By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: January 28, 2008
Monday, 28 January 2008
- Dumbest Question of the Week ★
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Seth Weintraub asks if Apple is “taking a cut of movie rentals”, on the theory that maybe Apple is making a profit on iTunes movie rentals, and that this might be how they cut the price of Apple TV by $70. This never occurred to me. I thought maybe they were selling movie rentals at cost, as a favor to the movie industry.
- How to Fix Security Issue in Office 2008 Installer ★
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Erik Schwiebert:
First of all, if you have already installed Office 2008, you can run two commands in the Terminal to fix the file ownership and remove the security concern (see instructions below). Second, the MacBU is working on an update to Office 2008 that will automatically fix the file ownership for you.
- Palm Closes Retail Stores ★
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John Paczkowski pretty much sums it up with his title: “Wait. Palm Had Retail Stores?”
- Qtrax: ‘Where By ‘All’ the Major Music Labels, We Meant ‘None’” ★
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P2P music distribution site snookered Wired and Reuters into publishing stories touting their new ad-based music distribution system with support from all four major labels; after stories go out, it turns out they have signed deals with none of the labels.
- Archer ★
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New geometric slab serif family from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, originally developed for Martha Stewart Living. H&FJ describe it thusly:
Sweet but not saccharine, earnest but not grave, Archer is designed to hit just the right notes of forthrightness, credibility, and charm.
- Rich Mogull Joins TidBITS as Security Editor ★
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Probably the most knowledgeable security expert in the Mac media today.
- Doomed, Eh? ★
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Best iPhone doubter in months. Mitchell Ashley:
The iPhone is certain to fade into history as another cool Apple innovation, that others soon rushed competitive, like-products to market, blowing away any significant lead Apple might have. The iPod MP3 player is an industry Apple essentially created, the iPhone isn’t. Too many major players are in the mobile phone market, who have and will bring iPhone-like products to market over the coming months and years. LG has already done so with the LG Voyager phone, and now Microsoft’s plans for Windows Mobile 7 OS have been leaked and described in considerable detail by InsideMicrosoft blogger Nathan Weinberg.
The crux of his argument is that Windows Mobile 7 — which isn’t due until 2009 — is slated to add a bunch of “iPhone competitive” features. As the Macalope says, “It’s amazing how future Microsoft products beat current Apple products time and time again, isn’t it?”
I also enjoy his putting the LG Voyager up as an iPhone peer. I actually got to use one of these turds for a few minutes at Macworld two weeks ago, and it’s a joke. You know the iPhone-like home screen? The one LG and Verizon show in all their promotional photos? That’s actually not the main UI of the phone. That’s just the interface for accessing secondary features of the phone. The main UI is just like that of any other crap LG phone, and one of the “apps” you can launch is the iPhone knock-off “shortcut” mode. And, when you open the slider, the inside screen has a third different UI. The overall experience is worse, way worse, than that of a typical LG phone.
- The Autumn of the Multitaskers ★
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Pretty good article by Walter Kirn in The Atlantic on the neuroscience that shows that multitasking makes us less effective, not more effective. At least I think it was a good article; I read it last night on my iPhone while watching a movie. (Via Rands.)