Malware has EULA too!

Ars Technica has this post about how malware have EULAs too!

But unlike the normal software company’s EULA, that rely on the rule of law to enforce, the malware EULA rely on threats of strong arm tactics to enforce.

Filed in Software, Humor.

Daniel K (of the Creative Driver Fiasco Fame) Says GoodBye

Daniel K, who fixed the buggy Creative drivers for Audigy and X-Fi when Creative refused, has bowed out of the Creative forum. Or at least I think that’s what the “goodbye” is for - it isn’t really clear whether it is for the forum or for fixing Creative’s drivers.

And there’re updates on the driver situation:

Unfortunately, the situation did not change for us.

They did say an updated Audigy driver would eventually be released, but don’t be optimistic about it (their priority is the launch of X-Fi 2).

What I can say for sure is the features I’ve enabled will not be made available in an official driver update.

In other words, Creative will not fix their existing drivers. If you want a working sound card in Vista, your only solution at the moment is to buy a non-Creative card. After such a huge uproar and bad press, I wonder why Creative insists on continuing to dig their own graves. Even I, a former fan of SoundBlaster - from SoundBlaster 16 all the way up to Audigy 2, am looking for an alternative brand.

Anyone know of any good sound card?

Filed in Software.

Creative on the Defensive Over X-Fi/Audigy Drivers Fiasco

After Creative took down a third party for fixing their broken Vista Audigy and X-Fi drivers, a huge public outcry resulted. Since then, Creative has hurriedly deleted their initial post and replaced it with a defensive note. You can still see the original post in this archive.

Anyway, Daniel K has responded in a Wired interview. I don’t know if it’s real, since it was posted on April Fool’s day, but it looks real. The update is that Creative has relented and allowed him to release the modified X-Fi and Audigy drivers minus some bits which allowed the drivers to be used on any sound card. As a result, he has posted the drivers to http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

Filed in News, Outraged, Software.

It’s Not Safe to Install Safari After All: Major Security Vulnerabilities

After wondering whether to trust Apple enough to install Safari for Windows, I’ve come across a security advisory describing two serious holes in Safari that will allow a malicious site to compromise your machine and execute malicious code on it. So I guess I got my answer as to whether or not to install Safari.

Besides, it seems like Apple’s release of Safari for Windows is a bit of a fiasco.

• They put it as a default update to Itunes. Yup, Safari is considered an update to Itunes. And the installation of Safari is checked by default in the Apple Updater. After my experience with the obnoxious QuickTime for Windows, this behavior alone has made me hesitate about installing Safari.
• Because it is an update to Itunes, some sites are making fun of Apple’s EULA. The updater says that the software is governed by the EULA of the software it’s updating. Unfortunately, that EULA says that you can only install the software on Apple PCs, not the sort of PCs that are used by the majority of people running Windows. I’m sure this is just a silly mistake, but it’s pretty funny. Sneaking in a Safari install and giving a EULA that forbids the running of Safari on Windows machines!

Filed in Software, Outraged.

Can We Trust Apple Enough to Install Safari?

With my ongoing struggles getting QuickTime to respect my file associations - which continues right up to QuickTime 7.4.1 by the way - as well as the problems others have of uninstalling QuickTime - you can’t; not successfully anyway - I wonder whether I dare to install Safari for Windows.

It’s not like I love to dabble in danger. I just want to see what my site looks like in Safari, as recommended by one reviewer. Besides, I want to see what this new-fangled font rendering thingie looks like.

But I don’t know if I dare to trust Apple again. After all, I installed QuickTime, and look what I got. Version 7.4.1 now respects (I think) the MIME settings. But it still refuses to allow my file settings to stick. And what with others’ problems with getting rid of QuickTime - the uninstaller apparently only uninstalls the entry in the Control Panel and does not actually uninstall anything else - I don’t know if I’m getting another nuisance-ware or idiotware onto my machine if I install Safari.

Filed in Software.

Archiver Software Vulnerability

There are major vulnerabilities in many of the archivers that we use everyday, according to Cert-Fi. If you use any archiver at all, it’s best to go and download a new version. Surprisingly, the default zip compression in Windows Explorer doesn’t seem vulnerable. How do you like that - Microsoft having a product that is more secure than others! It’ll probably snow today in Sahara.

Some of the antivirus tools are also vulnerable, so better get yours updated too.

Filed in Software.

IE8: What One Hand Gives, The Other Hand Takes Away

As I suspected in my previous post, the beta for IE8 is out. Although this is just a beta, Microsoft made some promises for the final IE 8 version. The commitment that will delight most developers is their aim to deliver full CSS 2.1 support in the final IE 8. At last! Nearly a decade late, but better late than never, right?

But wait, what one hand gives, the other takes away. Along with IE 8, they will create a new proprietary tag to implement their WebSlices crap. Actually, I don’t know if it’s a proprietary tag, but it sounds like it: ‘Developers can make parts of their pages “subscribable” with just a little mark-up’. I don’t know of any current mark-up that makes portions of a web page subscribable.

I guess Microsoft is trying to show that they can still innovate in their browsers. The sad thing is that when they “innovate”, they create proprietary things that lock people into their browsers, whereas when other browsers innovate, they don’t need to do that. For example, Opera brought many new features in web browsing to the masses: tabbed browsing (I don’t know which version, but I remember using tabs in Opera 5 back in 2000), mouse gestures, a built-in IRC client, a built-in BitTorrent client, a built-in RSS feed reader, sophisticated keyboard navigation, etc. Okay, maybe not the masses, but you get my point. Their innovation did not lock anyone to their browser, but improved the user experience.

What I’d rather Microsoft do is, instead of spending man-hours developing their new proprietary technology, to work on getting their browsers to render the standards correctly the way the other browsers have done for ages. I mean, CSS has been available for about 10 years now. It’s not like it’s new technology anymore. They’re holding back the progress of the web.

This is a modern world Microsoft, where no one person controls the standards. Get used to it.

Update (March 8 ): Looks like I have to eat my words above. According to the IE team, to make a webslice you just use a certain combination of standard HTML and IE 8 will interpret as something special.

Filed in Web Design, Software, News.

Why Does Microsoft Love to Be Cryptic? What is IS7-VIS3.rar? Or IE7-VIS1.exe? Or IE7-VIS2.rar?

In a sudden urge to test my site in as many browsers as possible, I came across a link to Microsoft’s free distribution of virtual machines with various versions of IE. And there I ran into a roadblock. Remember when I grumbled about their use of cryptic acronyms in one of their announcements? Well, it’s not just their announcements. Even their download links are cryptic.

The web page tells you that you can download Virtual PC images with IE 6 and IE 7. Then it proceeds to list the various files that you can download - by shortened filenames. Take a look at this. What do you make of them?

• IE6_VPC.EXE - okay, I can figure this out. It’s IE 6 in a Virtual PC image. That’s okay so far.
• IE7_VPC.EXE - this must be IE 7 in a Virtual PC image.
• IE7-VIS1.exe - is this IE 7 running on Vista? If so, then what’s the next one?
• IE7-VIS2.rar - IE 7 running on Vista? Again? Or perhaps it’s because it’s packaged in a RAR archive. But wait - there’s more…
• IS7-VIS3.rar - IE 7 running on Vista! Again! In a RAR archive! Again! Will wonders never cease?
• IE8_VPC.EXE - IE 8 (huh?) in a Virtual PC image.

What good are all these filenames to the downloader? Why give the filenames at all? Don’t these wizards at Microsoft realize that you can give a link a different text from the actual filename? Not everyone in the world automatically knows what you mean when you give these cryptic filenames from the MSDOS era. They should at least give a description if they feel compelled to write the filename.

Anyway, if you can tell the difference between those VIS filenames, let me know in the comments. I’m just gonna download the IE6 image for now.

Yeah. And I noticed the IE 8 thing too. I think it’s probably just a beta. I’ll investigate and post again when I find out more. Update: it’s true - IE 8 beta 1 is out. Update 2: I just noticed that it’s not three IE7 links, but 2. The third one is IS7 not IE7. But what is IS7?

Filed in Web Design, Software, Windows.

Microsoft: Vista is a Disaster - Microsoft Internal Emails Dissected

It appears from Microsoft’s internal email, which were submitted as court evidence in a US class action lawsuit against Microsoft, that the release of Vista had many issues.

• Microsoft employees themselves, including their senior executives like Vice President Mike Nash, got fooled by the Vista Capable sticker on computers. “I personally got burned,” he said, in a widely reported message. His purchase, a computer with a Vista Capable sticker, was unable to run the Aero interface. “I now have a $2100 email machine,” was his verdict.
• Driver problems abound. As every one knows.
• “Massive changes in the underpining for video and audio led to a really poor experience at RTM, especially with respect to Windows Media Center. This change led to incompatibilities,” was a message from Steven Sinofsky. This, in my opinion, is putting it mildly.

Incidentally, while reading about this matter, I came across this interesting tidbit of information: Microsoft plans to solve the confusion among consumers about the numerous Vista versions by adding even more versions, this time differentiated by geography. Yes, sir. These are the geniuses that gave you Vista. Did you expect any less?

See also my previous posts on Vista:

• Reports say that Vista SP 1 is Still 40% Slower Than XP
• Vista SP 1 for MSDN and Technet Subscribers OutCry
• The Missing Up Arrow in Vista’s Explorer
• Vista File Copy Performance: Relearning the Same Lessons Learnt Yesterday
• Vista’s Attempt at a Comeback

I didn’t realize that I had so many things to say about Vista.

Filed in Software, Windows.

Incompetence of DivX Owners Killed the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: Stage6

There seems to be more than meets the eye behind the Stage6 closure than I had assumed in my previous two posts.

Far from a money-losing concern, Stage6 was apparently making DivX millions of dollars. Stage6 required the installation of a player, and along with the installation, users were offered the option of installing a Yahoo toolbar. Apparently, DivX was earning millions from their deal with Yahoo for this. However, infighting among the DivX owners over what to do with Stage6 led to the resignation of the key people running Stage6. Left without anyone competent to take the reins, the site had to be closed down.

The DivX Inc stock has also taken a nosedive. And it’s a pretty dramatic plunge too.

Filed in Opinion, Software.

Google: Don’t Accept OOXML - Low Quality and Doesn’t Meet Standards

Ars Technica has an article on how Google has told the ISO committee members that OOXML is “an insufficient and unnecessary standard” that “doesn’t meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard”. There are also some technical issues with OOXML like its use of Windows-specific binary blobs for printer configuration data (whatever they are). “Google does not feel that DIS 29500 is of sufficient quality to qualify as an ISO standard and we urge the National Bodies to vote ‘no’ on the fast-tracking of this specification.”

Hopefully a call from a big and reputable company like Google will be heeded.

OOXML is Microsoft’s attempt to make sure its proprietary document format gets standardization. It’s trying to prevent ODF, which is the open document format used by many software, from being used by governments and companies everywhere because it wants its Office software to be the only software available everywhere. Once the latter is true, it will have a stranglehold on the industry and control the pricing.

Filed in News, Software.

Drupal Must Learn How to Do a Proper Patch Updater: Looking at the new Drupal 6.1

The Drupal 6.1 release is out. Interestingly, Drupal 6 users are encouraged to do a full update - that is, to upload every single file to their server again. They have a patch updater, but that only plugs the security holes. And that updater leaves Drupal “in an unversioned state, confusing the update status module”. There’s no set of files that can upgrade Drupal 6.0 to 6.1 cleanly, the way it’s easy to update WordPress by simply uploading a few files.

Drupal really has a long way to go to get up to the usability of WordPress.

Filed in Web Design, Software.

Reports Say Vista SP 1 is Still 40% Slower Than XP

Service Pack 1 for Vista, which I talked about before, has not yet been released to the general public, but the word is already out that in spite of all its touted performance improvements, it is still 40% slower than XP on “a variety of basic productivity tasks”.

I’m beginning to think that Microsoft should just give up hope on Vista. Like I said in my post on Vista’s usability issues, the OS is already plagued with a bad reputation. This kind of reputation is very hard to undo. Everyone is looking to SP 1 as the do-or-die magic pill to fix all the annoyances they have experienced with Vista, and unfortunately, it will never be able to fulfil their expectations. You need a huge revamp to do that.

I know this will never happen, but Microsoft should consider returning XP to the shop shelves while it works on the next version of their OS. And hardware vendors should seriously offer XP as an option with all their off-the-shelf computers. I know many people who have decided not to upgrade their computers for the time being because Vista is the only OS available for the new hardware.

Filed in Software, Windows.

RIP: Netscape

The Netscape browser will be officially dead as of 1 March 2008, with no new updates or support. This draws to a close an era that began in the 90s during the rise of the world wide web. Netscape was the second browser I ever used, the first being a text-based browser called lynx that few people today know, and I remember being introduced to it by a friend who was incredibly excited about it. Back then it was in its beta version or something. I think it was version 0.9. But I’ve longed stopped using Netscape. As have the rest of the world. I guess most young people only know the name in passing, and not from personal experience.

Filed in Software.

Boycott Trend Micro and Neuter the Software Patent Laws

Last month, I wrote about how Trend Micro is attacking the open source ClamAV indirectly with its lawsuit. Naturally, open source advocates are not taking this lying down. There’s now a call to boycott Trend Micro products.

Personally, I think Trend Micro is pretty silly to attack open source stuff. People who have done that in the past have rarely fared well: the poster child for that is SCO, which went bankrupt. The entire Linux community rallied to dig up evidence against SCO. It never had a chance. But of course, it didn’t have a case in the first place, either.

If you want open source software to be protected against stupid patent lawsuits, you should join the boycott. If commercial companies find that there are consequences each time they file a patent lawsuit directly or indirectly against open source software, we can effectively nullify the stupid law that allows software patents. Software patents should never have been allowed in the first place. If the legislators are too much in the control of the big companies to remove software patents, we can at least neuter the law by providing a backlash every time software patents are used against open source stuff.

So let me join the chorus of voices: boycott Trend Micro.

Filed in Outraged, Software.