Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

September 6

Novell now is bundling IE with it's networking options and Sun is configuring it's workstations for Windows NT. SGI has been making Windows NT workstations for a while now, and you know what? DUH! Sun had Solaris, which is great for some people, as well as OS offerings licensed and derived from NeXT after their 30 million dollar investment into Steve Jobs' con job. SGI has had many flavors of workstations and OS configs as well as their own Irix. The point? If you want to be successful in the computer market - you sell what people want. As more enterprises continue to invest in NT based technology, a business that wants to stay in the hardware business will screw religion and all the other crap and sell what the public demands and put their own unique spin on it. SGI is still a graphic heavyweight. Sun still has one of the easiest to maintain and versitile enterprise computing operations in America. Do you hear them (apart from the CEO of Sun who is grousing that Solaris doesn't suck - in spite of the obvious votes from the marketplace) complaining that people are full of shit for not getting the first OS they put on the table? Do you hear the user base grousing that non-Solaris types are assholes for not seeing the "obvious" and are continuing to use "inferior" systems? Even the Linux crowd - which has the most tenacious base of grassroot support for a truly open and unix friendly OS - which still has dick for apps (it's great "sure", but I'll wait till I can actually get work done on it as an end-user) - don't behave like a bunch of obnoxious wackos touting their OS like a Christ figure. It still amazes me that virtually no one but Apple Jihadists are going around being arrogant fucks.

September 7
The San Jose Mercury News reports that employees at Adobe are claiming that their company is abandoning - not only the consumer Macs - but Mac OS althogether. Quote unknows source "they're not going to support Macintosh - it's one of those operations to clean house". Ouch - that's gotta hurt the design market just a fucking tad! I mean how low can you go anyway in all this? Here's the computer that popularized publishing and design in the first place - now relegated to a volatile niche interrest by the company that invented Postscript. Now of course, Adobe's probably going to spin this one back into placating Apple's management much like Quicken became the pussy of the year when they went into chicken-shit mode and allowed themselves to be subsidized back into the picture - for a limited time. This time, with all the changes happening at Adobe - I seriously doubt we've heard the last of this because one person's leak is another company's future policy that is unfolding. Personally, after seeing the track record of the SJMN, I don't doubt that some pretty heavy shit is about to hit the fan. After all, I've worked for Quark - and I could tell the members of the Apple community some shit that would turn your hair white - if I wasn't in a position to be dicked up the ass by the richest member of the gay community who runs the show there legally. Suffice it to say that Apple's slide as a source of serious revenue for software publishers has been in doubt for a while with many companies as of late. And it's only a matter of time before more plugs are going to get pulled out from the sockets as the software equation becomes just that much more disparaging. For the prospective Apple buyer - I can safely say that the situation is going to get worse - much worse - as the chicken and egg syndrome continues to work in reverse for Apple. Not surprising because it's quite common in the computer industry with dying platforms - and niche companies that are struggling to maintain relevance rather than equate public demands for productive computing tools as irrelevent to ego and pompacity. Welcome to the NeXT world.

September 8

The king of pussies - the MacMarines - report through gritted teeth that a concern of financial software, the NIAC doesn't see much point in going out of their way to support the Mac. Well fucking duh people! The investment community doens't have time for toys or the warped companies that build them with single vendor like mentality for mission critical investment management and tracking. Get a clue guys! Of course they want their flock of assholes to continue spamming the president Ellis Traub who already told them why they don't care or see any sane point in pretending to placate a gaggle of morons and why they should fuck off please. Talk about pissing in the wind! I mean telling a group of zelots why they - and most other software companies - don't have the time to support a platform that wouldn't keep a Mac only publishing concern afloat is beyond silly. It's darn sad. Instead, it's like talking about the virutes of choice to someone holding a firebomb aimed at an abortion clinic. What's the point? That the religious freaks will get wise and even begin to understand basic economics and justification twords staying in business and selling products instead of making warm fuzzies for the "troops" rallying behind dying tech from a dying company? Pulleeze. As far as the MacMarines are concerned in all this - unlucky you - well boo hoo! Call 1-800-888-Waah! Sorry to be the one to tell ya - the world doesn't exist for your benefit you delusional simps. Grow the fuck up and stop spamming publishers who don't think as warped as you do.

September 9

Salon 21 magazine's Scott Rosenberg responds to the spam-fuckers at the MacMarines and other pussies about his opinions and observations about the iMac and how it's not the greatest thing on the fucking planet. Of course he's gotten the usual assortment of threats and bullshit from infantile minds. I particularly liked his soundbite - quote - "I refuse to believe that holding (contrary) opinions obligates me, as a Mac lover, to applaud every move Apple makes - Apple's extreeme followers have adopted a bizzare corporate loyalty program". Actually, it's just evangelism and the ugly by-product of farse marketing practices from fucked up 80's huckerism and greedhead jingoism from the mind of Steve Jobs and Guy Kawasaki - but you'll get used to it. Who knows. Perhaps someday Scott, you'll get a taste for slagging off on these fuckwits fulltime as they help dig their cause that much deeper into the ground of obscure group dellusional behavior behind consumerism. It's certainly not hard to write about, in fact - as these assholes get closer to the 6 foot deep mark, you'll find them getting more distant - and more tolerable until they're just a pathetic whisper. I'm only finding the oddball squeek these days as more people move on past the moronic and get on with their lives. Although I'm sure I'm just being overly optomisitic for saying so - because with every new advertising campeign of retro origons - there's always a new wave of pigons to shit on the rest of the world their tripe and stilted belief systems.

September 10

Emedia-Weekly, the once proud to be affiliated with the likes of a computer from a dying computer enterprise, reports that Quark is promising changes in response to publishers and designers that refuse to touch XPress 4.0 or even it's updates with a 10 foot cattle prod. CEO Chuck Bland quotes "Quark is trying to change". Well here's some background info that is in Quark's own press release section on their website. Chuck is new to Quark. Very new. In fact, much in the same way Gil was the new kid on Apple's campus - there's still quite a bit of learning and catching up to be had. It's no secret that the customer service is non-existant - and that the whole release schedule for their software is tenious at best with the longest upgrade curve in the business. Perhaps it's those sub-market prices they're paying for programmers and the rest of the lot of them? That's no secret to anyone whose applied to or talked to coders who have interviewed with Quark - and it's no secret that unlike Microsoft - there's just not a lot of benfits to be had from a private company that doens't have stock to offer in the form of "Gold Handcuffs" like real organizations that aren't greedy fucks and open their doors to investors and provide benefits that are comparable to those that do. All you have to do is look at the HR page and look at what they're offering to prospective suckers to find out how disparaging it is to any other software publsiher worth their salt in today's market. Naturally the prospective upshot is that you get what you pay for - and with Quark, it's open deduction and number tallying to come to the conclusion that perhaps they're not paying nearly enough. Particularly when you calculate up all the information that is disclosed to the public in their quest to compensate anything resembling talent. With momentum like that - I wish Chuck all the best in his quest to try to accomplish something.

September 11

Eric Hubler of BusinessWeek Online doubles back on his over the top gushy-fuck praise of the iMac being "better than food" when the thing keels over dead on his watch. Totally and utterly dead. He harkens it's newfound usefullness to a boat anchor or doorstop if memory serves but suffice it to say that it didn't serve his needs other than the grief column. After an hour plus on tech support - much the chagrin of Apple pundits who think that Apple's tech support puts - say - IBM and Microsoft's to shame - he finds out that they don't know dick. All he get's is an endless stream of "it should work" from the tech support people. Well, shoulda woulda coulda is nice - but it didn't did it? Expect more reports of the same nature from users and returned units in the future as we head into Xmas unless Apple get's the worst reject rates in the computer industry down to reasonable levels. Otherwise, what little rep Apple has with the American consumer is going to go down the toilet faster than Ross Perots investment with NeXT.

September 12

Apple proports that Claris e-mailer isn't dead. Uh huh. And Claris isn't up for sale, and their other software hasn't been deep-sixed, and there were no flaming Macs released to the public, and Apple monitors didn't explode in Japan, and the Lisa didn't bomb but was a succesful product living on as the Mac XL, and the Apple II was forever, and Apple invented the GUI concept, and the G3's are faster than Pentium II's, and the iMac isn't a repurposed NC concept, and the iMac can get on the internet easy. The list goes on and on - but the worst of the misinformation stems from Steve Jobs whose worst outright lie was when he was cornered by the press in January of 93 and disavowed that NeXT was ceasing their hardware manufacturing. Of course, 2 weeks later - it was confirmed. It's just another bullshit story where the truth isn't ready until the spin doctoring is available that can make what really happens justifiable - or when really fucked-up - a valuable bonus to corporate strategy that will benefit the end-user when it's just another stumbling block on the way to the cemetary. Don't expect these things to get any less crazy - because the deathmarch is just getting warmed up. I'll be carving the tombstone for whatever nutty soundbite comes opposite of "we're not dead" in the Apple PR sheets.