By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: April 17, 2007
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
- ‘June’ Means June ★
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When Apple announced the iPhone at Macworld Expo, they stated it would ship in “June 2007”. In their statement last week about the Leopard delay, they reiterated that the iPhone “is on schedule to ship in late June as planned”. If the iPhone ships before the end of June, it ships on time.
Yes, WWDC starts on June 11. Yes, it’d be swell if we could stampede out of the keynote to go buy them. But the only person who’s ever reported that the iPhone was going to ship on June 11 is Deke McCullagh, whose source was an unnamed “customer service manager” at Cingular’s 800 number.
- Ambrosia Times: The Plain Truth About Piracy ★
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Here’s the working URL for Matt Slot’s 2002 article about shareware bootlegging and Ambrosia’s success with product registration. (Thanks to everyone who sent this in.)
- David Watanabe on Software Activation ★
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David Watanabe (developer of apps including NewsFire and Xtorrent):
The only alternative to “network-mediated activation” is to furnish the user with an serial number or unlock code of some sort. This is, as everyone knows, a ridiculously weak barrier. One malicious user can post their code on a website and the scheme is broken forever. I did experiment with this unlock codes back in the day and came to the unfortunate realization that for every legitimate user, there were 10 others who were using a pirated code. Clearly offline unlock codes aren’t a viable solution at all. Relying on “honesty” is a huge mistake.
Ambrosia Software has a very clever product activation system, and I recall that they published information regarding how registrations went way, way up after they switched to that system from simple unlock codes. (I can’t find a working link to that story, however. Update: Found it.)
As Mark Pilgrim wrote, the biggest problem with any activation system like this is that your software won’t be installable if the company goes out of business.
- Computer Science’s Image Problem ★
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Jens Alfke on the aforelinked New York Times story on women in computer science:
How is it that people can be so excited by the Internet and digital media, but totally turned off by the prospect of designing the stuff that makes those things work? They seem to confuse computer science with data-entry, or boring MIS drudgery like writing payroll systems. Or do they just totally not care about where things like web search and MP3 codecs and 3D graphics and peer-to-peer protocols come from … are they just some magic that falls out of the sky and no one should give a second thought to?
Right. The solution isn’t to pretend that computer science isn’t about programming. The solution is to find ways to expose how much fun and how interesting programming can be.
- New York Times Story on the Low Number of Women Earning Computer Science Degrees ★
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[…] when high school girls think of computer scientists they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.
This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. “They think of it as programming,” Dr. Cuny said. “They don’t think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth.”
Um, maybe they think about computer science as programming because it is programming? Without programming, how exactly are computer scientists going to revolutionize anything at all? It’s like saying that people are discouraged from becoming surgeons because they think of it as “cutting people open”.
- Zeldman on Comment Spam ★
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Jeffrey Zeldman:
If comments are a site’s lifeblood, my site is having a stroke. (Which, by the way, was a popular verb in 42 of the spam comments I received.)
- Regarding the iPod Customers Clogging Apple Stores ★
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Fake Steve:
One solution we’re considering: A new chain of “Apple Elite” stores where you have to pass a test to get in. We’d put the test on a really cool multi-touch screen outside the door. If you pass, click, the door opens, just like on an ATM booth. If you fail, too bad, you can just stand outside trying to look through the smoked glass at all the super cool Apple cultists.
- Embarrassing Twitter Gaffe ★
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Steve Rubel posted to Twitter that he has a comped subscription to PC Magazine but “it goes in the trash”. The problem is that Rubel is an executive at the Edelman PR firm, which represents many tech clients pitching stories to PC Magazine. PC Magazine editor Jim Louderback noticed and called him on it, prompting Rubel to apologize.
What I find odd is that Rubel signed his apology with his name in lowercase letters, like he’s a teenager on an E.E. Cummings kick.
- Apple Deemed a Sweatshop ★
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CARS reports on an unnamed Apple employee working long hours for very low pay.
- TidBITS Turns 17 ★
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17 years of weekly publication and terrific writing. Astounding.
- Adobe CS3 Upgrade Pricing Loophole ★
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Save $179 on the Web Premium suite or $278 on the Design Premium suite by buying Macromedia Studio 8 first, and then buying the upgrade to CS3.
- Jackasses of the Week: Cara Garretson and Her Editors at Network World ★
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The Macalope on Cara Garretson’s ridiculous series of articles for Network World hyping the iPod as a supposed threat to IT security.
- Hypatia Sans Pro ★
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Outstanding new geometric sans serif font family from Adobe, designed by Thomas Phinney. Somehow feels both modern and timeless. (Thanks to reader Jon Hart.)
- 32 Shot Dead in Massacre at Virginia Tech ★
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I can’t think of anything to say, but feel the need to say something.
So it goes.