a member of the American Whippet Club in California, said the dog won an award of merit at Westminster. The dog’s formal moniker is Bohem C’est La Vie.

The dog had been booked on a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight. Atlanta-based Delta said it was working with local authorities to retrieve the animal.

More than 2,600 dogs were entered in the show at Madison Square Garden, including 25 whippets, a short-haired athletic dog similar to a greyhound. Best in Show went to Rufus, a colored bull terrier with an egg-shaped head.

Re-christening Web 2.0: the case for iWeb

Much groaning has been heard about the clunky moniker “Web 2.0.” The label tries to encompass a range of technologies, approaches and insights about how to make the web more relevant, timely, interactive and interconnected. Hot technologies like blogging, podcasting, videocasting, RSS and others form the core of the larger phenomenon. But slapping a 2.0 thing on the end of something to denote newness is such a 90’s thing to do. It’s lame. It’s over. Period. Need a new signifier.

How to give it new name? Well, just look right in front of your nose. The current decade is driven by “i” consciousness. The ubiquitous prefix is popularized by the hottest company of the decade: Apple Computer. Apple is right at the centre of this personalized, individual-driven phenomenon. iTunes. iPod. iPhoto. iDisk. iEverything from Apple’s marketing division…you think they are stupid? They are on to something. Duh.

The “i” means “I” as in individual contribution, individual taste and individual expression. The medium has shifted and grown to allow for this to happen. Examples of this are many. Comments, ratings, playlists, photosharing, blogging, podcasting…too many to mention.

The new technologies are about allowing “i” to have a say. So, iWeb. That’s what Apple calls their new web publishing utility, but so what? They are going to object? We should steal it.

Obviously another meaning of the “i” is “Interactive”. The new web is truly interactive and dynamic, allowing people and groups to communicate instantly via technologies like RSS and Atom. A change on one website has an immediate ripple effect across the self-aware, interactive web.

There is a movement in web design that fits with the “i” revolution as well. “i” is for Intuitive Interface. Design is getting better. The focus of a website is now starting to emerge via several ubiquitous idiomatic elements of design.

The irony of all this - and this is where “i” makes even more sense - is that the older element in the equation, the Internet, was all about Web 2.0 before there was a web. Think about it. The Web really stifled the Internet. The Internet was all about collaboration and sharing before the web came along. Technologies like Usenet, BBS, freenets and e-mail ruled the early days of the Internet. These were deeply interactive and communicative technologies, albeit green letters slowly rendering across a black background (unless you had a nice terminal emulation application that let you spice things up). And it happened long before CERN came up with the Web.

CERN froze the Internet in its tracks while simultaneously making the world stop and stare at the pretty colors of inline links and images. We had a telephone and we suddenly shifted back to smoke signals. It was like a busy little ant getting caught in a big dollop of honey. Mmmm tasty…uh oh. Stuck. Static websites were informative and pretty, but that was the end of the story. Database-driven websites were an improvement. Comments came along and started the idea that people might like to participate, and the rest is history. Faast forward to iWeb.

The fact is the Web has only now finally caught up with the Internet. So iWeb makes sense.

“i” stands for “I”

“i” stands for “Interactive”

“i” stands for “Intutive Interface”

“i” stands for “Internet”

iWeb.

Let’s just call it that.

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