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Y'know, I'm really sick of lameass shareware that should be freeware. C'mon, how long did this product really take to create? Three hours? As someone's "Gonna Teach Myself Some Cocoa" project? Please. $49 for a "site license?" Some people are just off their rocker.

I previously wrote in Apple Embraces the Open Format Movement on this very site about how the iLife apps all seem to be using a much more "open format" for their documents, allowing other apps to "grab on" and extend on the iLife applications.

Today, I realized that this truth is even conveyed in the icons of the two "suites." While Office maintains a very "closed - we are everything you need" type of icon, with no "grabby points," the iLife logo conveys extensibility. After all, the iLife applications are just one section of a puzzle, and the bigger picture is "using your computer to do cool stuff."

I don't know if Apple intended this, or if Microsoft intended this, but the irony (for lack of a better word) of it all is quite revealing.

The lack of tabs in Safari has prompted several people to declare "now that I'm used to no tabs, I find I don't miss them." Case in point:

I have been using Safari as my default web browser for the last three days. One thing has become very clear to me since then - I do not miss tabs. I thought I would, but frankly I create and destroy browsing windows so fast that I think I spent more time "managing" tabs than not.

Personally, I use tabs in two ways:

• To maintain the order in which I've opened links - something separate windows makes impossible or very difficult
• To work within smaller environment. It's easier to switch among three tabs when editing this site's stylesheet(s), for example, than among three windows, and a single window takes up less space than three.

Do I really miss tabs? No. Do I want them back? You bet your *ss I do. (See this post re: *.)

Follow this link and you'll find some tests which show how "slow" the Mac really is these days. My take? Who cares. Create a professional looking DVD on a PC using freeware (or provided) tools and your own video. How long - and how frustrating - will that take you on a PC? How long - and enjoyable - will it be on a Mac? Sure, there are some special cases where raw speed matters, but the Apple advantage has always been measured in more than integer and floating point operations per second. (P.S. Similar ideas here.)

From Chuq comes this:

Apple isn't about beating Microsoft; the day for that is long past, and the only company that can do that is Microsoft. It's about being successful at being Apple. Steve understands this; most pundits don't. Most of the punditry surrounding Apple is really out of date. If it were translated to the auto industry, it'd be like pundits telling Porsche or Lexus that they won't be successful until they sell as many cars as Hyundai does, and the real answer is to cheapen the features and cut the prices.

According to this chart, Safari does pretty well on the whole CSS thing. The number of red and grey boxes on Omn's side of things really hurts, and ties into an earlier thread about Omn potentially using Apple's WebCore in Omn 5.0. Ken Case offered gracious thanks to Apple for WebCore, and Dave Winer misinterpreted. Go figure - the guy has never seemed to get much right in my book. I respect him, and what he's done, but glib misinterpretations such as these have occurred several times. Oh well. The full store is here or is linked to from there.

Not exactly a school you want to be att, is it?

The sign seen at right, as well as funny ad clippings, photographs, and more funny signs can all be seen at http://www.3bp.com/. This site, though not updated since September 2002, maintains a fairly healthy collection of some funnier clippings, photos, and signs that I've ever seen. I may have a rapier-like sense of wit, but I'm not immune to a quick guffaw every now and then.

Salon is running an interesting article/interview with the authors of a book called "Unmarried to Each Other." The couple, who have been living with and committed to each other for several years, are proponents of "cohabitation" and founders of the Alternatives to Marriage Project. Personally, I found the article interesting, and though I'm fairly "retro" in my outlook on "family," I'm also fond of doing what suits an individual, or in this case, a pair of individuals. My only question is this: if you're going to spend your life "cohabitating" with someone, why not get married and save yourself all the trouble they mention in this article?

There's a Nextel ad with Rob Lowe (and some other famous people). Each ad shows a "split screen" effect where the individual one (top or bottom) of the screen has a Nextel phone with their Direct Connect "technology," and the other clone has a "regular" cell phone.

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Catch Me If You Can is both a book and a movie, as many by now know. Whenever I see a movie based on a book, except for Lord of the Rings and its ilk, I'm always curious to read the book. I've read all of the James Bond books I can get my hands on, all of the Tom Clancy books, and so on, and CMIYC falls into the realm of being a factual book, which makes it even nicer in my opinion.

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The title of this post makes my point. Since when does putting a * in the middle of a swear word, like you see in this article, make the swearing any less visible? Is there really a difference between "c*nt" and "cunt"? Ask women if one is more offensive than the other, please. What's the point? To keep from being filtered by some software, perhaps? If you're typing "c*nt" kids behind parental filters shouldn't see what you're writing either.

Like my Crufty UI rebuttal, Kuro5hin.org offers a nice rebuttal at this location. My mom understands save and open. My mom also understands how to use iCal and iPhoto (which don't really have "Save" and "Open" in the traditional sense… but then again they're not document-based either). Anyway, I give up, and I'm still bummed about the Steelers game. That drop by Burress late in the game cost the Steelers a shot at the Super Bowl. 😛

There's an interesting article at Salon that talks about how the fatter segment of the US population is also the poorer population. I sometimes wonder how stereotypes come about, and I often postulate that they come about because they are, for the most part, true (except for the blonde stereotype).

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The iTrip is a potentially great product for the iPod. I think I want one. No wait, I don't, because the damn thing seems to block the Firewire port. What good is a car charger if you can't use it or if you've got to be swinging the damn iFell, err, iTrip out of the way when you charge your iPod? What about the 15-hour road trip? I don't think it's gonna cut it. Am I wrong here?

Aaron mentioned to me today what he thought to be a good use of Rendezvous. it works like this... your cell phone, your beeper, your HipTop… errr…SideKick all contain a Rendezvous implementation that has a little personal "profile" on you as well as what you'd like in a potential date (assuming you're single of course, or not single and of scummy moral standards). Other people have these as well.

Then, when you're within 50 feet or so of someone whose profile matches yours (or vice versa), some sort of signal is given off. Then, if the time is opportune, I imagine the people get together and say "hi" and whatnot. Privacy advocates can stick a pipe in it because the service would be no different than, say, match.com or other dating services, except that you could turn it off and on throughout a day (Probably wanna turn it off at work or you may find out things you didn't want to know about your coworkers…). Even if you're not into the game, or are happily married, imagine the fun you'd have watching two people 50' apart suddenly look at their hips and then try to find each other.

For the record, my description of the ideal woman would come very close to the one you see at right. 🙂