Automation Adventures

John C. Dvorak discusses the problems Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage experienced this weekend, and what the implications are for all online “Web 2.0″ application.

But, frankly, this whole article builds up to the last two paragraphs, where John warns that when the last dot-com bubble burst, company after company went out of business, leaving the users stranded. And the next bursting bubble is on its way…. This fits with some of the other columns he has recently written.

I think we’re having a completely different dynamic in this “bubble”. First of all, it’s debatable that there is a bubble – although with VMWare’s recent IPO that has significantly increased in price (about 150% of initial offering), there are some indications. Second of all, although there are some smaller companies where your data may not be as safe as on your own computer, I don’t see Yahoo, Google, and even Microsoft going out of business any time soon. The biggest risk might be that they close down one of their services (like Google Video). And if they would do that with Google Docs, I assume they would announce it months in advance.

One thing John misses in his “reverse time line”, is that by introducing the desktop, you’re replacing one point of failure (the web service) with another point of failure (your desktop). Even on a desktop a backup is invaluable – so how does that differ from having a backup of the data on your web service? At least I know that in case of an outage at one of Google’s services, they have backups. Right…? Google…? You do, don’t you…?

This morning when I got to the computer at work, it was a little sluggish. Not thinking anything of it, I decided to restart the machine – it’s running Vista 64-bit, and for some reason there are some problems with Microsoft’s Most Secure Windows Ever.

However, during the shutdown, I saw the message “Configuring Updates” come by. And sure enough, during the startup, Windows happily announced that it was “Installing Updates”.

Wait a minute. I know it was a long weekend, but I sure as hell didn’t install any updates that required a reboot… So what happened?

Well, apparently, “Download updates but let me choose whether to install them” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. And according to Slated’s blog post, I’m not the only one.

When checking the update log, it shows an update to the Windows Update program. Most likely this is related to the Windows Genuine Advantage problem from last week, but what good is telling the OS that you want things done a certain way, when it then happily turns around and does something else?

I think they call that a bug. Some other people call it malware. I for one feel less and less in control of a machine that is sitting on my desk, and that I use to write software for our company…!

The newest offering from TiVo, the HD DVR, might suffer from a problem when your cable provider uses Switched Digital Video (SDV).

This blog post on Lauren Weinstein’s blog signals a problem that might prevent the new HD TiVo’s, that are using CableCARDs to receive the channels, from receiving all channels when your cable provider is using SDV.

As it happens, two days after that blog post, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) made a filing with the FCC according to Lauren’s follow-up post. However, this solution (the OpenCable option) doesn’t sit well with the Consumer Electronics Association, who find the solution unduly expensive and cumbersome to develop.

Until a final solution is developed, the users of the Tivo HD DVR might have to resort to the old method of infrared switching of their cable boxes, instead of relying on the CableCARD technology…

Apple’s Summer Press Conference reveals a set of new products:

New iMac

A new iMac, in aluminum and glass. Much like the mock-ups that were floating around the Internet. 2 screen sizes: 20 and 24 inch displays. Also, new keyboard: 2 USB ports, 1/3 of an inch high, wireless? Bluetooth 2.0. Not sure, but the mouse is probably new and wireless as well.
20″ model comes with 2.0GHz or 2.4GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, 24″ with 2.4GHz Core 2 Extreme. ATI Radeon HD graphics card (ouch), 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.0, up to 4GB memory, up to 1TB of hard drive. 20″ 2.0GHz for $1199, 20″ 2.4GHz $1499, and 24″ 2.4GHz $1799.

UPDATE: There is a 4th model listed on the iMac product page, a 24″ 2.8GHz with 2GB memory and a 500GB harddisk for $2299.

UPDATE 2: the wireless keyboard and mouse are options, $30 (extra) for the keyboard, $20 for the mouse.

iLife ‘08

iLife ‘08 consists of iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD and GarageBand.

• iPhoto
  iPhoto has a new option, “Events”. This groups albums, so it minimizes the number of albums you’ll have to browse through. Options to hide photos and see only the ones you like, “smart” albums (e.g. 3 stars and above).
• .Mac
  .Mac will be integrated with iPhoto, producing .Mac Web Gallery. Also, the iPhone has added “Send to Web Gallery”. Basically the same idea as iPhoto ‘08, integrating the iPhone with .Mac. It’s easy for others to be able to submit photo’s to your .Mac Web Gallery, and these submissions will be auto downloaded to your iPhone. Also increased the storage capacity from 1GB to 10GB, priced at $99.95 a year.
• iMovie
  iMovie ‘08 is a complete rewrite. The idea is to make the creation of movies really, really fast. The idea of a video library with the same scrolling as the photo albums. Very easy editing and building of movies. Plus, it’s simple to make a version for iTunes, put it on your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Options to encode your movies in multiple resolutions.
• iWeb
  Integration with other web services: Google Maps, Google AdSense. Media index feature, where the photos of your site are easily indexed. Support for personal domains, and new themes.
• iDVD
  For those people who don’t want to send a huge file across the Internet, there’s the option to make DVDs. New themes have been added and pro encoding for higher quality.
• GarageBand
  Two versions included, GarageBand for regular multi-take recording, and Magic GarageBand for playing with a virtual band.

iWork ‘08

iWork ‘08 consists of Keynote, Pages, and the newcomer, Numbers.

• Keynote
  Keynote ‘08 includes new text effects and new transitions. Also new is Instant Alpha: grab a photo, take out the background, keep the part that you want, and include it in your presentation. Smart Builds lets you automatically generate animations from pictures that you drag into it.
• Pages
  Pages ‘08 adds a new mode: apart from the page layout mode, there’s now a new word processing mode. There is built-in change tracking, and it’s compatible with Word. Pages ‘08 comes with 140 built-in templates.
• Numbers
  New in iWorks ‘08 is Numbers, “a spreadsheet for the rest of us”. Done in the style of Pages, your spreadsheets are basically layed-out on the page. It includes intelligent tables, readable formulas, simple sorting and reformatting without affecting other parts of your spreadsheets. It can also import from or export to Excel.

Q&A session

There is a Q&A session with Steve Jobs, Tim Cook (COO) and Phil Schiller (EVP Product Marketing). During this Q&A the following nuggets are revealed:

• The new iMacs are noticeably thinner, not just the keyboard, but also the computer.
• The Mac Mini gets a refresher today as well.
• There is Apple TV news coming, just not today (today is a Mac day).

Thanks to Engadget for the live feed.

The Amarok blog has a sneak peek at the upcoming Amarok2 release. The following things are new:

• New playlist.
• Better use of Magnatune genres
• Support for Magnatune gift cards.
• CoverBling (experimental version of CoverFlow)
• Use of Plasma (the new desktop and widget technology in KDE4) for the central area.