For the hard of thinking….

According to iLounge, Apple today sent out a mass e-mail with helpful development links and a more detailed message regarding their status.

“We have many more requests than we can serve during this initial beta period,” explains the follow-up e-mail, “so we must limit the Program at this time. We plan to expand it during the beta period, and we will contact you regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. We appreciate your patience.”

Okay? We done crying about it?

Mark Pilgrim moved his parents to Linux because their Mac experience was souring.:

I had originally chosen Kontact/Kmail for their email needs, but I ran into some strange bug where Kmail refused to send messages. Basic functionality, right? You’d think someone would, you know, notice. I realize email standards are wide and complicated, but still. An email program that can’t send email is pretty fucking useless.

my father threw me for a loop and asked how he could realign the print heads and check the ink levels. I have owned printers for many decades and I have never done this, but apparently it’s a regular occurrence for him, and the Mac printer driver let him do it. So OK, I poke around Google, and lo and behold, there’s a package for that. But it doesn’t work. Oh wait, I need to install gimp-print too (God knows why). Now it aligns the print heads, but it gives an error message while checking ink levels. But it works from the command line. But only as root. Weird. Unresolved. Grr.

Sounds like they’re off to a great start!

Cool, I didn’t know you could just grab entire articles from the IntarWeb and publish them wholesale without even giving an attribution link!

That’s what Rixstep has done?

Scott Anguish, one of the nicest guys on the Intarweb is more than a little upset because Rixstep has repeatedly refused to remove his content which has been ripped of wholesale. What’s worse…

Scott writes

My copyright has been violated by his reproduction. Yes, the DMCA would allow me to get it taken down, and I am exploring that route. But given his track record, I see no way to stop him from doing this. He’s published incorrect and horrible stuff about me, Aaron Hillegass, and others, before.

It is imperative (and the reason I temporarily pulled things down) that long-time readers of Stepwise know RIX stole this.. I do not approve of his doing so. His use does not fall under fair-use, or commentary. He’s simple theft.

I’ve worked 13+ years on supporting developers by maintaining Stepwise (which truly is a labor of love) and I don’t want this theft and misrepresentation to damage that effort.

Rixstep gets traffic by stealing content, misrepresenting the opinions of the authors and doing the whole “keeping it real” thing in the face of millions of new Apple converts.

I must say it’s an interesting marketing step, calling Apple’s customers idiot fanboys while trying to flog them a replacement file manager. It really motivates me to buy it.

Scott Anguish is a pillar of the NeXTStep community. Anything that offends him and, in his own words “makes him sick” should motivate everyone interested in the Mac and especially Cocoa.

I downloaded the cool CTU ringtone for iPhone inspired by “24″ and eagerly loaded it onto my iPhone.

Of course….no-one rang me all day so I didn’t get to quickly take the call, stand up in the middle of the training course and say “National Emergency, I gotta take this!” What is that all about?

Mood: Sad

Intuit recently issued an update for QuickBooks which, due to some fuckedupness deletes the entire desktop folder. That’s pretty serious shit right there.

RixStep, the whiner of the week, was caught by this bug but blames Apple. I’m not sure how “unsafe” code written by Intuit really qualifies as being Apple’s fault considering that the Intuit developers must, at some point, have tested their code on a Mac OS X system. Sure - there are bound to be bugs in Mac OS X - every system has them - but this is what testing is for. We can all justify the release of unsafe code but deleting the entire desktop folder? Not acceptable. I’ve seen this kind of problem before, in the olden days when Bungie was an independent company they released Myth 2 which had the possibility of wiping out large amounts of your Windows install. Eep. Bungie released a fix pronto and said sorry.

Rixstep, however, points the finger at Apple and not at Intuit. Oddly.

His reasons:

Steve Jobs came back to Cupertino triumphant. Not only did he get to finally run his own company but he came with the world’s most fantastic system in his suitcase. A system the Grade A Idiots already ensconced in Cupertino have done their best to destroy.

Did anyone else miss the NeXT takeover of Apple in 1997?

The greybeards at Apple responsible for the bugs that he complains about are actually NeXT greybeards. It’s nothing to do with KoolAid. It’s nothing to do with Apple’s head honchos and their file system APIs. It’s absolutely 100% to do with the “world’s most fantastic system”. Where do people get this kind of hyperbole? That a CEO waltzes in with an entire management team and a new operatiing system in return for $400 million. And it’s still the fault of the OLD guys at Apple when there’s a bug and a problem? Catch a grip. Apple is NeXT. The same fusty old NeXTies who built the world’s most fantastic system are the same fusty old buggers making Mac OS X. Blaming it on a nebulous “Apple” is just fairy tales designed to help you sleep at night. You seriously think there are areas of Mac OS X that Jobs doesn’t make his presence felt at? Do yu think for a second that once this bug affected Mac users that there wasn’t a high level meeting to find someone to go and explain how it was Intuit’s fault? At risk of certain death from their Steve Vader leader?

The solution is, of course, is that if you don’t like it go back to using OpenStep.

Unless of course it wasn’t actually the world’s most fantastic system….to be honest, the post reads like the inane ranting of a stalker.

The Rixstep blog spends most of it’s time complaining about Mac OS X. But mostly it’s a damn good read. It would be nice to see a post about why, if Mac OS X is so broken, Rixstep’s writers continue to use it.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt makes an entire article for Fortune out of blockquoting a Forrester Research article

Forrester predicts that the iPhone will find its way into many enterprise environments — if it hasn’t already — because C-level executives are buying them and expecting support from IT. It’s only a matter of time before the iPhone filters down the corporate pyramid, and IT should have a strategy to handle these requests.

and goes on to provide 10 reasons why IT should not or will not support the iPhone.

Balls to that. Here’s my counter-offer.

1. Supports industry standard POP and IMAP with SSL out of the box This gives the IT manager a huge amount of choice in which mailserver to use. No longer is he limited to using Exchange and the legacy that entails. And yeah, you can get Push email too.
2. Developer support is huge months BEFORE the SDK is out. Companies such as SAP have admitted they have early access to the iPhone SDK and are into the development of an iPhone app for their software. When the SDK hits the general public in February you’ll see an explosion of applications.
3. Lacks a keyboard so more of the real estate of the device is usable Especially relevant for the web where we spend more time consuming data and reports. Instead of 30% of the device being turned into a chiclet keyboard which you need to learn to use, you have all of the size of the unit as a screen.
4. The best support for web standards anywhere because it uses WebKit at its heart - the same rendering engine used by Nokia’s smartphones and also Google’s Android OS. Open source and developed by Apple. I did some shopping the other day, first time I’d ever shopped online using a phone. On the company’s REAL web site, not some cut down mobile version. And yes, over EDGE too.
5. Premium features for standard prices as the iPhone’s features far outstrip the capabilities of other smartphones yet is priced around the same. Again, reduce your support burden as you find executives don’t need to lug around their fragile laptops.
6. It’s made this splash and it’s been out less than six months which has to be remembered. Already iPhone web browsers outnumber people browsing the web on Microsoft’s Windows CE/Pocket PC operating system and that OS has been shipping for 10 years now. It would be stupid to ignore the momentum.
7. It’s built upon a UNIX based operating system, with cutting edge developer tools, and a revolutionary user interface.
8. It’s got RIM, Microsoft, Nokia and others scared. Being a good IT person is about providing technology that provides a competitive advantage. These companies wouldn’t be scared for nothing. It’s up to the IT department to squeeze the iPhone for the competitive advantage.
9. This is the first generation Not a usual advantage? Perhaps not. But the iPhone beats the pants off anything out there in the first generation with 1.0 software. Sounds like time for the IT department to kit themselves out with one and learn this new device.
10. The End User will use it. That’s absolutely terrifying to a legacy Microsoft-styled IT department. Their entire subculture is filled with FUD. It’s too fragile to enable anything useful and anything that isn’t taught on the MCP course is simply beyond them. God forbid that anything should be “easy” or that it should work as planned. The two biggest bluffers I ever met were a Laurel and Hardy duo of Wintel SysAdmins. Nice blokes I’m sure but utterly useless in IT.

By far one of the best reasons for getting an iPhone would be to rub the nose of “ringzero” from Brisbane, Australia in it. His comments on the Fortune story highlight why most IT departments should be outsourced to some of the big outsourcing companies because then when your IT service is crap, at least you’re getting what you paid for.

His number one reason for why iPhone shouldn’t be supported?

• Users are stupid. They will lose, break or abuse this.

Times like this I loathe other IT people. And it would be the primary reason I’m not keen on attending IT conferences. Sentiments like that, about your Users, don’t make you sound big and clever. They make you sound like an ass. And it’s exactly the same sort of stereotyping bigotry that makes cops think they are above the law. Wintel IT folk have to remember that they’re utterly disposable. There’s another guy round the corner who’s cheaper, smarter, better qualified and isn’t a bigoted prick.

When I bought and activated my iPhone, I asked for o2 not to include insurance. I have good enough technology insurance certainly to cover my iPhone as it covers all the other technology items I own.

Then I find this in my new o2 bill.

I’d urge everyone to check their bills for these errant additions. Some companies simply cannot be trusted.

So, here’s the deal. Let’s say you want a job as an IT pundit. You first find out whether there’s any jobs. There’s one at ITWire, a site that reports to be “connecting technology professionals”. You use your charm and wit to get a job. Brilliant. They didn’t bother to even check your IT credentials!

So this brings me to Apple’s Xmas gift: wireless networking problems, by Sam Varghese. Like Sam I have a gleaming MacBook Pro. Like Sam I use wireless networking. I also use a variety of wireless routers from Apple’s own brand, premium brands like Cisco and of course, cheap as chips brands which come badged by my local IT shop in a white box.

And no, I’ve not seen any wireless problems with Leopard.

So, what do we have here.

Two people both using ostensibly the same hardware, using the same protocols, using likely the same embedded operating systems in the access points and yet one of them has a problem.

Sam rubs his grey RMS® beard and starts to write an article where he will moan that his wireless isn’t working and blame it on Apple. He makes allusions to a recent fix being very vague ad then not fixing the issue. Can’t really have been a software problem then, Sam. Then, he’s going to finish up with some fairy tale abut how one time at BandCamp he and some Linux d00ds cooked up a hack to help Ubuntu users connect to wireless network and therefore proprietary software is inferior to GPL software.

Okay, so let’s dig a bit deeper.

1. He doesn’t mention which brand of router he’s using yet this is, in my experience, likely to be the source of issues. Maybe they’re a heavy advertiser with ITWire? Wouldn’t be good to publicly criticise them. Maybe they use an embedded Linux as their OS? Again, not politic to criticise when you’re all about the Free® software. No sir.
2. He doesn’t mention his troubleshooting steps. Because then someone could point out he’s doing it wrong. He’s not created a new Location, or deleted the entry out of his Keychain because they are, after the router, the most likely source of issues with wireless. The Locations issue boils down to know-it-alls changing values they don’t really understand. And sometimes the password in Keychain can get confused especially if you change your Wireless network password.
3. He claims Apple is ignoring the people who have this issue without actually linking to any of the places where people are complaining about the problem. We can’t then verify if they have correct setups, whether they have bothered trying to fix anything or whether, like Sam, they just want it broken so they can kvetch
4. He’s not specific with his log files or error messages because, let’s be honest, he doesn’t want this fixed easily. Mainly because the error lies between keyboard and sofa. Sam - you can fix this. Really you can - and it won’t require writing one line of code.

We don’t really want to dwell on the fact that the networking stack is Leopard is Open Source under the APSL which, despite not beig GPL, is a Free license (according to the FSF at least, though Sam disagrees).

Apparently Apple must now “be well aware” of the issues Leopard has caused with “laptop users”. He’s seriously that generic as if half of the people who bought Leopard since it’s launch (probably half a million laptop users) are all having the same issues as him.

Uh…Sam….you don’t work in tech support do you?

[Interesting to note one of his earlier stories: Was it Automatix or bad RAM that killed Ubuntu?]

Reuters has this little snippet about SAP planning to release an iPhone client despite analysts falling over themselves to tell us the iPhone isn’t business-friendly:

On Monday, SAP broke with precedent by saying it would introduce a version of its upcoming customer relationship management software for the iPhone before launching versions for mobile devices from RIM and Palm Inc (PALM.O).

The reason? SAP’s own salespeople were clamoring for it, saying the iPhone was easier to use, according to Bob Stutz, SAP senior vice president in charge of developing customer relationship management software.

“This isn’t necessarily iPhone deployment by way of the IT department, but it’s by people who really want to use this device and IT is responding in a really positive way,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with market research firm Jupiter Research.

This is exactly the way that the market should work. The customers want something, they build a case and the IT department responds in a positive way. In the most simple of business cases, “easier to use”, that’s exactly the sort of response an IT department should respond with.

I’m not a fan of Blackberry devices. In a previous life I was forced to help people use them when attached to the O2 network and I can say that simply because their IMAP implementation in the device sucked the big one it was not a pleasure to use for email. It was functional, it was something the customer tolerated, but under no circumstances did it take away the pain. (And frankly the number of keyboard shortcuts we needed to look up made it more reminiscent of using Wordstar or DOS than a modern handheld device).

February brings us the iPhone SDK and SAP is one of the first of many companies which will be queuing up to get their applications onto iPhone. Others we’ll see will be Skype, VNC, a Terminal, an AIM client, an MSN client - maybe even a Yahoo client (as long as they all maintain Store-And-Forward IM messages).

Sure, analysts tell us that an Exchange client is essential but that’s for Microsoft to produce and we have to ask them why they wouldn’t create Outlook for iPhone and why everyone expects Apple to create it? Same reason they don’t produce Outlook for Macintosh - because the Mac would continue to replace Windows in business but at a frighteningly quicker rate. I’ve said before there is no option out there for Groupware which realistically compares to Exchange. SAP is creating a client for their corporate applications and not expecting Apple to build it. So, come on Microsoft, where’s the client for iPhone?

(Why does Microsoft get that benefit of the doubt? Cisco creates clients for their servers/routers. SAP does for their applications. Apple does for their servers. Why does Microsoft get away with this crap?)

What application would you like to see on your iPhone?

The article The REAL Reason the Linux Community Didn’t Come Up With the iPhone starts off with an interesting premise.

Lately, there seems to an explosion of interest in Open Source.

Sure. As much as there has been an explosion in interest in the last decade.

The article is really a rebuttal of a piece about how Open Source rarely innovates. The argument wobbles between support for “wisdom of crowds” to holding up Android and OpenMoko as sterling examples of how the Linux crowd could have come up with the iPhone.

I think, sadly, the author missed the point.

Open Source rarely innovates. I say rarely because the few Open Source projects that have shown some real innovation are usually the itch of one or two smart guys.

I’ve always considered laziness to be a very important quality in someone. The desire to get things done with the minimum amount of work is central to my own work ethic. I want results and I will work for them but I have a hard time starting any piece of work where I cannot see the value in it. (Sending emailed reports is one area that is pointless when there are web tools which generate them. Go click a bloody button)

Some of the best IT guys I know are excessively lazy. They’ll work solidly for 3 days to create a script that will shave five minutes off their work day or remove some piece of work that is boring or otherwise undesirable.

The developers behind most of the Open Source apps out there are similarly lazy. They work hard until the functionality is good enough and focus on areas like stability and when they have achieved their goal, the momentum decreases. Areas of development, like user interface, often are left alone because these guys are hardcore techies. Editing text files is easy. Why should there be a nice GUI? They’ve created apps like vi or emacs to simplify an aspect of their life - it’s not meant to be taken as a life philosophy.

Read the comments. Count how many Linux-philes deride the Mac because of eye-candy without realising that eye-candy in many cases is responsible for the usability of functionality.

What the author misses is that while Linux and Mac OS X share a distant ancestry in that they’re both based on crufty old UNIX designs from 20 years ago, Mac OS X has innovated in ways that are not reliant on the underpinnings of the operating system. Through frameworks they’ve made some great functionality available to developers who want to concentrate on the business logic. Their frameworks inspire people to create new and fabulous.

This is why Android, despite being touted as an answer to iPhone, looks like ass. Might also be important to note that while it is now Open Source, it wasn’t OS during development and there remain a lot of questions about how it will be presented. It’s not shipping for another year on any handsets (if indeed it gains traction) so it’s ultimately vapourware.

Similarly, the innovation apparent in OpenMoko seems to be routed in the rounded edges and the fact it comes in two colours. There’s certainly zero innovation in the current design and based on the fact it can’t make calls or send SMS messages currently (in the GUI) it’s going to be a long while. A developer picking up OpenMoko will be saddled with hardware that barely works. His time and energy is going to be based entirely on working with others to overcome the current shortcomings and get the device to the state it needs to be to compete with the most run of the mill mobile phones. Trotting it out as an example of how the Open Source innovated is very poor show. You can Photoshop/GIMP all the screenshots you want. It currently doesn’t do any of that. (if I draw a picture of a manned rocketship on the surface of Mars, is it the same as actually building it? No, didn’t think so).

The virtue of the iPhone is not in the fact it has a phone or an internet communications device but that people actually find it easier to use. They think it looks lovely, they want to paw it and stroke it. You don’t think “looks” or “eye candy” are important?

Why has the white/orange model of OpenMoko sold out?

The whole article is so inconsistent that it actually makes me cross, gives me irritation.

However, the corporate for profit model is simply NOT how Open Source works or wants to work. In fact, innovation is not usually a profitable undertaking. Consumers fear change. What they love is incremental improvements and businesses like releasing new versions of the same thing - it helps drive sales. The only ones who are free to innovate are those with nothing to lose - like the Open Source world, for example.

Innovation is not usually a profitable undertaking?

If Innovation is, as the author describes, the very lifeblood of Open Source, then where the hell is the innovation in Open Source? The author is quick to correlate “borrowed” or bought technology with Open Source.

It’s one thing to point at Mac OS X and claim the GUI was invented at PARC and Engelbart invented the mouse - but the innovation present in the original system in the first Macintosh was so far ahead of what Xerox were offering and what Microsoft would eventually deliver that it beggared belief. The reason - a couple of really really REALLY smart guys at Apple who had a vision. The PARC design couldn’t overlap windows but the Mac developers didn’t know that. So their version had overlapping windows. What the author misses is that Apple paid Xerox for access to their lab. There was no Open Source involved, these were both companies investing in innovative research.

I’m not a critic of Open Source; quite the opposite. Open Source is incredibly important in establishing the fundamentals of a system. The guys in Infurious are very motivated to feed back patches into the frameworks they are using in order to build apps. We use Linux, we use BSD, we use MySQL, we use Apache, we use gcc - Open Source is at our core.

I am a critic of revisionism however. Trying to paint IBM as a proponent of Open Source 50 years ago is silly, as is claiming that Xerox PARC was the result of open source philosophy.

It’s a silly article.