The saddest party ever

I’m not playing dumb here: I really don’t know why Microsoft is so defensive about Apple. Despite Apple’s inroads in market share (including, apparently, 91% of the $1000-plus PC market), Windows is still by far the dominant OS on computers worldwide. Windows 7 will probably sell more copies in the first day than any Mac OS upgrade does in its first month, just by virtue of shipping with new PCs. (But don’t quote me on that. I’d love to be proven egregiously wrong.)

Sure, most of Microsoft’s success over the years has come by copying Apple, or by acquiring other innovators. But still, some of the things Microsoft has been doing lately seem so reflexive, so derivative, so defensive, so… desperate. The “I’m a PC” ads and today’s news about hiring away Apple Store employees are just the tip of the iceberg.

And then, courtesy of the Nerdery, we have this: perhaps the saddest statement of all. One would be inclined to think this is a joke. But the production values and the quality of the acting (enthusiasm!) suggest it has to be legit. Begging the question: WHY? SWEET JESUS, WHY???

Believe it or not, I actually am enthusiastic about Windows 7. I probably won’t buy it on release day, but I almost definitely will buy it before my Windows 7 RC license expires next June. Still, who the hell is going to throw a party like this? And who would come to it, other than to give them a wedgie?

Come to think of it, after watching this video, I almost want to give myself a wedgie. But it was all worth it for what comes at 5:43. Priceless.

But just in case I haven’t adequately dissuaded you (and you know who you are), here’s how you can host your own.

Arial vs. Helvetica: a cheat sheet

Stoking the flames of the ongoing (mixed-metaphor) battle between Arial and Helvetica comes this cheat sheet courtesy of the ragbag. (Found via swissmiss via… wait for it… Daring Fireball, surprise!)

This guide hits all of the key differences I go by (the capital R and G; the lowercase a), and a few I hadn’t previously noticed.

Arial vs. Helvetica

The best part of the whole thing, though, is something I discovered in a comment on the swissmiss post: Helvetica, the Shirt. Sweet. Every one of these is bound to piss someone off, albeit for a different reason: the one actually in Helvetica will enrage those who hate Helvetica on principle (it’s overused, it’s not really neutral, it is really neutral, etc. etc.), while the one in Arial will piss off the Helvetica lovers (including myself), if they bother to look closely enough to see the differences.

The one in Cooper Black… well, I don’t know; for me that font will always be associated with Garfield in the early ’80s. I actually like Cooper Black in a cheesy, retro sort of way. But I think the point is probably that Helvetica is so neutral, or at least aspires to be, whereas Cooper Black is the epitome of a font with a personality of its own. (Well, OK, that title probably really belongs to Rosewood, but Cooper is at least a somewhat versatile.)

And then, of course, there’s the one in Comic Sans, which we will never speak of again.

What’s the point of blogging?

STFUNo, it’s not a rhetorical question. What is the point of blogging? If you’re a blogger, why do you do it (assuming you have a cogent reason)? If you’re a blog reader, why do you read the blogs that you do?

Here’s a secondhand quote on the matter that I found on one of the blogs I read:

In many ways the core of blogging is a willingness to apply what you know to every problem you encounter, and see how good a job you can do of it in a more or less integrated fashion.

That gem, which I had to read five or six times to understand, but the more I read it the more I agree, was written by Tyler Cohen on another blog I (less often) read.

Thinking about the blogs I read most, the authors have a clear purpose; the blogs have a clear theme. The authors are experts (or at least well-versed) in the subject matter they’re writing about, and the blogs become a commentary on the events of the day (within the author’s realm), bringing to the reader’s attention items of interest that they may have otherwise missed, and supplementing the link with a tidbit (or more) of relevant discussion.

So then, assuming that the success of a blog in achieving this goal is an end in itself, the point of blogging is to act as a niche news service with commentary, or perhaps more accurately as a trusted adviser — that “in-the-know” friend (though you probably don’t know the blog author personally) who knows what you’re interested in and keeps you on top of the latest and greatest.

It’s fascinating to think of the power blogs have in this way. But it also reinforces the importance of the trust I mentioned in the last paragraph. A blogger’s stock in trade is their trustworthiness. Readers need to know that the blogger actually knows what they’re talking about, and perhaps even more importantly, that they’re not being misleading — whether deliberately (for unknown nefarious purposes), accidentally (because they goofed), or due to the invisible hand of an outside influence (money from sponsors, potential to achieve a position of power and authority).

It’s easy to say that this is a reason not to trust blogs, and why blogs will always be — or at least are for now — inferior to “legitimate” journalism. But given numerous recent examples (all of which in my mind right now involve Glenn Beck in some capacity) of the failures of traditional media for many of these same reasons, I think blogging deserves more serious consideration.

One of these things is not like the others…

Well, OK, I guess two of these things are not like the others.

We took the kids to the Autumn Daze festival today, where there was a small assortment of third-rate midway rides (bearing in mind that the midway is inherently third-rate anyway, meaning these are maybe fifth-rate). This low-budget (and certainly not licensed) handmade sign on the Round-up certainly says it all:

Round-up

Yes, that’s Dora the Explorer, Stewie Griffin from Family Guy, Spongebob Squarepants and, I think, the Tasmanian Devil. I suppose Taz isn’t really “kid-friendly” these days anymore either (although I grew up watching Bugs Bunny torment him every Saturday morning), but… wow. Stewie? Really?

Stuff that sucks: Griffin and HP edition

I hate stuff that sucks. And these days, it seems like more stuff sucks than ever. The era of things being built to last has long since passed. Even the era of planned obsolescence is obsolete. We are living in an era when most things aren’t built to be any good in the first place. Printer companies, in particular, seem to have adopted the Gillette model of disposal razors: give the printer away for free (well, almost), and reap huge profits on ink cartridges. Now, you’d think that in order to keep their customers in need of ink cartridges, they would at least ensure that their printers work. But they’ve learned that’s not even necessary. It’s cheaper to just swap the duds with “refurbished” replacements than to ensure that no duds leave the factory in the first place.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My gripe today did not start with my HP Photosmart C4580 all-in-one inkjet printer/copier/scanner. I have a perpetual low-level gripe with it, to the point that I’ve become numb to the absurdity of having to restart the supposedly always-on, Wi-Fi enabled printer to get it to actually recognize commands from computers on my network. No, today’s gripe began with the Griffin Reveal case I purchased along with my new iPhone 3G S three weeks ago.

At first the case seemed fantastic, but within a few days I noticed little bits of dust/grains of crud/whatever were getting down inside. I removed it, cleaned away the crud, and replaced it. But the crud came back, and as the days went on it got worse.

Now, just three weeks after I bought the phone, the Griffin Reveal has left permanent, deep pits in the back of my iPhone. Observe, in this pathetically blurry picture that — for reasons I’ll explain in a bit, though you may already be able to guess given the rant that started this post — I took with my old iPhone (which now belongs to SLP).

The pits.

Now, if you could see any detail at all in this picture, you’d see that there are dozens of little pits in the back of the phone, like I stabbed it repeatedly with a drafting compass. (Which I assure you I did not. I haven’t owned a drafting compass since geometry class in tenth grade.)

Here’s the culprit, which I am contemplating returning to the Apple Store for a refund:

The culprit and its stupid box.

And, yes… the blurry photos. I was going to scan the back of the new iPhone with my HP all-in-one, but the flippin’ thing won’t scan for some reason. I just scanned some stuff with it last week, but now the HP Scan Pro software crashes each time I try to use it. The scanner will kick in, scan a few inches, and then bail out with a pointless error message.

Translation: We suck.

Bear in mind that this error message appeared after my clicking of the “New Scan” button in the software caused the scanner to sputter to life and begin (but not finish) scanning.

I tried restarting the scanner. I tried restarting the scanner and my computer (twice). I tried deleting preferences and I tried opening HP Scan Pro directly instead of letting HP Device Manager fire it off and I tried using a USB cable instead of Wi-Fi and I tried standing on my head and chanting dark incantations by the light of the full moon. Nothing worked.

So much suck in such a small package.

Update, the next morning: Having “slept on it,” I recognize how much Apple is to blame here. Aesthetics do often trump practicality in Apple’s industrial design. The shiny black plastic on the back of the iPhone sure looks nice, at least when it’s new, but it’s way too soft and scratch-prone. My old iPhone had a brushed aluminum back, which I loved. And to be honest, the plastic back was a big deterrent for me with the first iPhone 3G. I shouldn’t need a case for my phone. A device that goes in people’s pockets and purses ought to be made from materials that are suitable for that environment.

That said, the pits caused by the Griffin Reveal case are far worse than the superficial scratches it would have received without it. I suppose the case does still provide extra protection if the phone gets dropped, so now I’m debating putting the case back on, despite the damage it’s caused so far.

Another update, later in the day: Well, there will be no returns… I checked my Apple Store receipt and it needed to be returned within two weeks. It has a one-year warranty (WTF?) though, but it seems more trouble than it’s worth. Unless I can get a new iPhone 3G S on the spot, I’d rather just live with the damage. Which is just what they’re hoping I’ll do. Sounds like HP.