Linked List: October 15, 2007

Monday, 15 October 2007

Zeppelin Catalog Coming to Online Music Stores 

One of only three bands I’ll hear an argument about as the greatest of all time.

The remastered The Song Remains the Same, which includes a slew of additional songs, looks like a must-buy.

Welcome to 2004 

From a Macworld reprint of an IDG News Service story by Robert McMillan on security exploits via URI protocol handlers:

Secunia ApS Chief Technology Officer Thomas Kristensen agreed that the URI protocol handler problems will probably turn up on Linux and Mac OS X. “There is absolutely a chance that similar issues could exist on those platforms,” he said.

Hello, there actually have been URI protocol handler vulnerabilities on Mac OS X. (More details here and here.) Are there more waiting to be discovered? Maybe. (Or, if you prefer, “absolutely maybe”.) But it’s not like this is a new vector for potential exploits on Mac OS X.

$0.99 iTunes Plus Tracks Appear on iTunes 

So is it (a) a mistake; (b) the first signs of a unilateral price drop to $0.99 for iTunes Plus; or (c) the introduction of variable single pricing?

Mac and Linux Support for BBC Online Video Soon? 

BBC:

The BBC has also confirmed that users of Apple Mac and Linux machines will be able to use its TV catch-up service from the end of the year.

The broadcaster has signed a deal with Adobe to provide Flash video for the whole of the BBC’s video services, including a streaming version of its iPlayer.

Vanna White and Pat Sajak Discuss Fonts 

How can I not link to this?

Networking Know-Nothing 

PCWorld Business Center “Expert” weblogger Robert Strohmeyer, on why the iPhone isn’t suited for business:

For business users, an ideal phone should be able to do three things well: voice calls, messaging (including e-mail), file attachments, and web browsing.

That’s four things — and yet this might be the most accurate sentence in Strohmeyer’s piece.

At the same time, the iPhone lacks support for Microsoft Office file attachments, which means that, unlike the Blackberrys, Moto Qs, and Blackjacks you may have now, it can’t open a Word document or Excel spreadsheet at all.

Oh, really?

In addition to these major shortcomings, the iPhone currently offers no VPN support, so you can forget about giving your users secure access to internal network resources from the road.

Oh, really?? Why not just claim it doesn’t even make phone calls?

Doomed 

Byron Acohido, USA Today:

Google’s widely anticipated - and top secret - GPhone mobile phone project could trump Apple’s glitzy iPhone - by going low cost and low tech, tech analysts say.

A low-cost relatively low-tech “GPhone” may well be a smash hit, and a revolutionary product in the mobile phone market. But the only way it makes sense that it threatens the iPhone is if you believe there’s only room for one “it” phone. Apparently if any other phone on the market is successful, the iPhone is doomed.

‘Hello, My Name Is David Berlind and Thanks to These Glasses I Can See Into the Future’ 

Fake Steve on David Berlind’s 2004 prediction that desktop Linux spelled doom for Mac OS X:

Well, it’s been three years. I’m not sure what to say. Maybe we should wait another hundred years and see if his prediction comes true.

People Getting Punched Just Before Eating 

As my wife described it, this is exactly the sort of thing I find funny.

The Best of Technology Writing 2007 

Edited by Newsweek’s Steven Levy; includes a May 2006 piece by yours truly from DF: “Good Journalism”. It’s a nice anthology with slew of thoughtful essays, and it’s very handsomely typeset in Granjon.

SXSW 2007 Audio: The Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer 

The audio has finally been posted from the panel I spoke on at SXSW back in March, with Shaun Inman, Nick Bradbury, and moderator Michael Lopp.