This laptop comes with a fingerprint scanner, which is fairly easy to enroll in, but as soon as I installed Firefox, the HP software felt the need to add not only a plugin, but a toolbar icon. Worse, if I remove the icon, the plugin adds it right back. Even if I disable the plugin in Firefox, the icon will be added back, meaning it completely ignores both user preferences. Only completely removing the HP software got rid of it.
Then it was time to install some programs. Of course, Windows 8 doesn’t let you do that. SmartFilter blocked every attempt, telling me how it protected my PC from myself, and has no option to disable it from the dialog box. You need to go in the Control Panel to disable that, and when you do, you get a constant warning about your PC being at risk.
Now that Norton was gone, I personally happen to like Comodo firewall. So I go to download it, but the installer nicely tells me that this doesn’t work on Windows 8, and I need to download another file instead. However, this is their pro product, which basically means it’s filled with crap. It’s a good thing I noticed the tiny Customize Installer button because otherwise it would have: Changed my home page, subscribed me to something called GeekBuddy, enrolled me to their cloud program, change my DNS servers, and sent information about each scan it does to the company. The same was true with many of the applications I installed, like Adobe Reader trying to install McAfee, or QuickTime trying to sign me up for offers.
Next was time to get used to the new start screen. At first I didn’t like it, but I think it may actually be a decent idea. Of course I first had to remove everything so that I could put only my own software there. By now there were over 40 items on there, from the weather in South Africa, to some more games, and multiple links to their news, sports and other Bing related pages. I didn’t find any way to quickly clean it up, so I had to manually remove each icon.
Finally, now that everything had been uninstalled and reinstalled, I did a quick check of msconfig, which apparently in Windows 8 has been integrated into the Task Manager. Unsurprisingly, the amount of applications that had set themselves to run on startup was staggering. All sorts of crap like HP Messaging, QuickTime Task, Google Update, Apple Push, and so on.
The story of Fernforest and Petro Dale
“However, the attempt to ban cars caused Petro Dale to wake up to the threat of railways. They realized that even though much more commerce took place with cars and roads, and even though railways were becoming increasingly irrelevant, they would remain a potential regressive threat. In the past Petro Dale had sought to do business with the incumbent food network distributors, suggesting ways of taking the mass market food produce and distributing it to new franchises like mobile food trucks and fast food restaurants. They were spurned. Now they realized that trying to work with Fernforest was not just futile but harmful.”
How the internet displaced/will displace the old media distributors/publishers, in a nice metaphor story. The funny bit is even if the current MPAA, RIAA and their associates management personnel read it, they wouldn’t understand it.
Bitch slap
Short-term double standards
“This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that Apple, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company.”
This is plain rubbish. There is, or there ought to be, a limit to what companies should do to generate profits. If not for the sheer ethics of it, then for the simple point that a company that does not consider the long-term interest of their customers in their decision-making process, usually won’t have a bright long-term future too.
I can see 2 examples of this. First the is the simple reaction of Gruber, my self and many others to Google’s hypocritical “don’t be evil” motto, at the same time that they stampede over our privacy, use us as products and just push their monopoly around. Gruber has been a very vocal critic of this several times in the past. Now why not of Apple when they do a similar thing? And here i’m mostly referring to the non-standard output of ibooks author, not the whole EULA debacle that it’s still a mess in progress. Standard output and interoperable data files is something that i have very strong feelings about and i think that is something highly critical for the customer on the long run. Even if on the short run it goes unnoticed.
Second, is the long standing drop in reputation with the consumer and a general “discomfort” that flows around the “masses” regarding this type of situations. It is such a strong force (( although unrecognized and unappreciated by most by its discrete nature)) that some companies struggle with it for years. Someone recently wrote (( can’t remember who. )) that Google was the new Microsoft, it was impossible to go a day without using their products but it never felt good or comfortable doing so. And the result of this feeling, in Microsoft case, is that 90% or so ((completely made up statistic of what i see around me. )) of the consumers have no loyalty or “fondness” for Microsoft at all. And no sign of potential increase in the future. Most people will jump ships as soon as possible, as they have been doing in the last years. And the same feeling is starting to spread with Google and with Facebook. This tarnished image doesn’t easily disappear from the collective mind, no matter what the “renewed company” does.
Apple managed to survive their long past winter by having a small base of fiercely loyal customers. How many of these customers would remain loyal and faithful to Apple in a new winter if Apple gets the habits of pushing them around when they can? People don’t like being pushed around. And they remember it. For a long, long time…
Slightly edited at 17:00 GMT, 24/01/2012
The next SOPA
“The MPAA studios hate us. They hate us with region locks and unskippable screens and encryption and criminalization of fair use. They see us as stupid eyeballs with wallets, and they are entitled to a constant stream of our money. They despise us, and they certainly don’t respect us.”
Independent bookstores vs. Amazon: Buying books online is better for authors, better for the economy, and better for you.
“Wait, but what about the bookstores’ owners and employees—aren’t they benefitting from your decision to buy local? Sure, but insofar as they’re doing it inefficiently (and their prices suggest they are), you could argue that they’re benefiting at the expense of someone else in the economy. After all, if you’re spending extra on books at your local indie, you’ve got less money to spend on everything else—including on authentically local cultural experiences. With the money you saved by buying books at Amazon, you could have gone to see a few productions at your local theater company, visited your city’s museum, purchased some locally crafted furniture, or spent more money at your farmers’ market. Each of these is a cultural experience that’s created in your community. Buying Steve Jobs at a store down the street isn’t.”
Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine
Although i have a soft spot for a physical library and i romantically fantasize about them as a sort-of-temple of wisdom and knowledge, the hard truth is that i have hardly spent any time in one in the last years. I’ve purchased a couple of books online, received others as gift and read many stuff online or in my mac. (( no doubt also related to my current working life ))
And when or if i resume to my voracious book devouring life of the good ol’days, it’s very probable that i will do so resorting to Amazon. You simply can’t beat those prices and as Farhad says, with the money i save there i can either buy more books or indulge myself in other cultural&local activities.
Headphones
“I’ve always cared about the headphones that I use, but if I am honest the depth of that care extended mostly to price and design alone. I wanted something priced higher than grocery store checkout line level, but far less than an audiophile would pay — mostly I just wanted my headphones to look cool.
There was also another thing: I liked the Apple headphones back then. I liked them for the same reason everyone else did back in the day: they told the world you had an iPod.”
Ben Brooks — The Brooks Review
Sometimes it’s really hard to deny that some “apple users” are all about “form” and show-off and not much about “function” and substance… (( just a quick note to say that while i sometimes disagree with Ben, i do very much respect him and his opinions. ))
That being said, is interesting to see how people approaches to the stuff they buy are so different. I would hardly ever pay more for a “coolness” / aesthetic factor to my products. I like them to be nice and beautiful. And a very, very small premium on that is acceptable. But that would never be my main differentiating factor. Nor the high price. If i can get them as cheaply as possible, then i’m on.
What I would pay more for, and i do, is for the quality and fulfilment of their general output/function. I also bought a couple of headphones (( in case you’re interested they are the Ultrasone HFI-780 really good headphones and strongly recommended! )) last month. But aesthetics wasn’t even on the assessment card. They are audiophile grade, albeit entry-range, and what i’ve checked and read to buy them was specifications, user reviews by other audiophiles and the appreciations on some expert magazines. And the killer feature in this case was the really great price as i got them on a stock-cleaning sale.
I went trough the manufacture pictures and i carefully inspected every picture to try to understand the kind of headphones they were and what kind of materials they used. But aesthetics and “coolness factor”? Didn’t even crossed my mind.
Actually not being evil
Value
PCs are too expensive.”
The truth is they always have been. Maybe we just didn’t noticed before. And many people still don’t notice it.
I notice it every time i have to spend endless hours fixing somebody else broken Windows and removing crapware (not entirely unrelated…) as a personal favour. And every time i think that i should just charge them for making stupid purchases because they are apparently “cheap”.
The fact is they aren’t. They usually broke down not even after 2 years, they lose keyboard keys or the wireless stops working after 12 months, the dvd player/recorder dies after you’ve used it around 100 times and in the general the whole thing is just a piece of crap.
If you try to service it by changing the RAM parts or cleaning the fan, prepare for endless screws, plastic attachments that are nowhere to be seen and basically just a whole jig-saw experience with endless black plastic parts.
So, next time you actually are looking for a good value purchase, don’t go looking in the cheap PCs section…