Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

March 1

More musings on the people I love to give shit to. The MacJihad, The MacNazis and the MacGestapo. I find it ironic that the people who scream like Himmler on a bad day that it's crucial that their cause endure and flurish under the flag of 6 colors and will defeat the vile forces of evil at the cause of a just and holy reich, take themselves so damn seriously. Ok, that's probably pushing metaphors a bit, but you don't have to look further than the MacMarines to find spit and bile in their message base declaring a holy war against the rest of the planet that doesn't see their views. Kind of reminds you of something that happened 50 years ago doesn't it? Nazi assocations aside, it's that twisted logic that pervades the idea of choice as something that will expire if Bill Gates soldifies it's position as a standard bearer on the most important industry since Television and VCR's. I find it interresting that Sony never tried to push the DOJ or a senate hearing on the term monopoly while taking a pouding in the open market against JVC and their format in video tapes. I never heard the French threatening trade sanctions along with England and other Euro standards for television broadcasting with PAL vs NTSC. These were formulas for standards and once they emerged, the marketplace responded with the purchasing of VCR's and television sets from different manufacturers that waged a war with features and price rather than telling you how wonderful the resolution and scanlines were rather than just providing the tools that were in demand at a price that reflected what people would pay for. People have vastly decided that what Apple has demanded wasn't worth the price of admission. However, if you dare say otherwise in the BBBS you'll get lambasted into the ground by a sect of fanatics that will only concede anything resembling sanity if you claim not to have the bucks, or what software you actually need won't run on the Mac. Of course the former of the two arguments didn't stop one person who I love to name drop - klary (though I love his prolific contributions dearly, and seriously) - who claimed that if you could only afford a Wintel, you deserve what you got. Now how pompous is that? I mean sure it's one thing to defend what you can afford to pay for - for whatever reason - but to snipe that someone who can't afford an exclusive and nonessential diet of caviar deserves what he get's because he wasn't capable of justifying the expense? I mean we're talking real odd logic stream here - and klary isn't the worst offender by a long shot. In fact I'd say that aside from his hypocracy of crying over personal attacks when he's not doing the same thing, his arguments at least make some sort of sense for the most part. Others make the Nazis suddenly seem insightful for the amount of perverse brain cell bending you have to endure just to even provide a source of empathy for the conduct that has often been repeated by the latest wave of computer orphans. If you were old enough to remember the Amiga users, the Atari users, the Apple II users, the Adam users, and even the NeXT users, you realize this isn't annoying, it's redundant. I guess David Byrne was right.

March 2
I love to gloat. Champion gloater here. I mean you're talking to a gold medaler in gloating - gloating like he's never gloated. Boldly gloating where no man has ever gloated before. Yet I really love to gloat when the instance of saying "I told you so" passes by on occasion. Weeks ago I hinted that the CompUSA deal with Apple stores had frighteningly similar overtones to the crap BusinessLand had to endure with Steve Jobs and NeXT on their last tenure. Well, the megaton bomb got dropped in the form of the latest reports from CompUSA who announced that they would be taking a loss after being pushed aside by other retailers dabbling in technology on a grand scale, like Best Buy. What is Best Buy doing that's giving CompUSA grief? Selling cheap computers and devoting all of their shelf space to those cheap computers. Did I mention that they don't sell Macs? Well, while CompUSA plods on given the star-status that being a buddy to Steve Jobs provides, they are taking a bath with higher priced computers taking away valuable shelf space from their otherwise sellable Wintel inventory. Well we've seen what happens if you decide to give your ego a ride with Steve Jobs. Just ask Ross Perot how much money he dumped to feel cool in Jobs' presence. More than 200 million by last count. Now in a historical redundant precident, CompUSA has sacraficed buisness santiy in moving computers that people acutally want to buy - namely under 1000 dollar Wintels in favor of computers that focus on snails as part of the brand ID package. I wonder how much longer CompUSA will allow their sales to fall to a similar crawl in the face of daunting retail market numbers from people who have dumped Apple, rather than get into bed with them.

March 3

Caught the Bill gates senate roast put on by the bozo from Utah which has seen more companies get blown out of the marketplace - in his state - on his watch. You actually believed that this was going to be an open analysis - as billed - on the current practices on the high-tech arena? Get real, they wanted Bill's blood. The funny thing was, they didn't expect Bill to take control. I would have to give USAtoday the highest reviewer marks after hearing, on real-audio CNBC, a marvelous carnival that only Dean Martin could otherwise host - if he was still alive. The best had to be hearing the smoke come from the Mormon's ears after his question was disected to pieces by an otherwise cool headed Gates. The personal fave moments for me was hearing Jim Barksdale from Netscape squirm after Stewart Alsop pointed out the 19 out of 20 people preference for IE rather than Navigator. This started no less than 4 sound bite references from the Govt boxes about their inferior browser until Jim had to intervene an objection to the word "inferior". I guess the truth hurts - particularly in the limelight. The other fave moment was watching Scott McNeally loose his bully-boy cool time and time again while Gates smiled eating the whole session up. It was odd because all sides seemed to love trumping up soundbites out of context into some relm of relevance - but it's more interresting to hear Scott defend his Java as the replacement to Windows when being used by Bill Gates as the reason he's so paranoid about the marketshare he's acheived in the face of dauting and continual changes - particularly with Java. Scott then somehow had to shrivel up and die and backtrack on his ambitions with Java as an OS and not as a mere kludgy extension to browsers, one that's being unbundled by Netscape. God I wished Gate's had brought that one up at some point. Otherwise it was basically all pathetic grandstanding as the Govt pretends to have a grip on an industry that largely regarded everything they talked about as nonessential and obsolete by the time the inquery was concluded as they hashed estorteric arguments and ISP agreements and channels that most people turn off or don't even bother to install. I mean does anyone really even use PUSH internet crap anyway? Come on Washington somebody get a clue please!

March 4

One thing that struck me funny by all the companies at the table during the Washington farce was how out of touch they are with the internet in general. I mean here's a system that was pioneered by universities for the most part - using a series of server protocols for the web that was also invented by the universitites and so far only Microsoft actually seems to have made any acknowledgement to the people they licesened their browser code from (the Mosiac people). Everyone else - including Sun and Netscape are just trying to bend what is an otherwise anarchaic entity to their own damn brand names - and they're going to loose not because of Microsoft's competitive tactics, but because Sun wouldn't get the internet if it bit them on the ass. I mean JAVA - great idea. But then so was interactive television. Let me know if you give each other the time of day. Apart from JavaScript - which isn't related to Sun in the slightest - no one in their right mind get's too much Java into their webpages as a whole because their primarily the biggest reason to crash everyone's browsers and computers - if you have the patience to download the damn applets in the first place. Granted I have one here, but it's pretty small and I make darn sure that there's CGI counting first, and the applet just makes things look pretty. Compare that to Scott's vision of an entire OS wrapped around that god-awful code. I mean sites with frames were only a big deal until people started using CGI and server databases to put together webpages the same way. Frames took to long to make any sense, screwed up navigation, and knocked the bejeezus out of many browsers that couldn't handle it. It's funny because I predict that JAVA will be dumped like tea into the Boston harbor as fast as frames have been stripped from websites - or at least downplayed by sites that allow frameless versions. The reason that JAVA and other protocols are incompatable with the web for many reasons is because the web wasn't supposed to be anyone's ballgame to begin with. I mean Bill Gates isn't being silly when he claims the same argument about paranioa of Microsoft taking over the web. They can do some neat things with it sure - but they're not going to make Active X a standard anymore than SGI has failed to make any waves with VRML - outside of specific intranet related niche funtions. Niche solutions are fine - but don't expect Joe Blow to start making them the foundation for a website anytime soon. Even plug-ins are on the way out for the most part with Shockwave being used less and less as well as hundreds of other media formats that exist from single vendors. To date only one format seems to be pervasice and that's RealAudio. But with Quicktime 3.0 streaming media - even this solution may wane in a heartbeat. Lord knows if the W3 consortium comes up with new GIF specs that puts audio back into the format like it did with GIF87 as opposed to GIF89, which could include VRML, Quicktime like video as well as audio and animation - the entire corporate media consortium would collapse in a heartbeat. The reason - people like standards that are open. Not one's that have someone's logo plastered on it. But I don't expect Apple, Sun, Netscape, or even the govt to catch onto this anytime soon. Then again Netscape might be getting a clue - after all they DID unbundle JAVA from it's latest version.

March 5

This is just a short afterthought after all of the above but something just struck me as interresting and ironic about all this Govt vs Microsoft crap. Microsoft is peaved that the Govt is telling them how to run their business as well as denying what people have been telling Microsoft what they want in Windows. The funny thing is, it's already happening by proxy. The current DOJ probe is looking into allegations that they are breaking the agreement they hashed out back when Windows 95 came out. Now the Senate comittee is wondering if a broader look needs to be evaluated with Windows 98. So, why would Microsoft fear Govt meddling if every major consumer OS they've put out in 5 years is suddenly under Govt scrutiny? I mean here's a whopper of a factoid - why when Microsoft finally does something right - and improves Windows from it's sorrier incarnations preceeding 95 into something people can actually use, would the govt give a damn? Why would so many other companies be touting the anti-competitive argument unless their products suck? I mean, I don't see anything that prevents them from matching Microsoft step by step - lord knows, others like Nader and his ilk claim there's no innovation there - like at Apple. But if Apple's so damn innovative how come they never get called onto the carpet like Microsoft's last two OS releases? Could it be that no one in the real world really gives a crap about Apple anymore? Could it be that Apple has been so plodding with evolutionary releases that they couldn't scare a fly with their "revolutionary" updates? I don't recall anyone complaining anytime Apple included an OS update that stepped on a developers toes like Microsoft is being accused of. But then I guess Apple's not really a threat to anyone, since you actually have to have marketshare for anyone - let alone the DOJ and a senete subcomittie hearing - to give a shit about you. I would say that if there's MacJihad people out there sniggering over the whole Govt drama, they might wonder why they're not getting so much as a blip on the radar from the public let alone any kind of spotlight or limelight. It's called relevance in the marketplace - and while Microsoft's drama may be packing them in on Capital Hill you can hear the crickets chirping over in Cuppertino California it's so quiet. Ok, perhaps that wasn't too short. Oh well.

March 6

Another hole get's blown away by the shotgun of reality to the Apple inspired marketing myth that Macs are easier to setup, maintain, and most importantly get onto the web. Well here's another shocker from MacWeek's Adam C. Engst - quote - "Mac servers with dedictated internet connections take 3 to 8 weeks to setup". I mean WOW! That is really an empowerment tool. I mean why waste all that time mucking with Windows NT when you can blow man-weeks paying people to get slower servers with inept redundancy to host your ISP's customers? Oh, well, because Apple claims they're easier to set-up. I would hazard a guess that 3-8 weeks is a slight tip of the hand that they're not quite as easy as promised. But then when was the last time that Apple's marketing overpromised something, to justify the existance of technology that couldn't find applicable justification to be bought by anyone in particular? Is it just me, or do you get the impression that Apple is playing grab-ass with a handful of straws on this one? If they keep this up they'll be farting spitwads in no time, for the next justification rants on why the hell you should buy into their silicon line of Brooklyn Bridges. Trust me, New York taxi cabs can get you a better deal. But that's only speculation - I personally favor my own real-estate holdings of swampland in Florida. Fridgidares for eskimos anyone?

March 7

I know it's been a slow week with Microsoft getting all the attention with ironic rationalization and connections with Apple, but here's a wierd bit of news that still managed to catch my eye in time for inclusion in this week's hit parade. Newton users were staging a protest at Apple headquarters to defend the 50 thousand to 100 thousand flops that were foisted on the PDA market for the last decade. OK, flop may be to harsh, how about revenue slide-unimittigated disaster play? Granted the last one's were pretty spiffy - and the division was profitable for the last year or so - but for 100 bucks more, I've got a catalogue loaded with laptops for you to parouse. Of course, the drawback is they don't have the Apple logo emplazoned on them. No the protesters in their own words - quoting Adam Tow of the Newton Developers Association - "we can't let one man's prejudices tear down the foundation created by the thousands of dedicated people over the past decade". And no he wasn't referring to Bill Gates, he was talking about Steve Jobs. Well I've got news for you Tow baby - he will and he did - and there's nothing you can do about it except cry into your free coffee provided by Apple in their parking spaces. What makes me wonder is, when the MacOS is shot in the head like a cruely well-photodocumented arrest of a Vienamese prisioner of war in Siagon - will they be foisting the same pathos ridden exercise on us again? Oh man, you can count on it. Bang!