Before You Start Hammering Microsoft, Check the Mirror First!

The feckless pundits are intent on gleefully and repeatedly regurgitating every bad thing they hear about Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer 7. That flaws exist in all operating systems and all web browsers is a thoroughly proven fact. That a million hackers, crackers and tech 'reporters' make a living out of gunning for Microsoft products is also a fact. Let those same gunners turn their sights to Mac OS X, Linux and Firefox to see how well those products hold up under the unrelenting attack of a million predators intent on rending the software into its component bits & bytes. The aftermath, I predict, would be a bloody mess.

As long as Apple remains a strong but nonetheless minority player in the operating system and software market, along with Firefox and Linux on the home and business desktop, fat and sassy Microsoft will remain safely at the top of the heap, its big ass presented for all and sundry to kick as hard as they can.

The media pundits and tech columnists don't give a sweet darn about over-the-top reportage. No matter how arcane and byzantine the steps needed to actually execute or take advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's products, they'll trumpet even theoretical hints of trouble to the heavens. Shame on all of them for their hyena-like howling and heedless predation. Few of them inform the public so much as they blithely ignore the fact that an uncomfortably large majority of so-called security flaws in Internet Explorer requires the active participation of a user who is visiting an illicit web site.

By all means listen to the tech writers and doom-saying podcasters predicitng dire problems if you even think about upgrading to Windows Vista or Internet Explorer 7. Instead, install Linux and Firefox, then hit the warez and porn sites with a will. Go ahead — enjoy if you can. I'll have a nice, soft crying towel ready when you show up at the repair counter in your local computer store.

It's not Microsoft. It's not Internet Explorer. It's not Mac OS X. It's not Firefox. It's not Linux.

It's you. It's us. Stop expecting Microsoft and a bunch of programmers you never met, working at a thousand different software companies, to protect you from yourself. When did we all become so stupid and irresponsible? When did we start believing that habituating porn sites or illegally downloading software or cracked serial numbers from warez sites or opening e-mail attachments from complete strangers or clicking on web popups offering free everything might not have hidden consequences? Good grief! Smarten up in 2007.

Cranky Geeks & Holiday Gift Cards — Take a Pill Please!

On the Holiday edition of the the Cranky Geeks video podcast (December 21, 2006), the assembled cranks spent five or ten minutes trashing the ubiquitous retail store Gift Card as a legitimate seasonal gift. Among other things, the cranks howled about gift cards being accidentally thrown out among mounds of wrapping paper, and retailers profiting from unused portions of gift card balances. The assemblage even referred to gift card givers as boneheads and inconsiderate laggards.

I've got a couple of salvos to lob back at John C. Dvorak et al. First and foremost, I like the effort involved in finding out someone's favorite store in order to figure out which gift card to purchase. I also enjoy the effort involved in going to the store itself to purchase individual gift cards.

Second, I don't believe for a split second that any recipient of a gift card is too stupid to deal with the gift. At the same time as people have to be careful not to throw out the small gift card envelope with a pile of wrapping paper, they also have to be careful not to knock the lovely crystal wine glass set off the side table during a slightly inebriated sweep of the hand. We can be careless about a lot of things. Once a gift is given, it's none of my business how it's used or lost or broken or damaged or whatever.

Dvorak and company need to give their collective head a good shake. I like receiving gift cards and I like giving them. Time and effort is needed to choose the right one in order to provide a gift that opens up an entire store to the recipient. Thoughtful, individual product gifts are wonderful too, but I like the broadness of a gift card. A couple of years ago I kept one in my wallet for six months, waiting for a particular item to go on sale. When it did, I swooped in and picked it up using the gift card. If the retailer had the cash paid for the card for the entire six months it took me to finally use it, so what?

Whatever you give or receive this season, have a happy, healthy holiday.

Computer Superstore Failures

So it's Christmas and you've decided to buy a computer. So like many folks, you head down to the biggest place you can find, where there is a variety of computer brands you can choose from. Like most people, you're under the assumption that the sales folks in these places are actually trained to understand what you'll need.

1st mistake - the old assumption thing.

Most salespeople are actually there to sell you stuff not educate you. The reality is, the companies that employ these folks are interested in sales, and not in educating you about computers. I keep mentioning education, because in many ways, it is the missing ingredient in the sales formula.

I've gone into PCworld many times and I mention PCWorld because it happens to be the closest computer superstore to me. But you can most likely replace PCWorld with Futureshop, Circuit City, or any one of the other Computer centric superstore chains. I've seen so many people told absolute crap about their needs, I decided, I had to write about this.

My cousin went into the local store looking for a part time job, and was asked to attend an interview. On the day of his interview he was taken into a room where he was sat down in front of a computer and asked to take a test ... 26 questions and 30 minutes later he finished. He was really irritated that instead of then talking with a human being, he was instead led to the front desk and told that he would be informed of the results. He was gob smacked - dumbstruck for those of you not familiar with the colloquialism.

This is a pathetic way to recruit people. You do not talk with them, I guess he was being fobbed off ... maybe he looked too old or maybe the manager had decided that he didn't fit in with the other employees. For whatever the reasons, my cousin felt the test itself was very telling. My cousin is quite computer savvy and of the 26 questions and only one was actually about computers in any technological sense. the rest were about shop practices, margins, brand based incentives and other sales twaddle.

There was also an emphasis in the test on doing calculations to determine which products did the best based on certain factors and also on promotional considerations. Not once did he get a question on computing, IT, Consumer Products or on his understanding of any of the above. In our discussion about the whole episode, we pondered this and collectively came to that conclusion that what the owners of PCWorld, DSGI, wanted was salespeople and not technologically savvy sales people. This is their failing.

To successfully service the needs of computer users and purchasers you need a sales and support force that can address the concerns and needs of their varied clientele otherwise you will get a large number of dissatisfied consumers who are unlikely to repurchase from you again. If they do, they will do so grudgingly.

I'll tell you about two personal experiences, I was in the local store a few months back and overheard a sale person trying to sell a high spec laptop to an older couple because the couple wanted a laptop with wireless to connect to the Internet whilst they were on vacation in their motor home. Great, I thought the couple were one of the growing number of silver surfers. I then listened more carefully, The couple only used the computer to keep in touch with family and to look for bargains on ebay, even more important they kept asking about Internet access costs and who would they pay their bill to ... the salesperson being particularly dense, didn't pick up on this.

Being the interfering busy body I was, I smiled at the couple and apologised before interrupting the sales banter. I asked the couple if their motor home already had Internet access and how they found it worked for them? They looked at me in confusion and one said "No, we want a wireless laptop because, we can then use the Internet without wires."

"Hmm..." I muttered "it doesn't quite work that way" and offered my help and knowledge. The Salesperson was annoyed ... but I proceeded with explaining the various considerations and several possible solutions. We finally came up with a combination of a decent laptop with enough RAM processing power and either a separate 3G based data card or a 3G based mobile phone for connecting to the Internet whilst they were on the move. I did explain that were most likely locations where their speeds would drop based upon network coverage, but this wasn't a big concern of theirs.

I also suggested they also get the laptop equipped with an internal wireless card so they could use it at of the many thousands of UK hotspots. I also explained how that works. This all took 10 minutes of my time.

They thanked me and I left them to it ... The Sales person didn't even thank me, I didn't expect him to.

Funny thing is it's not the first time, I've helped people in this way. I often get approached in these places by complete strangers mistaking me for a salesperson, maybe I just look like someone who knows their way around a computer, whatever ...

The issue is why didn't the salesperson offer this couple the same info ... in reality the answer is quite sad really ... the salesperson most likely didn't know. Truth to be said, this is unfortunately all to common these days. We've got very poorly trained salespeople, selling us whatever their bosses decide happens to be the best profit maker. This lack of understanding is also echoed in many of the displays and how the technologies are treated by the sales personnel.

This ignorance was evident to me during one of my visits, in how several of the DSLR demo units (Canon Eos 20D and Nikon D70) were placed on display ... no lens and no cover over the lens well. You can most likely write both these units off ... talk about dust and other stuff on the sensors and mirrors. Over a thousand pounds of hardware ready for the scrap heap or in need of an expensive and otherwise completely unnecessary maintenance check.

Ok, I've been rambling for a while and it's time to get to the point ... For the owners of any of the big Computer Superstores. Invest in some decently trained staff, and maybe, just maybe, your bottom line will improve as will customer loyalty and satisfaction levels. Remember that if you don't care about your level of service, this will be reflected in the environment people experience when they walk into your stores. Service isn't just about selling, service is about doing something well ... professionalism.

For the Computer Sales Person
Learn Your Products and about the Technologies you are selling.
Your job isn't just selling boxes you are selling a solution which can provide people with a window into the Internet. That window works both ways. So be prepared to educate your client on how to protect their home and family. When you can show your client, you know enough about what you're selling to be able to help put them on a good grounding with what they are buying, they are going to be more likely to come back and buy again. You don't build loyalty through frustration and you don't inspire confidence with ignorance.

Here are a few suggestions for the Consumer to think about.

1. Challenge your Sales Person.
Make sure the salesperson understands what your needs are ... tell them what you are going to need the computer for and if necessary take a checklist to confirm they've handled your concerns.

2. Check Your Warranties.
Make sure you understand the after sales support, in many cases you'll find that you can't just simply return a faulty item for an instant fix. If that's what you want, then make sure they understand this and provide you with the coverage you need.

3. Think About Self Education.
If you are a newbie and have never used a computer before there are plenty of good books and web sites where you can find out about all the issues.

4. Think about Safety.
If you don't know about the dangers of using a computer and some of the pitfalls, ask the Salesman about them. Make sure that your computer is going to be equipped to deal with Viruses, Spyware and other safety issues. Also ask about Firewalls and other security features.

Bottom line is, if you're thinking of buying a computer, make certain you buy from someone who gives a damn ... Make them work for your money.

Photoshop CS3 Public Beta Launched

The rumours of a public beta of Photoshop CS3 have been proven to be true ... I downloaded and installed mine last night and I must say, I'm quite impressed overall, many of the features and proposed changes I saw whilst working with Adobe, have made it into the Beta.

The download for the Photoshop CS3 Beta is available here. The beta will only run for 2 days without a serial number. In order to qualify for a non-trial version you must have an existing and registered licence of Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite 2, Creative Suite Production Studio, Design Bundle, Web Bundle or Video Bundle serial number. Use your CS2 serial number to get your CS3 beta serial number here.

In addition to Universal Binary Support for Intel based Macs, a new UI and a vastly improved Bridge and Printing capabilities, other feature enhancements for Photoshop CS3 include improvements in Camera Raw, the Quick Selection Tool, Curves Capabilities, Black and White conversion control, Improved Cloning and Healing and a really useful smart filter capability, which is not unlike Smart Objects, but even more useful. I really liked the Refine Edges feature, which affords you even more control over the selection capabilities in PSCS3.

They've also improved the panoramic picture creation capabilities with an enhanced Auto Align and Auto Blend feature.

System Requirements

For Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, recommended system requirements are as follows.
For Macintosh: Mac OSX 10.4.8 or 10.5, 1 GHz PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor, Intel based Macintosh.
For Windows: Intel® Xeon® , Xeon Dual, Centrino® or Pentium® 4 processor, Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Microsoft Windows Vista.
Both platforms require 512 MB RAM and a 1024x769 resolution screen.
Photoshop CS3 beta will expire soon after the launch of Photoshop CS3 in Spring 2007. Details on final pricing, system requirements and availability have yet to be determined.

For more in depth coverage visit photoshopuser, where Scott Kelby has produced a good article on Photoshop CS3. The article covers these new features in much more depth. To read the full press release from Adobe, follow this link.

Alien Skin Blow-up

A while back, I announced the release of Alien Skin BlowUp on the Creative Imaging News Site. A short time later, I was sent a copy of the software by the folks at Alien Skin and whilst I had played with it for quite a while. It wasn't until I actually had to use it to work on an image from a cell phone that I really appreciated the features of this excellent utility.

The image itself was of a child that recently died in a traffic accident and the only recent images the parents had were those taken on their Cell phones. The image was barely VGA quality and suffered from a lot of artifacting (blocking), due to heavy JPEG compression. So I decided to try BlowUp and see if I could get a decent sized image out of this picture. I tried using it on its own and found that although I could resize the image fine the results were less that acceptable because of the heavy artifacting.

I then went back to the original image and used an image recovery utility to eliminate the blocky artifacts. Once I was happy with the corrected image, I then used BlowUp to resize the image with excellent results.

What really helped, were the photo grain controls contained within BlowUp, as these controls help to add an organic feel back into your images. I was able to take a very poor 640x480 image and turn it into a fairly respectable photo.

The bereaved family were very happy to have the resulting photo, and I was happy to have brought some light into what was a very dark time for the family of the poor child. Based upon my experiences with it, the only suggestion I can make to Alien Skin for improving what is already an impressive tool, is to add the capability for removing compression artifacts directly into BlowUp.

For more information on Alien Skin BlowUp visit the product page here. BlowUp retails for US $199.00 although, if you happen to be the owner of another Alien Skin product, you can also purchase an upgrade package for US $99.00.

Tech News for December - Week One

Solar Cells reach 40% efficiency levels
It appears that researchers at Boeing-Spectrolab have created a working multi-junction solar cell that has achieved a 40.7% efficiency level. That's good news, as most cells currently available for consumers are luck to reach even an 18% efficiency rating. Let hear it for the good guys ... anyone who is even thinking about buying and burying this needs to be shot.

FCC reveal the OQO Model 02
At least engadget and a whole bunch of the ultraportable sites have been buzzing about a crappy drawing of what appears to be the bottom of the new unit. To be honest, it's not much to be excited about yet, but I'm certainly going to keep my eyes open for photos, when they appear.

In general it has been very quiet for the past 2 weeks. I've not really found too much to be overly excited about. Hmm ... Let me see:

Sony release a patch for their PS3 which doesn't address 1080i compatibility issues.

The Wiiremotes appear to have a life of their own ... flying off their straps and threatening injury to the user. Several instances have been reported where the remotes string breaks when it is put through rigorous activity.

Panasonic has revealed its first AVCHD cameras in Japan, and it has also announced launch dates for a US release.

NASA plan to establish a long term base on the moon from 2024.

Toshiba announce that their 100GB, 1.8-inch hard disk drive is ready for mass production in January 2007. 100GB iPods anyone? Give me one with a bigger display though...

Microsoft Release Windows Vista Business...