The Talk Show: Live From WWDC
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Linked List: June 2, 2006

Friday, 2 June 2006

When the Bough Breaks 

More from Mark Pilgrim on his switch:

I’m creating things now that I want to be able to read, hear, watch, search, and filter 50 years from now. Despite all their emphasis on content creators, Apple has made it clear that they do not share this goal. Openness is not a cargo cult. Some get it, some don’t. Apple doesn’t.

It’s obvious he’s been thinking about this for a long time, but I don’t agree with all of it. For example, he’s been bitten by metadata database corruption in both iPhoto and iTunes; I think the solution here is a good backup strategy, not open file formats for the binary metadata stores. Knowing the format of the file won’t help if the corruption is severe; a good back-up will always work.

I agree, though, that closed-format metadata stores are not good long-term archival formats.

Couple’s Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased in Chicago 

A year ago, Henry and Roma Gerbus took their computer to Best Buy in Springfield Township to have its hard drive replaced.

Henry Gerbus said Best Buy assured him the computer’s old hard drive — loaded with personal information — would be destroyed.

“They said rest assured. They drill holes in it so it’s useless,” said Gerbus.

A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago.

“He said, ‘My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,’” said Gerbus. “I thought my world was coming down.”

(Via Dan Benjamin.)

Best Buy Selling Macs 

They’d been selling Mac Minis, but now they’re selling MacBooks and iMacs, too.