Disorderly Content

I've been reading a lot on the Interwebs about Songsmith, Microsoft's software for would be vocalists everywhere. Understand that I hate Microsoft with a rare and wonderful passion; they are and always have been an evil that should be stamped out. But with Songsmith they've outdone themselves. It is to karaoke what karaoke is to opera. Or worse; I'm having trouble coming up with an analogy to justify just how awful it is. We're talking "Decline and Fall of Western Civilization" awful.

Just one example should suffice, although YouTube is full of them. Radiohead's Creep as interpreted by Microsoft:

You're welcome.

Update 01/28: Charles Arthur makes with the explanation of just why Songsmith is so evil and why it's so Microsoftian, which he seems to think aren't the same thing. Which may explain why I read his blog and he doesn't read mine.

There are rare moments when I love Microsoft, and this morning was one of them. I woke up to announcements on various blogs that all over the world there were 30 GB Zunes that were frozen into inoperability. Granted, that's hardly a crisis for most of the world, who think a turd brown music player is a spectacularly unattractive thing to carry around. But for the few, the proud, it must have come as quite the inconvenience.

Now we have confirmation from Microsoft that they've identified the source of the problem, which is the device's clock's inability to deal with a year of more than 365 days. 2008 has/had 366, you may remember, which at least in the Zune's eyes (if it had any) is one too many. Microsoft assures the few, the proud that things will return to normal on day one of 2009. They haven't indicated any plan to provide a fix. Then again, what are the odds of a 30 GB Zune surviving to freeze again on December 31, 2012?

Amazing. After all these years, I finally got to be among the not so few, the not exactly proud, the malware victims. No, it wasn't one of my Macs; how could you even ask such a thing? It was my work laptop, running Windows XP. The vector? Internet Explorer and MySpace. Apparently, I ran into a MySpace profile that was infected with something called Mal/ObfJS-AV, which I'm guessing involves Javascript. Good thing said laptop is equipped with Sophos Anti-Virus, which has been watching silently for the past two and a half years, ready for just such an occasion. Now I'm running a full scan of the laptop, and hoping it really is able to find all the bad stuff.

Hmmm... suddenly I'm thinking an antivirus program on my Mac might not be such a bad idea. Not for Mac OS, but for that copy of Windows XP I have ready to run on Parallels, on the off chance I have need of a Windows app...

I wrote earlier about all the trouble I was having with Excel 2008 on my Mac. Bad went to worse, and finally to totally fscked; any attempt to modify one of my spreadsheets leads to an application crash. Out of curiousity I brought the same sheet up on my work laptop, a Dell Latitude running XP, and wasn't entirely surprised to discover that it worked just fine. That was one more nail in Excel 08's coffin, and I took the only practical action: I reinstalled Excel 04. It's PowerPC-only, so it doesn't work brilliantly fast. But working slowly is better than crashing quickly, wouldn't you say?

"Microsoft: We will sell no software before its time. Unless we can."

I was in Los Angeles yesterday to participate in a panel discussion for my day job. I arrived pretty early for the talk, LA traffic being somewhat unpredictable, and sat down in the speaker's room to relax and to enjoy the free WiFi. Another panelist arrived, from Microsoft as it turned out, and immediately went into sell mode with the other attendee in the room. He was trying to get this gentleman to fill out a lead form (name, company, contact details; you know the drill), and was offering the chance at a great prize: a Microsoft Zune. I had to snicker when his victim said he had no interest in a Zune, as he'd just bought a new iPod. Mr. Microsoft had clearly heard this sort of thing before, and trotted out the Zune's best feature, one the iPod couldn't match: FM radio! More snickering ensued, since neither he nor I listen to FM much these days. Not even NPR?, we were asked. That's why we listen to podcasts, we agreed. And watched as Mr. MS deflated a little.

Eventually it was time for the talk, and Mr. MS again used the possibility of a Zune as an inducement to fill out the lead form. And there was more and louder snickering, as most of the audience joined in. And for just a very brief moment, I felt sorry for my fellow panelist. Needless to say, it passed quickly enough.

I've never been a fan of Microsoft products, but this is beyond ridiculous. A few months ago I made the mistake of upgrading (a word that becomes ever more ironic) to the latest version of Office for the Macintosh, largely in hope that a native Intel version would outperform the emulated PowerPC version I'd been using up to then. It didn't. And worse, not only didn't it perform better, but it had serious bugs, with graphs that didn't display correctly or wouldn't let me change parameters, and regular crashes. An update eliminated some of the crashes, although it left me with repeated popup dialogues complaining of nonexistent problems. (If I'm out of memory, how come you stop complaining after I cancel the dialogue a few times?)

But, I thought, even Microsoft has to get it right eventually. So when I heard there was a new update out, I couldn't wait to install it. It finally showed up this morning, and it made things so much better, in much the same way that a tornado cleans up a neighborhood. Yep, now even the smallest change to my spreadsheets crashs the program. Every. Damn. Time. Excel has gone from extremely annoying to completely and utterly useless. What's the next update going to do: set my apartment on fire?

Update 05/15: A quick update. I think the problem is Excel's background error checking feature, which, by the way, complains every time I use a range that includes empty cells. I turned off background error checking and was able to get a version of the spreadsheet to update without crashing. So I'm back in business, and slightly less furious at Microsoft for selling me such a piece of utter crap.

Update 05/15: A little later... I tried updating a cell in my spreadsheet and watched it go into an endless processing loop, pegging one of my processors at 100%. After killing and restarting Excel, I discovered that the act of loading another spreadsheet had turned background error checking back on, including for the sheet where I had explicitly turned it off. So not only is background error checking hopelessly fucked, but it insists in being in my face about its fuckedness. Thanks so much, Microsoft.

Update 06/25: Another month and a half, another Office update. And this one seems to have undone the damage done by the last one. My spreadsheets don't crash, at least for the moment. And isn't that what we all don't want?

Yeah, I know; what's so newsworthy about that? But hear me out.

With the release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 for the Mac, virtually everything I run on my Mini is now native Intel code. This is a good thing, since as amazingly well as Rosetta did at emulating PowerPC on Intel processors, native code's bound to run faster and in less memory. So I was waiting for the last holdout, Microsoft Office, to show up in a native version. Which it did a few weeks ago. And which, I have to say, is totally craptacular by even Microsoft standards. And yes, I know a phrase like "Microsoft standards" is a punchline.

What's wrong with Office 2008? Not much, beyond the bugs, and the misbehaviors, and the crashing. Which it does. A lot. I have spreadsheets with graphs I dare not touch, knowing that they will crash Excel. Every. Damn. Time. And then there are the popup warnings about my exceeding the number of fonts in a spreadsheet. Except that I don't have more than a couple of fonts in my spreadsheet. And that when I dismiss the popup it comes right back. Up to a half dozen times before it finally shuts up about not doing something I'm already not doing.

For a second I thought I wasn't going to have to write this post. Microsoft's auto-updater told me it had something to install. Which turned out to be an update to the auto-updater. Funny; that's the one piece of Microsoft software that isn't total dreck.

I remember opening the box on my first iPod and being impressed by how easy, and beautiful and even organic it all felt. Poor Microsoft. It seems they can't get anything right...

From Boing Boing comes word that Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage servers, the ones your PC calls to prove you aren't trying to deprive Bill of a few more pennies, are dead, and likely to remain dead for the next few days. That means that anybody running XP or Vista whose system phones home will have a very expensive paperweight. Me, I'm just glad I refused to install WGA on my work laptop, no matter how many times Microsoft tried to sneak it into a Windows Update. Even if it means I can't install Windows Media Player, at least I don't have to suffer from "features" like this. And of course, it's one more reason to love my Mac, which doesn't make me prove I'm not a thief.

On Thursday I had a day trip to Portland for work. On the way back, the gentleman seated next to me wanted to show off his new Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad. Nice machine, I guess, although he seemed to be having more than a little trouble with it. The problem? Vista, Microsoft's latest answer to a question no one seems to have asked. So here I was, Mac fan and unwilling Windows XP user, helping him figure out the new, more intuitive user experience that Redmond has been working on for lo these many years. I have to say that I wasn't impressed; Vista is far uglier than its predecessors, at least as far back as NT. And all those gaudy graphics come at a high price, as his battery gave up the ghost less than halfway through our relatively short flight. (To be fair, he probably drained most of it at the gate, while we waited for our delayed aircraft to arrive.)

But if our experience was less than ideal, it's nothing compared to this guy's. Richard Rasker decided to confirm a rumor that Vista burns CDs and DVDs in a nonstandard format. And instead, he discovered a level of customer hostility one generally doesn't find outside a Terry Gilliam movie, or maybe a Walmart. Read it for yourself and enjoy. Although your enjoyment may be limited, assuming you ever need to buy another PC. Me, I'm thinking Macbook.

If it weren't so sad, it'd be funny. No, I lie; it's both! I refer here to a report of documents that cause Microsoft Word 2007 to toss its cookies. Which is bad, but not as bad as Microsoft's response: that crashing on a bad document is the right thing to do. Here's a Computerworld article about the original problem, here's Microsoft's reasoned (according to them) response, and here's Computerworld's nyu-uh! response to the response.

(Just one more example of why I still read Slashdot.)

Okay, so Windows Vista is out. And to no one's surprise, Microsoft is treating this thing like it's the second coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But does the rest of the world have to go along? Watching Bill Gates on Monday's episode of The Daily Show, all I could think is that all those billions can't improve the basic dorkiness of such a special person.

And you just gotta love Microsoft's marketing department. I mean, who picked that slogan? The "Wow" Starts Now? C'mon, where's the wow in this thing. Other than, "Wow, they want how much for this crap?" Or "Wow, how the heck do I make sense of all these different versions?" Or "Wow, when the hell did I give Microsoft ownership of my computer?"

But the best "wow" moment has to be the launch. In the photo on the Mac Daily News website, you can see just how wowed a bunch of industry execs are at the chance to share a stage with Microsoft. Not a "wow" moment, is it? More like a "whuh?" followed by a clunk as they fall, senseless, out of their chairs.

BTW, it's entirely a coincidence that this is my 666th blog post. Really.

Update 02/01: This is rich! Apparently, it's possible to attack a Vista system by getting the owner to download and play an audio file. If speech recognition is enabled, it'll hear the commands spoken by the file and do what it's told, including deleting files, shutting down the system and who knows what other kind of destructive behavior. Read about it on George Ou's blog at ZDNet.

On my shuttle trip from Oakland to San Jose Airport on Friday I was sitting next to a security guy from Microsoft (well, at least it's steady work) who was explaining that there was nothing to the European Union's efforts against his employer except pure anti-Americanism. They just hate America, he said. And I turned to the fellow on my other side and we whispered almost simultaneously the same word. Something about natural fertilizer, if you get my drift.

It brings to mind our president's views on those who question the wisdom of burning the Bill of Rights where it applies to this neverending war against terror(ism|ists). Either you're with him or you're with the terrorists; there's no third choice. And I guess you're either with Microsoft or you're with those who hate America.

Can I please have Door Number Three?

So I've just arrived at my hotel after a long day of driving. Through snow, if you can believe it; don't these people know it's the end of May? Anyway, I get to my room and plug in my laptop. The work one. The Dell. And moments after getting an Internet connection that little word bubble pops up to tell me there's an update to install. Now normally I'm a trusting soul and would just let it do its thing. But I was curious. So I selected Custom Install to see just what Microsoft was updating. And I discover it's something called (and I'm not making this up) the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. Even better, here's the description:

The Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool notifies you if your copy of Windows is not genuine. (Well, duh!) If your system is found to be a non-genuine (sic), the tool will help you obtain a licensed copy of Windows.

And why exactly would I want to install this piece of finkware on my (okay, my employer's) laptop? What benefit is there to anybody other than Microsoft?

Gotta admit, I needed a laugh right about now. Thanks, guys.

My brand new job delivered a brand new laptop, which I've been busy configuring. It's a Dell Latitude running Windows XP of some kind. The hardware's okay, the usual compromise between size/weight and capabilities. I'd love more screen real estate, although if the battery life is as advertised, that's a big win over my PowerBook. But usability? That's another story.

I needed to send a fax, so I had to find, fill out and print a fax cover sheet. So I plugged my USB cable into the HP printer they left me and then into the laptop. It noticed the newly plugged-in device, identified it as an HP Deskjet 5100 and brought up the wizard (can you imagine how cool that must have sounded in the Microsoft marketing meetings? The Wizard!!!). Which offered to go looking for a driver. Which it didn't find. So I had to go dig out the CD and try again. And after about three minutes of futzing around, it actually let me print my fax page.

I mention all this because I'd gone through the same exercise with my PowerBook last Tuesday. With one small difference: I plugged in the cable and Mac OS X recognized and configured the printer before I had a chance to tell it anything. It was both effortless and instantaneous. Windows, alas, is still neither.

The Register has a story that takes the Microsoft/Apple rivalry to an extreme. It seems that Virtual Earth, MSN's photomapping site, denies the existence of Apple's Cupertino, California campus. Compare this picture of an empty lot with the Google Maps version of the same location.

The article goes on to point out that Virtual Earth hasn't heard about 9/11; it thinks the twin towers are still there. So it may just be that Microsoft is too cheap to buy current satellite images. But personally I prefer the conspiracy theory...

A quote from a Wall Street Journal article about the D: All Things Digital conference they put on:

Pressed about security by Mr. [Walt] Mossberg, Mr. [Paul] Otellini had a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. And when further pressed about whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else."

Remarkable words from the new CEO of Intel, wouldn't you say?

At the end of a collection of miscellany on Groklaw we find mention of a funny commercial Novell produced in response to the announcement by Microsoft that users of Windows NT are now officially SOL: all tech support for the OS has been discontinued. I think the ad's hysterical even if you're not tech obsessed. But what do I know? My own nerddom is in its fourth decade. Or possibly its fifth; it's so hard to remember.

A blog called monkey methods has some shocking pictures of Bill Gates, taken for a photospread in Teen Beat magazine. Horrifying then, horrifying now.

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the link. I'll be sending you the therapy bills shortly.)

Thanks to Google Blogoscoped for this one: it seems MSN Maps & Directions needs help with both its maps and its sense of direction. As you can see here, it routed a trip between Haugesund and Trondheim in Norway via England, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Why do I get the feeling Microsoft's plans for world domination got mixed in with some 1940s invasion plans?

Now that Bill Gates has declared open source advocates to be "sort of communists", Bill's own color apparently being more the blue of screen death, the pinkos of the non-Microsoft world have responded with a combination of raised eyebrows, laughter and some really cool graphics. The one at right, a Copyleft takeoff on Soviet Constructivist artwork, was created by Jamie at The Nonist.

Funny; I thought calling people you disagree with Commies went out with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Shows what I know.

John Battelle's Searchblog has a piece about how entering the phrase "more evil than satan" in Microsoft's new search engine returns Google as the first result. (Here: try it for yourself.) This is Microsoft's revenge for the fact that a search for that phrase at Google back in 1999 returned Microsoft as the top result. But what's interesting about this is that, although Microsoft manipulated these results as a bit of tit for tat revenge, Google says they didn't fire the first shot. They claim Microsoft turning up on the evil search was just a bit of accidental humor.

So what can we learn from this? That Google doesn't try to manipulate results? That Microsoft does? That being rich and powerful and world-dominating isn't enough? That if you say mean things about them, or even if they think you did, you should prepare yourself for attack?

How about this lesson: Don't believe anything you hear from Microsoft. Because if they don't like the answer, they'll make one up.

And this time it's not a scam to get me to forward the message to everyone I know, 'cause Bill Gates is dying to part with some of his billions. No, this comes right from the shaved gorilla himself. A 2000+ word missive from Steve Ballmer called "Customer focus: comparing Windows with Linux and UNIX", it's Microsoft's latest desperate attempt to convince the world that Linux isn't really cheaper or more reliable or less prone to attack or just generally better than Brand M. I don't know which I find more offensive, that Steve is using questionable studies and anecdotal evidence to protect his monopoly, or the fact that he's spamming the world to deliver the message. Because I sure as hell didn't give him my email address for crap like this. Reports of patch releases for Office for the Mac, the only Microsoft product I use, sure. But I draw the line at anti-Linux propaganda. Besides, even Microsoft themselves are capable of a more nuanced OS comparison.

A while back, I read that Microsoft had won a major battle for the hearts and minds, not to say wallets, of future video consumers. The people behind blue lasers and other standards for high definition video devices chose WMV9 over MPEG-4 as the codec for HD DVDs and other devices in support of HTDV. That's a major loss for Apple and the other members of the consortium behind MPEG-4. And for anybody who believes that Microsoft has way too much power already.

But wait! What's this? According to Slashdot, Microsoft misrepresented the state of its technology, its code, its test suite and the availability of a reference implementation. There's a lot less there than they claimed. And the people behind the standard are reevaluating. Looks like reports of its victory may have been a wee bit premature.

From PBS by way of Slashdot: Robert X. Cringely's latest column talks about recently released documents from Burst's lawsuit against Microsoft. And the story they tell of Microsoft's deceptions go beyond the usual "I answered the question you asked, not the one you meant to ask" legal games. Fascinating stuff if true.

Gotta love the reactions to Microsoft's head weasel announcing that all the music on iPods is stolen and that nothing like that ever happens in Microsoft's world 'cause they got DRM. The Register's is my favorite, pointing out that all the p2p file sharing networks got their start, and have most of their traffic, on Windows. And that Apple has Digital Rights Management too, at least in the iTunes Music Store.

I know that lying by telling the (partial) truth is just the latest waypoint on the slippery slope of spin (sorry for the mixed metaphor). But at some point it stops being spin and turns into outright dishonesty. Besides, blaming Apple for music theft is like blaming the people who maintain sidewalks for the homeless who live on them.