February 2007 Archives

Early this month I wrote about Bill Gates' humor-ectomy regarding the new Apple ad campaign that both pokes fun at Windows and implies that Microsoft is stodgy and out of it.

In response to the post, a reader graciously emailed me a really funny animated cartoon on YouTube that portrays Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs as...well, mere words can't do justice to it.

Here's the link. Watch and enjoy.

John Thompson would like to interrupt the current Vista marketing blitz to express a note of skepticism.

In a recent interview with CNET News.com, the Symantec CEO was asked if he had installed Microsoft's new OS. Thompson replies:

Thompson: No, I have not. I see no need for it for what I do online today. The machine that I use is the one provided by our company, and we have not made a commitment to migrate to Vista and therefore there is no reason for me to use Vista.

A little snippy, if you ask me, but I know what Thompson's saying: I too wouldn't run out to buy something if my needs already were being met by current tools. Unless, of course, I succumbed to a marketing blitz. Or were able to trick someone else into paying for it. You know, a mark, a patsy, a chump.

Then Thompson goes on to blast Vista in more specific terms:

Consumers should not be confused. Vista is not a security solution. Vista is an operating system, and Vista provides some very important advances from Microsoft's perspective and for the industry's point of view on building a more stable, more reliable, more secure operating platform...

Stop right there! You have to admit that stuff sounds pretty good.

...but people still need the efficacy that comes with the products that Symantec and others in the industry build, and so we should not be confused by the marketing rhetoric with what Vista is. It's a hopefully much better product than XP or any of its predecessors, but it's not a security solution.

"People still need the efficacy"? I hope that's not Thompson's idea of effective marketing rhetoric.

Coincidentally, just before I read this interview I was talking with an industry expert on Microsoft, and he was saying that he would recommend Vista to users, something he couldn't say about XP.

These conflicting opinions confuse me. However, soon I'll be able to form my own opinions of Vista. I've ordered a laptop with the new OS and should get it in a week or so. I'll let you know how it goes.

Why can't all the hackers be hunted down and quarantined, like Hannibal Lecter? Or shipped to Mars? There's water there. Seriously, enough is enough.

The latest (from the Associated Press):

Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.

Experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.

Redirected from Iran, no doubt! (Talking point submitted by White House.)

The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in "org" and some other suffixes, experts said.

The story said that while the attack wasn't noticeable to most Internet users, computer scientists around the globe worked frantically to prevent the data bombardment from crashing the computers that handle Internet traffic. Looks like the good guys won this round.

One thing I wonder, though, is why we don't see more of these attacks on Internet root servers. It looks like the last big one was more than four years ago. Maybe there are attempts all the time and we just don't hear much about it.

Either Bill Gates got up on the wrong side of the bed the day he sat down last week with Newsweek's Steven Levy to discuss Vista and other tech issues, or he needs a humor transplant.

I've got my money on No. 2, but you still think he could have better finessed Levy's question to him about Apple's recent commercials featuring a stodgy Gates look-alike representing a PC and a hip, thin dude representing Macs. Instead, Gates comes off as petty and resentful.

Here's the exchange:

Are you bugged by the Apple commercial where John Hodgman is the PC, and he has to undergo surgery to get Vista?

I've never seen it. I don't think the over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.

How about the implication that you need surgery to upgrade?

Well, certainly we've done a better job letting you upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade. And I don't know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don't even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you're really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to it.

Whoa. Calm down, dog! I am a Windows user, and thus the target audience for Apple's commercials. And I can assure Mr. Gates that I do not in any way feel they imply that I am a dullard or klutz. Other Windows users, perhaps. But not me.

And the rant about lying is just weird. It's almost Donald Trumpish. Dude, they're commercials, not Consumer Reports specials. And they're funny, without being overbearing. Furthermore, your company has a huge edge in O/S market share and you're the richest person in the world. And you're letting this bother you?