Webistemology

Just because:

Feature: Lifehacker’s 2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps

Found a link to this on Lifehacker. I’ve certainly been guilty about some or all of these errors, usually in multiples:

A Roadmap to Spectacular GTD Failure · The Cranking Widgets Blog

Microsoft 2007 has a Word template for blog posting, so I’m giving it a try.

According to the opinions on one tech podcast (TWIT 117) Google bought Jaiku, instead of Twitter, was that one of the founders of Jaiku is a real ‘thought leader’. If they were referring to Petteri Koponen, his quote below may indicate that they may have got less (or more, depending on your point of view) than they bargained for.

Google’s Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues – New York Times

41 Reasons Why Your Blog Probably Sucks | Performancing.com

I’m putting this one in here, just to remind myself to check back in a while.

Wondering if I should wait for the 10.5.1 or jump right in with 10.5.0?

Mac Rumors: Apple Posts Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Guided Tour

It’s worth a look.

Jeff Jonas wrote this post as a plausible journey from six minutes to midnight to total surveillance society, after seeing the ACLU Surveillance Clock (below):

Microsoft Updates Windows Without User Permission, Apologizes — Windows — InformationWeek
“Over the last few weeks, without user approval, Windows Update has updated nine small executable files in both Windows XP and Windows Vista.”

This is a great example of how a company full of really smart people, can collectively do something not so bright. While the Microsoft Update Product Team Blog explains the logic, it remains problematic. There might be both technical and security reasons¹ for not sharing the fact that you need to do an update with your users, but neither override the need to be clear and transparent with your customers to build trust. Now we know that Redmond not only has the ability to run code on our systems with our permissions, even if we have specifically selected the option NOT to run update, but they are willing to use it. This is bad.

Peter Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad”?

Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.

Peter Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.²

OK, maybe not that bad, but still. What worries me is that this might have been a calculated move based on the perception that most Windoze users are apathetic/cynical/resigned and will just accept this as situation normal, all ****** up (SNAFU). I hope not.

• Technical: “We are making a change of the Windows Update Servers. If our users don’t install the update by such and such a date, update with stop working for them. Since Windows Update is a valuable service, we need to make sure that these upgrades are installed before we upgrade the servers”
• Response: “Fair enough. Don’t do it in stealth mode. Announce the push update and the logic behind it in advance. You will take a hit for the revelation that you can do this, but it will be outweighed by your openness.
• Security: “We’ve discovered a bug in our code. Rather than exposing it for exploitation, we are going to push out the fix without consultation, because that is the lowest risk strategy.”
• Response: “This is a better justification, but if that’s the case, then a communication to the user base shortly after the patch was pushed would have been a good proactive way to mitigate posssible backlash. What we did get was a partial apology on a developer blog”

²Ghostbuster, 1984