It didn't help matters that Ballmer himself talked about "squirting" music and photos to other Zunes, which, along with the brown colour most commonly associated with the Zune, was easily a gross insinuation right from the horse's mouth.
Zune, incidentally, is phonetically identical to a euphemism French Quebec parents might use with their kids to refers to their penis or vagina (reference).
Stargate SG-1 still does this both going into and back from commercials, at least on Canada's Space network.
As for coming *back* from commercial, these days so many have a "this program has yadda yadda and may not be suitable for all viewers/viewer discretion is advised" is as close to a "return to program" jingle as anything...
Adding a USB plug would have made it much larger, which is probably why they didn't want to add a built-in USB plug
Some SD memory cards (like this Sandisk one) have a built-in USB connector, so in terms of size it's not like they couldn't have done it with the new Shuffle
Granted, this could be an easily breakable part...
Even the latest Office for Mac shows how lacking they are in this respect.
Try this: copy and paste an image into a Word document on a Mac. Save it. If you have Office 2004, notice how the compatibility checker doesn't raise any warnings or alerts.
Copy the document to Windows and open it. Where the image should be, the error "Quicktime and a tiff compressor are needed to display this image" appears. I've discovered no way to get the embedded image to display on Windows at this point, even if Quicktime is installed.
Using "Insert image" or drag-n-dropping an existing image file gets around this, but this is irrelavent--most expect copy/paste to work. It is complete and utter BS that MS doesn't auto-convert pasted images into the same format as Windows Office documents. Macs have no problem displaying embedded images from Windows Office documents, after all.
If a Mac user, misled by the "compatibility checker", were to send it to a Windows-using colleague who then saw this error, the colleague's only conclusion would be that Macs AREN'T compatible with Windows. More hassle and wasted time for the Mac user, and another reason for the colleague to not switch to Macs. Win/win for Microsoft.
By all accounts the fan control is entirely firmware-based, on both Macbook and Macbook Pro. In other words, no licence in the world would do you any good right now in coming up with a utility or even kernel extension to change the fan switch-on threshold.
This is a marked difference from the hardware sudden motion sensors, which CAN be accessed via software APIs on Macs; this is why a couple of funky hacks using the SMS, like iAlertU, or switching virtual desktops by tapping the side of the screen, were done on Mac notebooks first (IBM notebooks with similar sudden motion sensors did not have APIs exposing them).
I understand why Apple won't release actual APIs for these--the last thing they'd want is anyone accidentally (or purposefully) changing the fans to turn on far hotter than when they do now. What I DON'T understand is why they didn't design the firmware to allow a system preference that uses the current setting as the maximum threshold, with a couple of options to start the fans at lower temperatures.
Don't know about algae, but jellyfish is a common appetizer in Chinese restaurants. You can also buy "mix it yourself" packs in just about any Chinese grocery store.
Very delicious stuff. Damn, now I have a craving for it...
OSX broke a LOT of expected behaviour from the Classic era, from creating new windows/folders to eliminating (until recently) labels, etc; they could easily have removed the "drag to trash to eject" concept entirely.
What they did right with OSX (and which the Anon. Coward failed to mention) is that for the drag/drop method, as soon as you click and hold a "removable" drive (even hard drives), the trash can instantly changes to an Eject icon. At that point you're plainly no longer dragging it to the trash.
I won't bother with price comparisons as they're handled elsewhere and always have mitigating factors, but Dell has worse QC problems. Two very public laptop fires in the span of a month sure doesn't inspire me with confidence.
The release of Zune will be big. Its uptake is entirely different.
And if you're a Windows user, I doubt you see the irony of calling Mac users masochists.
Sad to say I can't argue with you on this point, in theory. Mainstream stuff of any kind typically IS crappy, my anecdotes about how my two iPods (1st gen and latest 5th-gen Video) are still going strong notwithstanding. I'm struggling to decide whether to buy a Macbook now or wait for the second generation to solve the heat dissipation and other problems.
Which is why I'm quite comfortable with Apple never exceeding, say, 30-40% market share.
That said, I don't think iTunes is crappy at all. A bit bloated, but tolerable considering all that it does.
To select the photo in the Finder: - Select photo in iPhoto - Right click > Show File (or Show Original File)
If you need to copy many photos and want to put them all in a folder before copying them out: - select photos - Copy them in iPhoto - Paste them into a holding folder
Anyone who already knows how to setup and administer/maintain Windows and its programs is smart enough to easily figure out the equivalent steps on a Mac once sitting in front of one, especially with Google at your disposal.
Take it from someone who learned Mac administration by myself first, and only started for Windows in 2000. By all rights it should be much harder for a Mac guy to pick up Windows admin skills, but I did, and without any MSCE certification courses either. I picked up most of these skills with no Windows PC of my own, so my situation is like yours, in reverse.
Your concerns about not being able to walk your grandmother through stuff is valid, but possibly misplaced given your examples. If you're physically at your grandmother's, as I said you'll figure them out fairly fast.
If you mean *talking* her through stuff over the phone that's different, so here's my suggestion (applies for Mac or Windows); I've set up and used the free (as in beer) and very user-friendly Bosco's Screen Share (http://www.componentx.com/ScreenShare/) with my friend's mom the couple of times she's needed help. It allows me to see or even control her screen (I set it up so she must click OK these requests; I can't just login any time I want). Much more efficient than describing a problem by words alone.
On the one hand I'm VERY tempted to just say "Ah, the classic reaction of a typical Windows IT guy." Not willing to learn anything new, afraid of becoming irrelavent.
On the other hand, I can understand the reticence since you're not talking about work, and you truly don't have experience with Macs since you don't have one yourself.
Unfortunately for you, while keeping your family on Windows (presumably) means you won't be caught unawares whenever problems come up, it means you will have a lot more time taken up by it--whether it's simple maintenance or fixing something that's broken. Goodbye personal time.
I convinced my friend's mom to get an iMac to replace her aging PC, with the promise that I'd be available to help whenever she had problems. She's only called twice with Mac-specific issues, once when she got confused about the password box, and the other about the Mac version of Excel. She's been VERY happy with her Mac, even gave it an nickname based on how quiet it ran.
In turn, my "support calls" after getting her set up have amounted to just a few hours in the last 8 months, and I don't have to support the steaming pile of garbage that Windows too often is. I already waste too much time in a Windows admin role at work (it's not even my main job), the last thing I needed was to blow any of my personal time on it as well.
On the subject of install speed, I recently had to deal with the install/restore system for Windows XP SP2 on some latest-generation Lenovo PCs, with the restore hard drive partition. It's about the stupidest implementation possible of a great idea.
Great idea: if your main system needs to be blown away and restored to factory condition, have a hidden partition with the restore files. Boot into the restore management system, tell it to restore to factory condition, and go. No CDs or DVDs to handle, and it's copying from the hard drive so it's much faster.
Stupid implementation: It DOESN'T format the hard drive to be blown away, it REQUIRES that the bootloader is set to Windows, then it copies every file individually to the hard drive! Then it requires restarting Windows two or three times to configure the system, get license info, etc.
All told, what should've been at most a 25 minute operation (that's already longer than it took me to fully install the latest Mac OS X system on my 5-year old G4, from a DVD no less) took over an hour.
What SHOULD have been done was a Ghost-like write of the restore system and data. The core components aren't likely to have changed much, so no need to waste time auto-detecting hardware, and major additions need their own drivers anyway.
Even stupider: This happened out of the box. They couldn't even be bothered to have a default, running Windows OS configured for immediate use. This really adds punch to the Apple commercial where the PC guy is still stuck in a box being useless while the Mac guy is immediately off and doing stuff.
It just seems idiotic that you can't just drag and drop MP3s into it like a hard drive and browse the directory list to play whatever songs you want on it, including videos if you have a video iPod. You shouldn't NEED any additional software at all beyond a USB capable computer that can read and write to the iPod filesystem like a hard drive.
This is the two-edged sword of the system the iPod uses. By using its own database and forgoing a file/directory method, it allowed you to browse music based on artist, genre, album, etc, in addition to simply by title. A less popular but just as valid reason, iTunes/WMP/other software manages the DRM from online music stores.
Have you considered that for a music player, a file directory approach is NOT intuitive? People generally don't want to be reminded of a computer interface when they're not using a computer. Judging from the success of the iPod, arguably they don't want to deal with the filesystem when they're managing their player's music, either. Consider that programs like iTunes or WMP are far better at managing music than a filesystem; why would normal people jump from iTunes/whatever into Windows Explorer to copy songs to their player, when iTunes/whatever does it all for them?
I checked out the manuals for two other products roughly in the same marketspace as the iPod (Archos 700 and Creative Zen Vision). Both required Windows Media Player or manufacturer's software to manage music, so how is this different from iPod/iTunes?
This isn't to say that requiring iTunes/whatever is always a good thing; for example, I wanted to copy and see new photos from a recent trip on my iPod, when my own computer was on the other side of the country. Wasn't possible.
A few years ago I worked at a company that issues SSL certificates. I'd already driven from home to the office for some scheduled after-hours work, and issued a cert as part of that work. I was almost back home again when I realized I'd left my ID token card in the cert-issuing computer.
Now, this machine was in a locked room which required ID card and PIN access, and even with the token card you had to fingerprint and password the computer. Nonetheless, I drove all the way across town again to put the token back in the safe.
Chances are I could've been the first person into the room the next day and no one would've been the wiser, but better safe than sorry--especially when it's policy.
I suppose they could almost completely automate letting US citizens back into the country. Will I be able to use my RFID passport to scan in to the country just like I do with my work badge to get into the machine room or co-lo? I can see benefits for having an express lane at immigration for citizens with RFID passports so we don't have to wait behind all the riff-raff:-) Just walk up to the gate, wave your passport at it, and 'beep', you're back in the country.
Agree with the rest of your post that these should've been smart-card technology, but on this point-- you have to remember you're passing through customs, as well as immigration. They want to know if you've been on a foreign farm in the last couple of weeks, whether you're carrying more than $10,000 into the country, whether you need to pay duties on out-of-country purchases, etc. None of this can be determined just by walking an RFID detector.
Slashdoters are technical sorts so I don't think it's too pendantic to note that a meteor is a flash of light caused by a meteorite.
If we're going to be pedantic, something is a meteorite only if it strikes the earth. A meteor is merely an object from space (man-made satellites usually excluded) that enters the Earth's atmosphere, and may or may not become a meteorite--most meteors are too small and completely burn up/disintegrate before hitting land.
If the general idea is to have the the aircraft shout "CLIMB CLIMB" at the pilot, which in turn have "better do what the box says", I'd much rather have the aircraft just climb.
You then get into another area Airbus had problems with--the software preventing pilots who actually *do* know better. IIRC the very public autopilot-induced crash during a test flight of a new plane was caused by the pilots knowing the software was wrong, but being unable to disable the autopilot for a precious 10 seconds. By then it was too late and the landing gear was catching treetops.
Can't find a source, but video of the crash has been circulating for years.
Ironically, a lot of Windows users griped about how Macs, in the good ol' OS 8 and OS 9 days, had to make a background window active before they could hit the close box.
Now it's completely turned around--a window element (tab) in IE7 must be activated before it can be closed.
Not making a statement about whether this is good or bad, just an observation.
As much as I hate developing around IE's shortcomings and agree with your other comments, particularly on the translucent PNGs, one handy thing IE introduced years ago is overflow-x and overflow-y. It's not a CSS standard (proposed for CSS 3 though, but it's been so handy that Firefox started supporting it in the 1.5 release. I rather wish Safari and Opera were updated to support this too.
Thing is, if you happen to spend 99% of your computer time in Windows , that little windows key is the greatest thing ever:
WinKey + R -> Run -> cmd / winword / gpedit.msc (I start 80% of programs this way, just add the folder to PATH)
WinKey + E -> Explorer (yup, great timesaver)
WinKey + D -> Show the desktop
WinKey + F -> Find
A couple others I normally use:
WinKey + L -> instantly lock Windows, rather than ctrl-alt-delete, then clicking "lock Windows" (or whatever the button is; I'm not using Windows right now)
WinKey + M -> Minimize all windows (not quite the same as WinKey + D, which hides ALL windows and dialog boxes; WinKey + M won't minimize windows if they have a task demanding your attention)
Hate to say it, but as good as you personally are with looking out for your customers, it's only a matter of time before one self-important jackass gets his laptop stolen, and sues you (the company, not you personally) for not babysitting his laptop when he goes off for a jaunt. Common sense is as rare these days as personal responsibility.
Then again, it's just better protection for those of us who DO practise common sense. Security by minority/obscurity does somewhat work in this case.
These days white earbuds aren't a guarantee of a profitable steal. Unless the thief has seen a particular person pull out an iPod, there's just as much chance the thief will wind up with an iPod Shuffle instead of say a video iPod.
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It didn't help matters that Ballmer himself talked about "squirting" music and photos to other Zunes, which, along with the brown colour most commonly associated with the Zune, was easily a gross insinuation right from the horse's mouth.
Zune, incidentally, is phonetically identical to a euphemism French Quebec parents might use with their kids to refers to their penis or vagina (reference).
Stargate SG-1 still does this both going into and back from commercials, at least on Canada's Space network.
As for coming *back* from commercial, these days so many have a "this program has yadda yadda and may not be suitable for all viewers/viewer discretion is advised" is as close to a "return to program" jingle as anything...
Adding a USB plug would have made it much larger, which is probably why they didn't want to add a built-in USB plug
Some SD memory cards (like this Sandisk one) have a built-in USB connector, so in terms of size it's not like they couldn't have done it with the new Shuffle
Granted, this could be an easily breakable part...
You can get away with doing the same thing forever when you mock yourself - SG-1 takes itself way too seriously for that.
Obviously you didn't watch SG-1's 200th episode. Rare is the show that can mock just about everything about itself, and make it funny.
Not that I disagree with your comment that Doctor Who is cheesy, and can get away with bad stuff because of that.
For a series that did take themselves too seriously and truly sucked, try Sinbad. Or Enterprise.
Note that <a href="javascript:alert('test')">something</a> executes just as well under Firefox as it does in MSIE.
Even the latest Office for Mac shows how lacking they are in this respect.
Try this: copy and paste an image into a Word document on a Mac. Save it. If you have Office 2004, notice how the compatibility checker doesn't raise any warnings or alerts.
Copy the document to Windows and open it. Where the image should be, the error "Quicktime and a tiff compressor are needed to display this image" appears. I've discovered no way to get the embedded image to display on Windows at this point, even if Quicktime is installed.
Using "Insert image" or drag-n-dropping an existing image file gets around this, but this is irrelavent--most expect copy/paste to work. It is complete and utter BS that MS doesn't auto-convert pasted images into the same format as Windows Office documents. Macs have no problem displaying embedded images from Windows Office documents, after all.
If a Mac user, misled by the "compatibility checker", were to send it to a Windows-using colleague who then saw this error, the colleague's only conclusion would be that Macs AREN'T compatible with Windows. More hassle and wasted time for the Mac user, and another reason for the colleague to not switch to Macs. Win/win for Microsoft.
By all accounts the fan control is entirely firmware-based, on both Macbook and Macbook Pro. In other words, no licence in the world would do you any good right now in coming up with a utility or even kernel extension to change the fan switch-on threshold.
This is a marked difference from the hardware sudden motion sensors, which CAN be accessed via software APIs on Macs; this is why a couple of funky hacks using the SMS, like iAlertU, or switching virtual desktops by tapping the side of the screen, were done on Mac notebooks first (IBM notebooks with similar sudden motion sensors did not have APIs exposing them).
I understand why Apple won't release actual APIs for these--the last thing they'd want is anyone accidentally (or purposefully) changing the fans to turn on far hotter than when they do now. What I DON'T understand is why they didn't design the firmware to allow a system preference that uses the current setting as the maximum threshold, with a couple of options to start the fans at lower temperatures.
I know you ask in jest, but here's a real answer.
Don't know about algae, but jellyfish is a common appetizer in Chinese restaurants. You can also buy "mix it yourself" packs in just about any Chinese grocery store.
Very delicious stuff. Damn, now I have a craving for it...
OSX broke a LOT of expected behaviour from the Classic era, from creating new windows/folders to eliminating (until recently) labels, etc; they could easily have removed the "drag to trash to eject" concept entirely.
What they did right with OSX (and which the Anon. Coward failed to mention) is that for the drag/drop method, as soon as you click and hold a "removable" drive (even hard drives), the trash can instantly changes to an Eject icon. At that point you're plainly no longer dragging it to the trash.
I won't bother with price comparisons as they're handled elsewhere and always have mitigating factors, but Dell has worse QC problems. Two very public laptop fires in the span of a month sure doesn't inspire me with confidence.
The release of Zune will be big. Its uptake is entirely different.
And if you're a Windows user, I doubt you see the irony of calling Mac users masochists.
Sad to say I can't argue with you on this point, in theory. Mainstream stuff of any kind typically IS crappy, my anecdotes about how my two iPods (1st gen and latest 5th-gen Video) are still going strong notwithstanding. I'm struggling to decide whether to buy a Macbook now or wait for the second generation to solve the heat dissipation and other problems.
Which is why I'm quite comfortable with Apple never exceeding, say, 30-40% market share.
That said, I don't think iTunes is crappy at all. A bit bloated, but tolerable considering all that it does.
No darn way to see the file name of photos?
;-)
If you have the iPhoto 6:
- View menu > Titles
To select the photo in the Finder:
- Select photo in iPhoto
- Right click > Show File (or Show Original File)
If you need to copy many photos and want to put them all in a folder before copying them out:
- select photos
- Copy them in iPhoto
- Paste them into a holding folder
You're welcome
Anyone who already knows how to setup and administer/maintain Windows and its programs is smart enough to easily figure out the equivalent steps on a Mac once sitting in front of one, especially with Google at your disposal.
Take it from someone who learned Mac administration by myself first, and only started for Windows in 2000. By all rights it should be much harder for a Mac guy to pick up Windows admin skills, but I did, and without any MSCE certification courses either. I picked up most of these skills with no Windows PC of my own, so my situation is like yours, in reverse.
Your concerns about not being able to walk your grandmother through stuff is valid, but possibly misplaced given your examples. If you're physically at your grandmother's, as I said you'll figure them out fairly fast.
If you mean *talking* her through stuff over the phone that's different, so here's my suggestion (applies for Mac or Windows); I've set up and used the free (as in beer) and very user-friendly Bosco's Screen Share (http://www.componentx.com/ScreenShare/) with my friend's mom the couple of times she's needed help. It allows me to see or even control her screen (I set it up so she must click OK these requests; I can't just login any time I want). Much more efficient than describing a problem by words alone.
On the one hand I'm VERY tempted to just say "Ah, the classic reaction of a typical Windows IT guy." Not willing to learn anything new, afraid of becoming irrelavent.
On the other hand, I can understand the reticence since you're not talking about work, and you truly don't have experience with Macs since you don't have one yourself.
Unfortunately for you, while keeping your family on Windows (presumably) means you won't be caught unawares whenever problems come up, it means you will have a lot more time taken up by it--whether it's simple maintenance or fixing something that's broken. Goodbye personal time.
I convinced my friend's mom to get an iMac to replace her aging PC, with the promise that I'd be available to help whenever she had problems. She's only called twice with Mac-specific issues, once when she got confused about the password box, and the other about the Mac version of Excel. She's been VERY happy with her Mac, even gave it an nickname based on how quiet it ran.
In turn, my "support calls" after getting her set up have amounted to just a few hours in the last 8 months, and I don't have to support the steaming pile of garbage that Windows too often is. I already waste too much time in a Windows admin role at work (it's not even my main job), the last thing I needed was to blow any of my personal time on it as well.
On the subject of install speed, I recently had to deal with the install/restore system for Windows XP SP2 on some latest-generation Lenovo PCs, with the restore hard drive partition. It's about the stupidest implementation possible of a great idea.
Great idea: if your main system needs to be blown away and restored to factory condition, have a hidden partition with the restore files. Boot into the restore management system, tell it to restore to factory condition, and go. No CDs or DVDs to handle, and it's copying from the hard drive so it's much faster.
Stupid implementation: It DOESN'T format the hard drive to be blown away, it REQUIRES that the bootloader is set to Windows, then it copies every file individually to the hard drive! Then it requires restarting Windows two or three times to configure the system, get license info, etc.
All told, what should've been at most a 25 minute operation (that's already longer than it took me to fully install the latest Mac OS X system on my 5-year old G4, from a DVD no less) took over an hour.
What SHOULD have been done was a Ghost-like write of the restore system and data. The core components aren't likely to have changed much, so no need to waste time auto-detecting hardware, and major additions need their own drivers anyway.
Even stupider: This happened out of the box. They couldn't even be bothered to have a default, running Windows OS configured for immediate use. This really adds punch to the Apple commercial where the PC guy is still stuck in a box being useless while the Mac guy is immediately off and doing stuff.
It just seems idiotic that you can't just drag and drop MP3s into it like a hard drive and browse the directory list to play whatever songs you want on it, including videos if you have a video iPod. You shouldn't NEED any additional software at all beyond a USB capable computer that can read and write to the iPod filesystem like a hard drive.
This is the two-edged sword of the system the iPod uses. By using its own database and forgoing a file/directory method, it allowed you to browse music based on artist, genre, album, etc, in addition to simply by title. A less popular but just as valid reason, iTunes/WMP/other software manages the DRM from online music stores.
Have you considered that for a music player, a file directory approach is NOT intuitive? People generally don't want to be reminded of a computer interface when they're not using a computer. Judging from the success of the iPod, arguably they don't want to deal with the filesystem when they're managing their player's music, either. Consider that programs like iTunes or WMP are far better at managing music than a filesystem; why would normal people jump from iTunes/whatever into Windows Explorer to copy songs to their player, when iTunes/whatever does it all for them?
I checked out the manuals for two other products roughly in the same marketspace as the iPod (Archos 700 and Creative Zen Vision). Both required Windows Media Player or manufacturer's software to manage music, so how is this different from iPod/iTunes?
This isn't to say that requiring iTunes/whatever is always a good thing; for example, I wanted to copy and see new photos from a recent trip on my iPod, when my own computer was on the other side of the country. Wasn't possible.
Been there, done that.
A few years ago I worked at a company that issues SSL certificates. I'd already driven from home to the office for some scheduled after-hours work, and issued a cert as part of that work. I was almost back home again when I realized I'd left my ID token card in the cert-issuing computer.
Now, this machine was in a locked room which required ID card and PIN access, and even with the token card you had to fingerprint and password the computer. Nonetheless, I drove all the way across town again to put the token back in the safe.
Chances are I could've been the first person into the room the next day and no one would've been the wiser, but better safe than sorry--especially when it's policy.
I suppose they could almost completely automate letting US citizens back into the country. Will I be able to use my RFID passport to scan in to the country just like I do with my work badge to get into the machine room or co-lo? I can see benefits for having an express lane at immigration for citizens with RFID passports so we don't have to wait behind all the riff-raff :-) Just walk up to the gate, wave your passport at it, and 'beep', you're back in the country.
Agree with the rest of your post that these should've been smart-card technology, but on this point-- you have to remember you're passing through customs, as well as immigration. They want to know if you've been on a foreign farm in the last couple of weeks, whether you're carrying more than $10,000 into the country, whether you need to pay duties on out-of-country purchases, etc. None of this can be determined just by walking an RFID detector.
If we're going to be pedantic, something is a meteorite only if it strikes the earth. A meteor is merely an object from space (man-made satellites usually excluded) that enters the Earth's atmosphere, and may or may not become a meteorite--most meteors are too small and completely burn up/disintegrate before hitting land.
You then get into another area Airbus had problems with--the software preventing pilots who actually *do* know better. IIRC the very public autopilot-induced crash during a test flight of a new plane was caused by the pilots knowing the software was wrong, but being unable to disable the autopilot for a precious 10 seconds. By then it was too late and the landing gear was catching treetops.
Can't find a source, but video of the crash has been circulating for years.
Ironically, a lot of Windows users griped about how Macs, in the good ol' OS 8 and OS 9 days, had to make a background window active before they could hit the close box.
Now it's completely turned around--a window element (tab) in IE7 must be activated before it can be closed.
Not making a statement about whether this is good or bad, just an observation.
As much as I hate developing around IE's shortcomings and agree with your other comments, particularly on the translucent PNGs, one handy thing IE introduced years ago is overflow-x and overflow-y. It's not a CSS standard (proposed for CSS 3 though, but it's been so handy that Firefox started supporting it in the 1.5 release. I rather wish Safari and Opera were updated to support this too.
WinKey + L -> instantly lock Windows, rather than ctrl-alt-delete, then clicking "lock Windows" (or whatever the button is; I'm not using Windows right now)
WinKey + M -> Minimize all windows (not quite the same as WinKey + D, which hides ALL windows and dialog boxes; WinKey + M won't minimize windows if they have a task demanding your attention)
Hate to say it, but as good as you personally are with looking out for your customers, it's only a matter of time before one self-important jackass gets his laptop stolen, and sues you (the company, not you personally) for not babysitting his laptop when he goes off for a jaunt. Common sense is as rare these days as personal responsibility.
Then again, it's just better protection for those of us who DO practise common sense. Security by minority/obscurity does somewhat work in this case.
These days white earbuds aren't a guarantee of a profitable steal. Unless the thief has seen a particular person pull out an iPod, there's just as much chance the thief will wind up with an iPod Shuffle instead of say a video iPod.