Kirb’s Musings

Kirby Witmer’s ponderings, ruminations, and meditations of… anything.

Uh-oh. It looks Vista didn’t win the PWN to OWN contest after all. Although in reality it was a cross platform flaw in Adobe Flash that was exploited. Get a Mac Vista Ubuntu.

I’m not sure how many of you are keeping up with the PWN to OWN contest that is going on right now, but Mac OS X is the first one to go down. Basically its a contest to see who can compromise the three operating systems the fastest. So far Vista and Ubuntu are unscathed. Hmm.. maybe its time for some new Get a Mac ads?
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Apple has started to install Safari automatically when you attempt to update Quicktime or iTunes. This is just plain wrong. Think “spyware”.

Update: This is also similar to what Adobe does, but I think its even worse.

Engadget has a post up comparing the featuresof Vista and Leopard, and you would think its Word War 3 by the comments. (Ohh, by the way, there is exactly 666 comments over there now as I’m writing this post.) Its funny how people get all fired up about which OS is the best. I’ve worked with enough Operating Systems in my short life to know they all have big flaws.

However, Vista is still the best.

 Update: And don’t even get me started on this. That’s a huge reason why I don’t more appreciation for Apple than I do. They are so arrogant.

Remember all those apple fan boys lining up for the new iPhone? Well, now they are all upset.

Via Cnet News.com

The loyal Apple customers who purchased the iPhone at its
initial release, waited in lines for hours and paid a premium
price, feel taken advantage of. I feel that I should be reimbursed
for the $200 more that I paid for my iPhone, or be given a free
upgrade to an 8 GB model.

Via wired.com.

Say what you will about the folly of early adoption — we’ve got a few who willingly paid the “stupid tax” within our ranks. But a drop of $200 after just 66 days means that the iPhone decreased roughly $3.03 a day in retail value between launch and yesterday’s announcement.

Anyone thinking, crybaby? I say, tough. This is life in the technology world. If you want to be on the cutting edge, expect to pay dearly for it, and don’t be upset when the price drops the next week.

Engadget breaks the news that the iPhone has been unlocked. Kinda reminds me of a favorite quote of mine:

“The only system which is truly secure, is one which is switched off and unplugged, locked in a titanium lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker, surrounded by nerve gas and very highly paid armed guards. Even then, I wouldn’t stake my life on it” - Gene Spafford

I had promised to expand on my iphone experience in my last post, and never got it done, so here goes.

• It was very sleek and beautiful phone. Very nice to look at. 
• Screen had lots of fingerprints.
• It was smaller than I had anticipated.
• I was disappointed in the amount of apps available. Very few.
• I made lots of mistakes in typing on the keyboard. With time though, it probably would’ve improved.
• You had to really push on the screen sometimes to get it to respond. Several times I had to try two or three times til if finally did what I wanted it to.

These are some of my first impressions with the iphone in the few minutes I played with it. In summary, I would say that its a cool phone, although it was really over-hyped.

I couldn’t resist. So I stopped at an At&t store and checked out the iphone. Its pretty sweet althought it does have its cons. But more on that later.

P.S. No, I didn’t buy one. Its too expensive for what you get.

Edited to add: There wasn’t even any body in line when I got there about 7:20 or so.

The competition is heating up. heh.

Ok. That’s it. I have had enough of this iPhone talk!

P.S. Ohhh.. and it looks like I’m not the only one.