Thanks for the positive review. I've been listening to Trey and Matt talk about the movie on Comedy Central (among other places) and they seemed to downplay expectations for it (e.g. "It's hard to parody a Bruckheimer film and make a goodmovie). First show Friday for me!
First, an editor's nitpick: It's case in point.;-)
Steve's return to Apple brought some much-needed focus and discipline to the company. It doesn't leak like a sieve any more, its employees and managers tend to stay on-task since there's a clear direction and the people who work there--from top to bottom--are the best.
Besides, he's going to be back at work soon--they don't dare f*** up!
Right now, somewhere, there is a government agency putting important data into long term storage, which was created in Microsoft Word. In a few years that data may be unreadable, not because the medium has deteriorated, but because the software that created it will have evolved or no longer exist.
I have a copy of Microsoft Word 5.1a created on November 15th, 1992 that still runs under Mac OS X 10.3.4. I imagine there'll be a day when it doesn't run, but it's still more useful than most of the dreck they put out now. If I'm around in 200 years, I'll try opening that file you mentioned.
"Linux and Mac OS X are running rings around Redmond and Ballmer's only answer is to exhort the troops." No they aren't. Not yet at least.
Just one example: browsers. Tell me you would have predicted two years ago that Internet Explorer would be under the siege it's experiencing right now. Microsoft can't really fix what's wrong with it and they're trying to get everyone to wait for Longhorn--whenever that arrives. One of my customers whipped out his credit card and bought a used iBook (dual-USB) on Tuesday just because of the latest announced series of exploits. I've installed almost twenty copies of Firefox and Mozilla in a week's time.
You can "see that the day when some of the alternative operating systems [threaten] Microsoft's OS share" because that day is already here."
Microsoft's strength has always been embrace and extend. Its weakness comes in the decisions on whether to "exploit" or "extinguish." It has killed a legion of technologies/business/competitors whose contributions to the world of computing have come to nothing or have been FUBARed--just because Microsoft feared the competition.
It has bowdlerized standards when it could for its own gain (e.g. Kerberos, SMB, etc.). Microsoft sees computing as a zero-sum game where it MUST win and everyone else must lose. Rather than compete by making itself look good (innovation, quality, service), it has been always willing to win by making others--including itself--look bad.
Then comes Open Source--a game where they either play fair or they don't play at all. Now, Microsoft is stuck with having to REALLY innovate. Linux and Mac OS X are running rings around Redmond and Ballmer's only answer is to exhort the troops. That won't work.
Microsoft needs to adopt open source, retool its operating system and--for once--put all that money toward excellence rather than bullying the market, ripping off innovators and/or buying ascendancy via restrictive contracts with manufacturers. If Apple announces Mac OS X for x86 or some other innovation comes along, the good ship Microsoft is going to have a BIG hole below its water line and not enough buckets to bail with.
The history of personal computing is comprised of sea changes. Ballmer's memo acknowledges that. He remembers the position he was in ten years ago.
I'd been working at Apple for a couple of years and had occasion to take apart a few of the old SE-SE30 models. The guy who trained me told me--first thing--"be CAREFUL" when you take the video card off the CRT; pull it straight out or you'll bust the yoke and ruin the CRT.
Well, my then-wife's boss needed a new hard drive in her home machine. She lived in Oakland, a little over an hour's drive away from the south bay. I got my Torx wrench, jammed over there, got the thing open and, in my nervousness snatched the video card off the yoke.
SNICK!
That cold, sick feeling in your gut when you know you've just screwed the pooch...
I told the woman that her machine needed a new part that I didn't have. I scuttled back to Menlo Park, took apart my OWN SE30, harvested the CRT, put it in, finished the rest of the work and drove another hour back. For this, I got $100 for four hours work (should have taken an hour). It took weeks to replace my own CRT.
PATIENT (raising his arm): Doctor! It hurts when I do this. What should I do? DOCTOR: Don't do that!
My partner and I carry CD's with the latest patches (Blaster, Sasser, etc.), Stinger, Spybot, AdAware and CWShredder.
The XP machine doesn't connect to the network--router or not--until are the patches are on, anti-spyware measures are installed and the built-in firewall is configured. No exceptions.
It's basically a higher level of Pascal, so it's not completely underpowered either.
I downloaded Turbo Pascal 5.5 just for the purpose of teaching someone the language. It is not underpowered. There is very little that can't be done with it. It's certainly as robust as C.
Every April Fool's Day at Apple during the System 6-7 days, those of us who knew anything about programming would cobble together startup apps or extensions that would do a variety of annoying things (e.g. constantly restarting the machine, displaying an insulting message and shutting down, playing the system beep with a long duration, etc.).
Booting with the shift key held down was the victim's salvation almost every time.
First of all, this web page provides some illuminating information on the exploits that exist in the Mac world.
Secondly, your questioning of my credentials is predictable. You mention the IIfx. My bug report--submitted in about mid-development--resulted in the SCSI terminators being modified after the machine was released. That was a MUCH bigger problem than any virus you could mention. Your dramatic depiction of the effeects of a corrupt font is touching, but it's still a problem today and isn't necessarily caused by viruses. Not a red herring, but definitely pink.
You're right about my working in a "sanitized, utopian environment." That's because we were so aggressive about fighting infections precisely because of their mode of transmission. One bad floppy could infect millions of users if it was included in a build. One careless hard drive transfer could ruin a product release. Believe me, you didn't want the infection traced back to something you did.
But I stand behind what I said. Go over Apple's product lines between late-1987 and December 2001. It'd be easier to list what I didn't work on than what I did. Your post is interesting but it doesn't represent the typical Mac experience. Period.
The only two viruses of any consequence during the time you're talking about were WDEF and the CD Autorun bug. WDEF didn't do anything and autorun could be headed off completely by turning off the ability to automatically play CD's when they were inserted. If you knew your stuff, you'd know that the exploits were transmitted via removable media (thus "no modems" or networks).
I worked at Apple for fourteen years beginning in 1987. I'm working as a Mac and PC consultant now. I have yet to see a Mac damaged by a virus (and the guy who downloaded that "beta copy of Word" got what he deserved).
If you ran Disinfectant on every machine, you were wasting time.
The majority of my contacts with Mac customers entail software issues, the vast majority of those involving lack of disk maintenance. I usually run Norton's Disk Doctor and Speed Disk, charge a nominal fee and send them on their merry ways.
Then, I get a lot of machines from do-it-yourselfers who get stuck out of their depth. They buy crappy memory, put it in themselves, and then wonder why their machine freezes on POST after a few uses. They don't jumper ATA hard drives correctly. They don't know about the excellent third-party hardware installation support from this site. I make quite a bit on those;-)
Next, I see a lot of stuff that has just plain worn out. Especially hard drives. Some people's drives are adversely affected by moving from drier, mainland climes to the humidity here, but Apple customers--by and large--wear their stuff out. I just had to turn away someone who wanted her Apple IIe fixed (the spring that ejected her floppies was worn out).
Electricity here isn't the stable commodity it is on the mainland, so I see more damage due to that than I would normally. Some early iMacs have weak flyback transformers that don't stand up well under fluctuating power and monster thunderstorms.
I don't carry a parts inventory and I advise customers with machines older than the original Power Macintosh G3 to get another machine. I refer them either to Apple's website or to Powermax because used Macs retain their resale value and are usually a great buy.
My only regret is that I can't sell new Macs. Oh, well... surf's up.
I touched my first Macintosh in December of 1987 because my best friend said it would be better if my resume were presented as a Macintosh document. From a cold start to finished product (including figuring out how to print: 20 minutes). That resume got me a job as a contractor at Apple. I stayed there for the most part of the next fourteen years.
The projects I worked on: Communications Toolbox, AppleShare 2.0, AppleShare PC, AppleShare IP, PC Exchange, Copland, MacTerminal, quality lead for the Scriptable Finder, iTools (later.Mac), AirPort, LC II Apple II emulator, HyperCard Audio Help, every Mac OS from 6 through X, every machine up to the original iMac (I was laid off in 1997), and every machine from the 1999 crop to the domed iMac in 2001. I now make my living as a Mac and Windows consultant on the big island of Hawaii. I've owned (or own) a PowerBook Duo 250, PowerBook 5300, iBook (dual USB) and a Sawtooth G4. I, too, know the machines, the software and a lot of the people who made them. Been there, done that and still own a shitload of t-shirts.
I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say that I know Macs.
With all I know, I will always purchase new Apple hardware. I'm recommending Apple hardware to everyone for whom it is appropriate.
I can rebuild a Mac from parts I buy at WalMart (monitors, CD and DVD drives, external Zip drives, speakers, mice, keyboards, hard drives, routers (wired and wireless), USB and FireWire cards in both PCI and PCMCIA flavors), RadioShack (memory, USB keyboards, mice and hubs) or Office Depot (miscellaneous). As long as the equipment is up to spec, I don't worry about compatibility.
Apple isn't perfect. It has its quirks. But I fix more Macs more quickly with less hassle than just about any Windows shitbox you could put in front of me. And they stay fixed.
Go to the Mac OS X section of Version Tracker and look for "AirPort Configurator." It's a nifty little Java app that offers lots of nice bits for anyone interested in the inner workings of AirPort.
But OS X? High cuteness factor, quick to learn, but not for those who want to be productive first and cool second. Just like it was designed to be.
Mac OS X has a command-line interface and X11 in addition to Aqua. Mac OS X is scriptable. It can be used in console (single-user mode). How "productive" or "cool" you want to be is up to you.
Try COMMAND-W if you want a window to "just vanish." Works for me.
The mouse button argument is just juvenile. It's been scorched so many times, I won't belabor it again. Use a two-button mouse or trackpad, CTRL-Click, get another machine and/or S.T.F.U.
Your comment about "closing a window doesn't close an application like it does in the rest of the computer world" brings to mind my mother's admonition to me whenever I stuck my foot in my mouth: If you'd thought about that, you wouldn't have said it. Windows puts the lie to it completely and immediately. 'Nuff said on that.
Now...
Apple's user interface philosophy has always been based on putting as few impediments between the user and a productive computing experience as possible. That means that if a user has a reasonable expectation of something happening, the interface should allow that thing to happen. Drag text to the desktop and create a document? It should work. Universal copy and paste? It should work. Drag install and uninstall? It should work. Little things like having the second cursor disappear when you type are so elegant and right that you don't notice them until they're pointed out to you.
Making things easy is hard. Engineers are notorious for assuming that obscure, arcane interface components are self-evident to anyone. What is "child's play" to the engineer is Greek to the layperson. I'm a musician, and other trained musicians understand what I mean by "I-VI-II-V," but it's not important (or accessible) to most of the people who hear it. They just know that it sounds good. Same with user interface. Apple gets that. Testers at Apple have an almost adversarial relationship with the engineers when it comes to interface; if the user doesn't "get it," it usually can't go into the produuct.
The user is not the "lowest common denominator" there; the user is the person who pays the bills and calls the tune. And the user doesn't want to configure. The user doesn't want to tweak--as a rule. The user doesn't bust a nut bragging about what a bitch it was getting the latest distro to compile and run. The user wants to use the machine. In Mac OS X, Aqua allows them to do that. If you think CLI is "productive," hold down COMMAND-S when you boot and knock yourself out. But don't try to convince me that the interface ought to be brought up to your level of intelligence or proficiency or "coolness"; manufacturers would have to add a DUH! key.
I hope the Dept. of Homeland Security does a better job of maintaining this blacklist than the state of Florida did in maintaining the voter eligibility rolls in the 2000 presidential election.
Re:M$ hides other half of knowledge
on
Implementing CIFS
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Don't be surprised; you're right! I was doing QA for a CIFS implementation when the engineer ran across a bug that he just couldn't corral. We checked the RFC. We checked the code. We checked installation. Couldn't pin anything down.
He finally put a sniffer on the network and analyzed the traffic between a Windows server, a Windows workstation and a workstation running our implementation. Turns out that the RFC instructs implementers to NEVER place anything other than zero into a certain location (LONGINT). However, that field was almost always non-zero when it was passed between the two Windows machines.
The engineer put the length of the data transfer in bytes into the field and it has worked ever since.
That incident cemented my negative attitude toward Microsoft. They don't try to win by looking good; they try to win by making everyone else look bad--even if that includes themselves. If you're uncertain about something that Microsoft is doing, use that premise as a reference point and you can't go wrong.
Apple is still cautious about over-production because it still doesn't have the confidence of the public yet vis-a-vis survival. They produce too much, and flagging sales give rise to "Apple is dying" rumors. Produce too little (e.g. "sell through") and they get criticisms like yours. There is no middle ground. Apple gets no "slack." Every misstep is trumpeted as their last. It's still better to sell out than to have an over-hyped "flop" on its hands.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Gil Amelio couldn't market pussy in a prison. He doesn't know anything about the computer business to this day and, despite taking several measures that improved Apple's fiscal health (and I wouldn't ignore Fred Andersen's role in all that), he led the company into a death-spiral with a cluelessness that was maddening. Consumers weren't being given a reason to buy Macs. The machines then were utter crap (Performa series, anyone?) There were too many of them and they weren't innovative. Loyal customers and smart people within the company like Andersen were what got the company through that period. (Oh, and Amelio did buy NeXt and bring back the True Believers. Thanks, Gil).
Fortunately, Steve Jobs wrestled the wheel away from him and resumed level flight. Survival of the company is no longer an issue. Recent articles have intimated that the growth phase of the company's resuscitation has begun. And the timing is excellent; Microsoft is dead in the water, period. I'm a consultant for home and small business users; XP is the company's most exploitable system to-date (but it's still not ME, thank God). Next Generation/"Trusted" Computing is a non-starter. Apple is beginning to get mindshare in a lot of quarters solely on the basis of the "no virus/malware/spyware" issue. The "Slashdot Constituency" isn't deriding Apple about performance, stability, lack of software (except games, d00d) or "modern" operating system issues any more--as was the case during Amelio's tenure--and, frankly, Steve Jobs now has a product he can be proud to offer to business.
The point for Apple now is not to bite off more than it can chew. That's why you don't see the competitive ads challenging Microsoft on a heads-up basis--it's not time yet. A premature ramp-up in anticipation of the kind of demand you think they should have could be disastrous. And if Virginia Tech can get 1100 G5's on-demand, I wouldn't worry about three-hundred new hires at Podunk Insurance; Apple will take care of them.
I was just surfing the net after commenting here and stumbled across the following in Shortnews.com:
David Aucsmith, head of technology for Microsoft stated that hackers are lazy and instead of finding exploits themselves, are instead waiting for patches being released and then hacking them.
Windows is known for having persistent problems regarding malicious hackers, and have a reputation for security problems.
David Aucsmith compared these problems to the recent vulnerabilities discovered by Eeye Digital Security. No exploits were produced until there days after the patch was made available.
Aucsmith and Microsoft have succeeded in misleading the public by giving the impression that no mechanism other than the ill will of a few fiends is responsible for the appalling state of Windows security. It's not Microsoft... it's not the vulnerabilities inherent in their code... it's the bad guys!
I work with users every day. I've been in the industry for twenty years and I know that user ignorance is a powerful force in sales, marketing, design and support of IT products and services. This Aucsmith debacle is a textbook case of a company depending on it. They know that the average user doesn't have--or want--the wherewithal to think critically about statements their representatives make. It's groundwork for Next Generation computing. It stinks.
We have never had vulnerabilities exploited before the patch was known - Actual quote. Maybe not completely true, but mostly true. "Never" should be replaced with "almost never". I consider that an honest mistake.
No. Sorry. Not even a little true. If it's not a bald-faced lie, it's so wildly misinformed for someone in Mr. Aucsmith's position that he either ought to be retrained or fired. If he had said "we have rarely had vulnerabilities exploited before the patch was known," I think most of the thinking people here on Slashdot would have scratched their heads, said "Damn! I didn't know that," and moved on. He did not say that. He said never. I've coded CIFS/SMB on Macs. I'm a networking consultant. The vulnerabilities still exist and anyone using the old-style networking method is begging to be owned.
Man! You had me going there for a moment. I was going to award you the shiniest mod point I had in my quiver until I went back and checked your assertion.
David Aucsmith explicitly states that: "We have never had vulnerabilities exploited before the patch was known," he said.
This statement is false on its face and it is not misquoted. Numerous posters have pointed out why much more completely than I can. Again, CIFS/SMB using ports 137-139 is so irretrievably flawed that they've implemented a workaround rather than fix it (PATIENT: It hurts when I do this. DOCTOR: Don't do that!)
So, thanks for the lofty pronouncements--no mod point for YOU!
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.pascal-central.com/
Thanks for the positive review. I've been listening to Trey and Matt talk about the movie on Comedy Central (among other places) and they seemed to downplay expectations for it (e.g. "It's hard to parody a Bruckheimer film and make a goodmovie). First show Friday for me!
Hendrix. Townsend and Clapton didn't play guitar the same way they did after hearing Hendrix. No one has.
First, an editor's nitpick: It's case in point. ;-)
Steve's return to Apple brought some much-needed focus and discipline to the company. It doesn't leak like a sieve any more, its employees and managers tend to stay on-task since there's a clear direction and the people who work there--from top to bottom--are the best.
Besides, he's going to be back at work soon--they don't dare f*** up!
Go, Steve, go!
You can "see that the day when some of the alternative operating systems [threaten] Microsoft's OS share" because that day is already here."
Microsoft's strength has always been embrace and extend. Its weakness comes in the decisions on whether to "exploit" or "extinguish." It has killed a legion of technologies/business/competitors whose contributions to the world of computing have come to nothing or have been FUBARed--just because Microsoft feared the competition.
It has bowdlerized standards when it could for its own gain (e.g. Kerberos, SMB, etc.). Microsoft sees computing as a zero-sum game where it MUST win and everyone else must lose. Rather than compete by making itself look good (innovation, quality, service), it has been always willing to win by making others--including itself--look bad.
Then comes Open Source--a game where they either play fair or they don't play at all. Now, Microsoft is stuck with having to REALLY innovate. Linux and Mac OS X are running rings around Redmond and Ballmer's only answer is to exhort the troops. That won't work.
Microsoft needs to adopt open source, retool its operating system and--for once--put all that money toward excellence rather than bullying the market, ripping off innovators and/or buying ascendancy via restrictive contracts with manufacturers. If Apple announces Mac OS X for x86 or some other innovation comes along, the good ship Microsoft is going to have a BIG hole below its water line and not enough buckets to bail with.
The history of personal computing is comprised of sea changes. Ballmer's memo acknowledges that. He remembers the position he was in ten years ago.
I'd been working at Apple for a couple of years and had occasion to take apart a few of the old SE-SE30 models. The guy who trained me told me--first thing--"be CAREFUL" when you take the video card off the CRT; pull it straight out or you'll bust the yoke and ruin the CRT.
Well, my then-wife's boss needed a new hard drive in her home machine. She lived in Oakland, a little over an hour's drive away from the south bay. I got my Torx wrench, jammed over there, got the thing open and, in my nervousness snatched the video card off the yoke.
SNICK!
That cold, sick feeling in your gut when you know you've just screwed the pooch...
I told the woman that her machine needed a new part that I didn't have. I scuttled back to Menlo Park, took apart my OWN SE30, harvested the CRT, put it in, finished the rest of the work and drove another hour back. For this, I got $100 for four hours work (should have taken an hour). It took weeks to replace my own CRT.
Every April Fool's Day at Apple during the System 6-7 days, those of us who knew anything about programming would cobble together startup apps or extensions that would do a variety of annoying things (e.g. constantly restarting the machine, displaying an insulting message and shutting down, playing the system beep with a long duration, etc.).
Booting with the shift key held down was the victim's salvation almost every time.
First of all, this web page provides some illuminating information on the exploits that exist in the Mac world.
Secondly, your questioning of my credentials is predictable. You mention the IIfx. My bug report--submitted in about mid-development--resulted in the SCSI terminators being modified after the machine was released. That was a MUCH bigger problem than any virus you could mention. Your dramatic depiction of the effeects of a corrupt font is touching, but it's still a problem today and isn't necessarily caused by viruses. Not a red herring, but definitely pink.
You're right about my working in a "sanitized, utopian environment." That's because we were so aggressive about fighting infections precisely because of their mode of transmission. One bad floppy could infect millions of users if it was included in a build. One careless hard drive transfer could ruin a product release. Believe me, you didn't want the infection traced back to something you did.
But I stand behind what I said. Go over Apple's product lines between late-1987 and December 2001. It'd be easier to list what I didn't work on than what I did. Your post is interesting but it doesn't represent the typical Mac experience. Period.
The only two viruses of any consequence during the time you're talking about were WDEF and the CD Autorun bug. WDEF didn't do anything and autorun could be headed off completely by turning off the ability to automatically play CD's when they were inserted. If you knew your stuff, you'd know that the exploits were transmitted via removable media (thus "no modems" or networks).
I worked at Apple for fourteen years beginning in 1987. I'm working as a Mac and PC consultant now. I have yet to see a Mac damaged by a virus (and the guy who downloaded that "beta copy of Word" got what he deserved).
If you ran Disinfectant on every machine, you were wasting time.
The majority of my contacts with Mac customers entail software issues, the vast majority of those involving lack of disk maintenance. I usually run Norton's Disk Doctor and Speed Disk, charge a nominal fee and send them on their merry ways.
;-)
Then, I get a lot of machines from do-it-yourselfers who get stuck out of their depth. They buy crappy memory, put it in themselves, and then wonder why their machine freezes on POST after a few uses. They don't jumper ATA hard drives correctly. They don't know about the excellent third-party hardware installation support from this site. I make quite a bit on those
Next, I see a lot of stuff that has just plain worn out. Especially hard drives. Some people's drives are adversely affected by moving from drier, mainland climes to the humidity here, but Apple customers--by and large--wear their stuff out. I just had to turn away someone who wanted her Apple IIe fixed (the spring that ejected her floppies was worn out).
Electricity here isn't the stable commodity it is on the mainland, so I see more damage due to that than I would normally. Some early iMacs have weak flyback transformers that don't stand up well under fluctuating power and monster thunderstorms.
I don't carry a parts inventory and I advise customers with machines older than the original Power Macintosh G3 to get another machine. I refer them either to Apple's website or to Powermax because used Macs retain their resale value and are usually a great buy.
My only regret is that I can't sell new Macs. Oh, well... surf's up.
I touched my first Macintosh in December of 1987 because my best friend said it would be better if my resume were presented as a Macintosh document. From a cold start to finished product (including figuring out how to print: 20 minutes). That resume got me a job as a contractor at Apple. I stayed there for the most part of the next fourteen years.
.Mac), AirPort, LC II Apple II emulator, HyperCard Audio Help, every Mac OS from 6 through X, every machine up to the original iMac (I was laid off in 1997), and every machine from the 1999 crop to the domed iMac in 2001. I now make my living as a Mac and Windows consultant on the big island of Hawaii. I've owned (or own) a PowerBook Duo 250, PowerBook 5300, iBook (dual USB) and a Sawtooth G4. I, too, know the machines, the software and a lot of the people who made them. Been there, done that and still own a shitload of t-shirts.
The projects I worked on: Communications Toolbox, AppleShare 2.0, AppleShare PC, AppleShare IP, PC Exchange, Copland, MacTerminal, quality lead for the Scriptable Finder, iTools (later
I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say that I know Macs.
With all I know, I will always purchase new Apple hardware. I'm recommending Apple hardware to everyone for whom it is appropriate.
I can rebuild a Mac from parts I buy at WalMart (monitors, CD and DVD drives, external Zip drives, speakers, mice, keyboards, hard drives, routers (wired and wireless), USB and FireWire cards in both PCI and PCMCIA flavors), RadioShack (memory, USB keyboards, mice and hubs) or Office Depot (miscellaneous). As long as the equipment is up to spec, I don't worry about compatibility.
Apple isn't perfect. It has its quirks. But I fix more Macs more quickly with less hassle than just about any Windows shitbox you could put in front of me. And they stay fixed.
End of story.
Don't know about Linux distros, but CD-booting is one of the Mac's strong suits.
Go to the Mac OS X section of Version Tracker and look for "AirPort Configurator." It's a nifty little Java app that offers lots of nice bits for anyone interested in the inner workings of AirPort.
Mac OS X has a command-line interface and X11 in addition to Aqua. Mac OS X is scriptable. It can be used in console (single-user mode). How "productive" or "cool" you want to be is up to you.
Try COMMAND-W if you want a window to "just vanish." Works for me.
The mouse button argument is just juvenile. It's been scorched so many times, I won't belabor it again. Use a two-button mouse or trackpad, CTRL-Click, get another machine and/or S.T.F.U.
Your comment about "closing a window doesn't close an application like it does in the rest of the computer world" brings to mind my mother's admonition to me whenever I stuck my foot in my mouth: If you'd thought about that, you wouldn't have said it. Windows puts the lie to it completely and immediately. 'Nuff said on that.
Now...
Apple's user interface philosophy has always been based on putting as few impediments between the user and a productive computing experience as possible. That means that if a user has a reasonable expectation of something happening, the interface should allow that thing to happen. Drag text to the desktop and create a document? It should work. Universal copy and paste? It should work. Drag install and uninstall? It should work. Little things like having the second cursor disappear when you type are so elegant and right that you don't notice them until they're pointed out to you.
Making things easy is hard. Engineers are notorious for assuming that obscure, arcane interface components are self-evident to anyone. What is "child's play" to the engineer is Greek to the layperson. I'm a musician, and other trained musicians understand what I mean by "I-VI-II-V," but it's not important (or accessible) to most of the people who hear it. They just know that it sounds good. Same with user interface. Apple gets that. Testers at Apple have an almost adversarial relationship with the engineers when it comes to interface; if the user doesn't "get it," it usually can't go into the produuct.
The user is not the "lowest common denominator" there; the user is the person who pays the bills and calls the tune. And the user doesn't want to configure. The user doesn't want to tweak--as a rule. The user doesn't bust a nut bragging about what a bitch it was getting the latest distro to compile and run. The user wants to use the machine. In Mac OS X, Aqua allows them to do that. If you think CLI is "productive," hold down COMMAND-S when you boot and knock yourself out. But don't try to convince me that the interface ought to be brought up to your level of intelligence or proficiency or "coolness"; manufacturers would have to add a DUH! key.
I hope the Dept. of Homeland Security does a better job of maintaining this blacklist than the state of Florida did in maintaining the voter eligibility rolls in the 2000 presidential election.
Don't be surprised; you're right! I was doing QA for a CIFS implementation when the engineer ran across a bug that he just couldn't corral. We checked the RFC. We checked the code. We checked installation. Couldn't pin anything down.
He finally put a sniffer on the network and analyzed the traffic between a Windows server, a Windows workstation and a workstation running our implementation. Turns out that the RFC instructs implementers to NEVER place anything other than zero into a certain location (LONGINT). However, that field was almost always non-zero when it was passed between the two Windows machines.
The engineer put the length of the data transfer in bytes into the field and it has worked ever since.
That incident cemented my negative attitude toward Microsoft. They don't try to win by looking good; they try to win by making everyone else look bad--even if that includes themselves. If you're uncertain about something that Microsoft is doing, use that premise as a reference point and you can't go wrong.
Apple is still cautious about over-production because it still doesn't have the confidence of the public yet vis-a-vis survival. They produce too much, and flagging sales give rise to "Apple is dying" rumors. Produce too little (e.g. "sell through") and they get criticisms like yours. There is no middle ground. Apple gets no "slack." Every misstep is trumpeted as their last. It's still better to sell out than to have an over-hyped "flop" on its hands.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Gil Amelio couldn't market pussy in a prison. He doesn't know anything about the computer business to this day and, despite taking several measures that improved Apple's fiscal health (and I wouldn't ignore Fred Andersen's role in all that), he led the company into a death-spiral with a cluelessness that was maddening. Consumers weren't being given a reason to buy Macs. The machines then were utter crap (Performa series, anyone?) There were too many of them and they weren't innovative. Loyal customers and smart people within the company like Andersen were what got the company through that period. (Oh, and Amelio did buy NeXt and bring back the True Believers. Thanks, Gil).
Fortunately, Steve Jobs wrestled the wheel away from him and resumed level flight. Survival of the company is no longer an issue. Recent articles have intimated that the growth phase of the company's resuscitation has begun. And the timing is excellent; Microsoft is dead in the water, period. I'm a consultant for home and small business users; XP is the company's most exploitable system to-date (but it's still not ME, thank God). Next Generation/"Trusted" Computing is a non-starter. Apple is beginning to get mindshare in a lot of quarters solely on the basis of the "no virus/malware/spyware" issue. The "Slashdot Constituency" isn't deriding Apple about performance, stability, lack of software (except games, d00d) or "modern" operating system issues any more--as was the case during Amelio's tenure--and, frankly, Steve Jobs now has a product he can be proud to offer to business.
The point for Apple now is not to bite off more than it can chew. That's why you don't see the competitive ads challenging Microsoft on a heads-up basis--it's not time yet. A premature ramp-up in anticipation of the kind of demand you think they should have could be disastrous. And if Virginia Tech can get 1100 G5's on-demand, I wouldn't worry about three-hundred new hires at Podunk Insurance; Apple will take care of them.
Aucsmith and Microsoft have succeeded in misleading the public by giving the impression that no mechanism other than the ill will of a few fiends is responsible for the appalling state of Windows security. It's not Microsoft... it's not the vulnerabilities inherent in their code... it's the bad guys!
I work with users every day. I've been in the industry for twenty years and I know that user ignorance is a powerful force in sales, marketing, design and support of IT products and services. This Aucsmith debacle is a textbook case of a company depending on it. They know that the average user doesn't have--or want--the wherewithal to think critically about statements their representatives make. It's groundwork for Next Generation computing. It stinks.
That--to me-- is not "never."
Man! You had me going there for a moment. I was going to award you the shiniest mod point I had in my quiver until I went back and checked your assertion.
David Aucsmith explicitly states that: "We have never had vulnerabilities exploited before the patch was known," he said.
This statement is false on its face and it is not misquoted. Numerous posters have pointed out why much more completely than I can. Again, CIFS/SMB using ports 137-139 is so irretrievably flawed that they've implemented a workaround rather than fix it (PATIENT: It hurts when I do this. DOCTOR: Don't do that!)
So, thanks for the lofty pronouncements--no mod point for YOU!
They've junked the old-style version of NETBIOS (ports 137-139) rather than fix it and plenty of exploits exist for that. SHENANIGANS!