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Linked List: November 9, 2006

Thursday, 9 November 2006

$30 competitor to Apple Remote Desktop from Devon Technologies.

Update: It’s not really fair to call it a competitor to ARD. Desktop Transporter is pretty much focused on screen-sharing; ARD does screen-sharing and a whole lot more. It’s probably more fair to call Desktop Transporter a rival to Timbuktu. And don’t forget that iChat will offer screen sharing in Mac OS X 10.5.

Expose This ★

Matthew Himler:

Last week I was interviewed by the Globe and one of my key emphasis points was that whether it is blogs, Facebook or MySpace, people are starting to use technology to not only expose themselves, but also to share their views and opinions. I think Microsoft’s understanding of this change, which is apparent in Zune, will give the company a differentiating edge.

Expose themselves? I didn’t know Zune had a built-in camera.

CSSEdit 2.0 ★

Very impressive upgrade to MacRabbit’s aptly-named $30 CSS editor. There’s some very interesting cleverness in the UI. For example, its inspectors are anchored in the editing window rather than sitting in free-floating palettes. The way CSSEdit does this is definitely less cluttered — but the downside is that it only lets you see one of them at a time.

Update: Cleverness abounds. CSSEdit author Jan Van Boghout emailed to point out that there’s a preference setting to allow multiple inspectors to be displayed at once. So: downside retracted.

Rosetta Performance Improvements in Mac OS X 10.4.8 ★

Macworld lab results show Photoshop runs about 35 percent faster in 10.4.8 than it did in previous versions of Tiger on Intel-based Macs. That means Intel-based iMacs are nearly on par with G5 iMacs, and Mac Pro Quads are nearly on par with Power Mac G5 Quads. And these machines blow their G5 counterparts away running universal binaries. In short, even if you’re a heavy Photoshop user, it might be worth upgrading to a new Mac now.

Ed Bradley, Veteran CBS Newsman, Dies at 65 ★

One of the greatest television journalists, ever.

The End Is Coming, Zune ★

Nice Zune piece by Martin McClellan:

I suppose this opens a philosophical debate on when in a song’s playing does the it turn into the past tense ‘played’? For iTunes the question was any easy one: it’s played when it’s done playing. But Microsoft had to put the playcount at the beginning of the song. Why? Because if it were at the end, then I could listen to a whole song nearly to the end, and then skip to the next song, thus finding an easy workaround to the “3 plays or 3 days” limitation. Never mind that the song will be erased in 3 days anyway, Microsoft is more interested in acting like a drug dealer and tempting me with a melody and withdrawing it than it is in giving me a function that might benefit me.

Zune Commercials ★

Not horrible, but not at all memorable or distinctive. Three of the six ads feature breakdancing. Is that back?

The Deck ★

Just a friendly reminder that Daring Fireball is a member of The Deck — a targeted ad network that delivers a single ad impression, without annoying animation, for each page view, and only accepts ads for products or services we (i.e. the member sites of The Deck) have paid for and/or used.

TextMate vs. BBEdit Comment Thread ★

If you like editor wars, you’ll love the comments on this post from Erik Barzeski.

Walt Mossberg Reviews the Zune ★

Walt Mossberg:

Placing the Zune next to the 30-gigabyte iPod provides a strong contrast. The iPod is thin, sleek and elegant looking. The Zune looks big and blocky, sort of like a prototype for a gadget, rather than a finished product. It is longer, thicker and heavier than even the 80-gigabyte iPod, which has more than twice its capacity. …

The word “Microsoft” never appears anywhere on the Zune, only the new Zune logo and a cheeky, “Hello from Seattle” in tiny type at the bottom of the back of the device.

Blackfriars’ Marketing: Microsoft tries to derail the iPod juggernaut with Universal deal ★

Blackfriars’ Marketing on the Microsoft-Universal $1-per-Zune deal:

While this sounds like a simple “we wanted to get a major music label on board deal”, it’s really an attempt to poison next year’s licensing contract renewal between Universal and Apple. After all, Microsoft is unlikely to sell more than two million Zunes in the next six months to a year, so this costs them little. But I estimate that Apple will sell nearly 20 million iPods just this quarter (more about that tomorrow), and hundreds of millions of songs as well.

Microsoft to Pay Universal for Every Zune Sold ★

Yinka Adegoke, reporting for Reuters:

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to pay Universal Music Group a fee for each new Zune digital music player it sells when the iPod rival launches next week, the companies said on Thursday.

I don’t get it. Why would Microsoft do this?

Update: Reader Conrad Gempf suggests the following:

If I were Steve Jobs, I’d call Universal today and say “We’ll take you up on exactly the same deal as Microsoft has. Apple too will pay you $1 for every Microsoft Zune sold.”

Yojimbo 1.3 ★

Free update to Bare Bones’s terrific organizer app. The big new feature is a very nice tagging implementation, but there are a ton of other additions, too. Highly recommended.

Tim Bray on Keynote ★

Tim Bray:

Anyhow, my real purpose here is just to say that the Keynote authoring interface is just totally excellent, amazingly good; and I speak as a pretty expert user of both PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org. For my money, maybe the best app Apple ships.

I don’t think I’d call it the best app they ship, but it’s certainly in the running. Keynote is terrific. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the one app that we know you-know-who uses seriously.

David Pogue Reviews the Zune ★

David Pogue:

What’s really nuts is that the restrictions even stomp on your own musical creations. Microsoft’s literature suggests that if you have a struggling rock band, you could “put your demo recordings on your Zune” and “when you’re out in public, you can send the songs to your friends.” What it doesn’t say: “And then three days later, just when buzz about your band is beginning to build, your songs disappear from everyone’s Zunes, making you look like an idiot.”