Apple are idiots (or possibly geniuses)

If you’ve missed the furore of rumours about the possibility of a forthcoming “headless iMac” then you’ve probably been hiding under a rock of late. The Mac community rumour mill has been grinding overtime ever since ThinkSecret - an Apple enthusiast site with a good track record of predictions - published details of what might be a stripped-down, low-cost iMac.

Over the last few days, mainstream media has picked up on the story, and it’s gone pretty much around the world. At which point, Apple have decided to fire off a lawsuit against ThinkSecret, alleging that the rumours contain Apple trade secrets.

Which leads me to two possibilities. Either Apple have a spectacularly clueless and inept legal department, who wouldn’t know brand-enhancing publicity if it fell on them - or they have an incredibly cunning marketing wizard pulling the legal strings to whip up the furore even further.

The chances of it being the second are quite frankly nil, because at a stroke Apple have positioned themselves as the neighborhood corporate thug throwing their weight around in the way we’ve come to expect of petrochemical giants. Which is doubly bizarre when you consider that they benefit from a customer base which tends toward zealotry at times. Although their products are now positively hip - not to mention increasingly cost-effective when compared with a Wintel-based platform - what’s kept them going over the years has been customer loyalty.

Compare and contrast this approach with that of the Evil Empire itself. Sure, Bill Gates is capable of coming out with comments that give the occasional glimpse into the heart of the convicted predatory monopoly, but the public face of Microsoft today has been transformed by people like Robert Scoble, sites like Channel 9 and a whole host of others who are now talking more-or-less openly about what they’re doing and why. You might not trust them or like what they’re doing, but you’ve at least got a clearer idea of what they’re thinking about.

So there’s the paradox. On the one hand, the open and increasingly-cuddly giant that everyone loves to hate, and on the other the secretive and knee-jerkingly litigious underdog that inspires devoted loyalty from its customers fans. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Tablets in the news

Maybe Robert ‘Tablet Maven’ Scoble’s influence isn’t just confined to Channel 9 - Channel 5’s revamped Sky-powered news programmes feature presenter Kirsty Young toting a Tablet PC as a portable alternative to an autocue…

Harry Potter and the iPod of Misdemeanor

Neil’s must be bored: he’s written a Random Harry Potter Book Title Generator…

Gmail invites going spare

I’ve got six four three gmail invites to give away - if anyone wants one, drop me a line…

What to get your Unix geek for Christmas

Stuck for that last-minute present for the geek in your life? Look no further - simply sign up three new members to the Free Software Foundation, and Richard Stallman will record a voicemail greeting for you…

The first (and probably only) time I’ll make it into the NYT

The Firefox ad finally made it into the New York Times today, and my name’s in there (in tiny, weeny, really very small type). Which is the first and very likely the only time I’ll find myself in the NYT…

Missing the obvious

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this earlier. This site has been battered by spam commenters over the last month or so, averaging about 250 - 300 a day - at first I started blocking specific IP addresses with a .htaccess file, but of late the pattern seems to have changed. It’s unusual to get more than two or three hits from the same IP address, which makes me wonder if the spammers are either a) using scripts that change the spoofed IP address on a frequent basis; or b) are using 0wn3d machines.

Then I downloaded Kitten’s Spaminator which caught about 75% of the inbound spam and killed it dead - but I couldn’t figure out a way of training it to catch the ones that were being missed. So while things were better, the spam that was getting through was still a pain.

Then last night the highly obvious piece of inspiration struck - I’ve no idea why I’ve never thought of doing this before, but there you go. The vast majority of the spam is against old posts - certainly it’s very rare to be spammed on a post which is less than 3 months old. I’m not sure why this is, but it does leave me a get-out clause for the moment, at least until I play around with the filters a bit more. A quick ‘update comment-status’ SQL query later, and comments are disabled globally for any post more than three months old. And my inbox has never been quieter…

Quick, someone tell the RIAA…

I’ve just found an undocumented featurette on my iRiver: the line-out and headphone jacks operate simultaneously in playback mode. Which means that - gasp - two people could listen to the same music at the same time. Surely this must be illegal - I’m expecting a cease-and-desist notice at any time now…

There’ll be no video iPod

This, my friends, is why there will be no video iPod:

Hollywood allies sue DVD jukebox maker

A Hollywood-backed technology group is suing a high-end home theater system company, contending that its home DVD jukebox technology is illegal.

Update: more background here

Back…

Although not saying much right now.

More to come…