Linked List: July 31, 2008

Thursday, 31 July 2008

Security Update 2008-005 

Addresses the DNS issue in the news this month, as well as the AppleScript/ARDAgent issue from a few weeks ago.

The Cast of Mad Men, Out of Costume 

It’s amazing how much younger they look to me like this. (Thanks to Joe Clark.)

Scott McNulty Leaves TUAW 

Big loss for TUAW — McNulty was far and away their best writer.

Flip Video Codec Now Works With iMovie 

I missed this when it shipped last month, but if you update to the latest version of iMovie ’08 and the latest codec from Flip, videos you shoot on a Flip camcorder now work in iMovie ’08. They also work in iMovie ’06 (a.k.a. iMovie HD). Apple’s support document only mentions the new Flip Mino specifically, but it works for me with the Flip Ultra, too.

Sunday Times Subeditors Reply to Giles Coren 

Christ this is fun:

Sub-editing is a noble profession. It is also a thankless one — particularly when your writers call you a “useless cunt”.

Delicious 2.0 

Total revamp of the UI, including even the domain name. My quick impression is that it’s a big improvement, but I pretty much stopped using Delicious when I started posting links to DF. It’ll be interesting to see how regular users react to this big a change.

Turning Off Apple Data Detectors in Apple Mail 

Great tip from Michael Tsai.

Joe Wilcox on the ‘Mojave Experiment’ 

I think Wilcox is right, that the biggest problem with this campaign is that the whole point of it seems to be that Windows users are too stupid to realize how good Vista really is. Not exactly a Draper-caliber message.

Wade Meredith: ‘I’ll Give You $50 for a Worse Brand Name Than Knol’ 

Might be a tough bet to win.

Wil Shipley on Microsoft’s ‘Mojave Experiment’ 

I know, Mac guy shooting holes in a Microsoft marketing campaign for Vista: how shocking. But Wil Shipley has some good points about whether Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment” actually proves anything at all about Vista:

My point is that the problems that Vista has become famous for are not the kinds of problems you encounter in a few minutes of playing with it in a controlled environment. Vista is known for people initially liking it, then after a while discovering it’s not working for them, and “downgrading” to XP. This study has told us exactly what we already knew: that, initially, people like Vista.

From a marketing perspective, though, this might prove to be a fairly successful campaign for Microsoft. The science of this “experiment” really does seem to be of the same caliber as that of the old Pepsi Challenge, but the Pepsi Challenge was a success in terms of selling more Pepsi.

Double-Tap and What? 

Regarding MagicPad, the upcoming iPhone notes app with text selection and copy/paste, a few readers have emailed to point out that Safari uses double-tap-and-release (tap, up, tap, up) for zooming, whereas MagicPad is using double-tap-and-hold (tap, up, tap, drag) for selection — and that so therefore there isn’t any conflict between those two gestures.

I just don’t see how typical iPhone users could be expected to make that distinction. On the Mac, double-clicking in text means “select this word”, whether you release the button after the second click or not. Single- vs. double-tapping is complicated enough for most people; double-tap-and-hold vs. double-tap-and-release would be baffling.

Garfield Minus Garfield, the Book 

Jim Davis seems to have a great sense of humor about the whole thing. (Thanks to Jesper.)

Unstressed 

Giles Coren, to his editors at The Times (London) for removing the word “a” from the closing sentence of his review:

And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed ‘a’ so that the stress that should have fallen on “nosh” is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you’re winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear that it is wrong? It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

Coren is, of course, correct. The sentence was mutilated.

Analogy of the Week 

Jonathan Hoefler on Dieter Rams’s office hi-fi, as seen in a production still from Gary Hustwit’s upcoming Objectified:

Look at it: it’s smart, stylish, functional, and badass; it’s the Steve McQueen of audio equipment.

Field Tested Books Photos 

A few pictures from my trip to New York for Monday’s Field Tested Books book reading, which was a blast, and you should have been there.