Category Archives: General Tech Stuff

I’ve decided to roll the content from e2ksecurity.com in here so I don’t have to keep two blogs up to date– that’s turned out to be more trouble than it’s worth. So, welcome to those of you who’ve been reading e2ksecurity.com– hope you like it here!
I’ll be cleaning things up, consolidating categories, and so on for the next few days; please pardon the construction noise and dust.

Apple has a very funny series of new ads highlighting the differences between Windows PCs (although they never use the word “Windows”) and Macs.

Educause and the National Cyber Security Alliance just posted the winning videos in its Computer Security Awareness Video Contest. Some of them are pretty funny (here’s my current favorite), and all of them are generally appropriate for most non-technical audiences. Try ’em, you might like ’em.

W00t! Barry Eisler, one of my favorite authors, now has a blog. It’s funky fresh. Go read it.

They say it’s “scheduled maintenance” but I find that hard to believe; no one schedules maintenance for the middle of a workday.

Sweet! Apple released software called “Boot Camp” to allow the new Intel Macs to dual-boot into XP. Yes, I know someone else already released the details of how to do this, but Apple’s announcement is significant because it means that they’ll support this as a feature. That sure makes the MacBook look more attractive to me– if only there was an ExpressCard-size version of the Verizon aircard I use…

So, Paul Thurrott asks if it’s odd that Microsoft is promoting Telestream’s Flip4Mac QT codec for WMV playback (I wrote about that earlier this week). Short answer: no, it’s not odd at all. The Mac version of Windows Media Player has always been a poor stepchild. It doesn’t play all current WMV formats; it can’t dynamically load new codecs, its UI is poor, and it’s got more bugs than a Tennessee anthill. As I understand it, it was never owned by the Mac Business Unit at MS, which has a great track record of producing Mac-specific versions of MS tools (witness the RDP client or MSN Messenger). It was owned by the Windows Media group, which probably has negative interest in doing anything that makes things better or easier for Mac users– after all, Apple is their #1 competitor in the digital media format war.

In that light, this isn’t an odd move at all: some smart folks at Microsoft realized that they could save money and make themselves look better by licensing Telestream’s excellent product instead of foisting WMP Mac on users. I’m a little surprised they’re not touting it more, actually; I found out when I got a press release from Telestream, well in advance of hearing about it from MS.

Flip4Mac has been making Windows Media codecs for QuickTime for a while now. They work as advertised: download them, and you can play WMV files in your QuickTime applications. They also make some other products that provide QT/WMV import and export. Microsoft cut a deal with them, and now you can get the Flip4Mac WMV playback codecs, for free, from them directly. This is particularly nice because of the low quality and functionality of the Mac version of Windows Media Player; I hope it means that WMP for Mac will die, and that the engineering effort behind it will be redirected to other Mac projects.

This is great news: Google finally released Google Earth (their 3-D map program) for the Mac. Get it here. The coolest thing I’ve found for it so far is a real-time 3-D flight tracker– check out FBOweb and watch flights into ORD, JFK, BOS, or ATL in real-time, with altitude and speed.

Lenovo and Apple are fighting over my wallet. I’m thinking about buying a new laptop, and the two contenders now are the Thinkpad T60 and the brand-new MacBook Pro. The big variable is whether the MacBook can run Windows, either using VirtualPC (Microsoft isn’t saying) or natively. If yes, that’s my choice; if no, I’d probably lean towards the Thinkpad. Fortunately, neither one is actually shipping, so I don’t have to make a decision quite yet.

Update: there’s some great stuff at AppleIntelFAQ.com that partially answers my question about dual-booting. Dave Schroeder also commented at Macintouch that side-by-side Windows solutions will be available in “weeks/months”, and that XP won’t install on the MacBook Pro because XP lacks EFI support– but that Vista might install. Now that would be worth trying.

I wore contacts once upon a time– when I was about 13. My old pal Dr. Otis J. Bourg prescribed a set; as I recall, they were stiff little circles of plastic that required a draconian regime of toxic chemicals to keep them from turning into encrusted eye-ruiners. The regime wasn’t a big problem because I kept losing them, so after a few weeks my experiment was over.

Enter my current eye doctor, Mike Zysik. He’s been telling me that there are now silicone hydrogel lenses that are much more comfortable than the old ones. I tried a pair, and whaddya know? He was right. They are very comfortable. Unfortunately, I have funny eyes: one’s farsighted with an astigmatism, and the other is nearsighted. The hydrogels aren’t made in the same range of prescriptions that regular glasses’ lenses are, so we couldn’t exactly match my prescription. Turns out that for my left eye, I need a toric lens, which meant switching to another brand and lens material. The lenses I have now are not nearly as comfortable as the originals, but with them in I can see as well– or better– as I do with my glasses, at least until the lenses dry out. I’ve asked Mike if he has any other potential lens types to try, but I’ll probably stick with these for six months or so and see how they work over the long term.</P

Turns out that Nikon has a recall for some models of the battery used in Arlene’s camera. I just stumbled across the info on the recall today; hopefully the replacement, non-exploding, battery will get here before the holiday fu gets into full swing.</pP

Herewith a few tips for scoring Xbox 360 units this holiday season. There are some out there, but it’s a merry chase indeed. (Major Nelson has already posted some stuff along these lines, but Scoble hasn’t so this may still be useful to the Xbox seekers out there..)

First, shipments. I’m not on the Xbox team, so I don’t have any inside information. It’s pretty obvious that they’re running the factories at full throttle, but that still doesn’t translate into enough units to flood every retail shelf in North America with as many units as people want to buy. If you trust the public numbers (~3 million units worldwide within 90 days of launch), it should be clear that even large numbers of units don’t translate to total market penetration. WalMart alone has over 3,700 stores in the US; if they got 10 units/store/week, that would be 37,000 units/week just for them— and they’re only one of a dozen or so tier-1 retailers whose doors people are banging on.

There’s a lot of bad information out there being spread by the retailers, which is a shame. Granted, most people know that you can’t always trust the floor staff at most stores for accurate information on anything, but the number of times I’ve been told “we won’t have any 360s until March” when calling or visiting local retailers is astonishing. I’m sure the Xbox retail interface team is doing everything they can to get the word out, but they’re fighting an uphill battle.

First, brick and mortar. I got one from our local Sams’ Club at launch. I didn’t preorder, but I did stand out in the 20° weather for two hours before they opened the doors. There are lots of anecdotal reports of small shipments to mass market retailers, but given the eBay frenzy, IMHO the odds of you getting a unit from a B&M are small; it’s too tempting for the employees to buy them and then flip them.

• The Canadian chain of BestBuy stores will be selling units (min 10/store) on 12/9. This may help if, like me, you’re near Canada. (See the banner ad they’ve been running.)
• The US chain of BestBuy stores supposedly will have a relaunch on 12/18. Anecdotal reports indicate that stores already have them in stock but aren’t allowed to sell them until then— they’re supposedly building inventory. (BestBuy got spanked for requiring some customers to buy their 360s in bundles, but they’ve apologized, sort of.)
• On FatWallet, I saw a claim that WalMart would be getting between 3 and 9 units per store each week from now until Christmas. I’m sure they’re not distributed evenly between stores, as WalMart has excellent data showing where various SKUs are selling well, but this may help if you’re in a rural area or have friends who work there.

Tactics vary. Some people recommend going to the store first thing in the morning; this may work if you happen to arrive the morning after a shipment, and if the employees haven’t skua’d all the units themselves. Some retailers only get shipments overnight, while others get them at unpredictable times during the day.

(nb. I keep seeing reports that Target stores are a good place to get units. The local Target stores in NW Ohio don’t have any, and haven’t; I suspect the employees are buying them up as soon as they get off the truck. Most other retailers (e.g. GameStop, EBGames) haven’t gotten enough units to clear their pre-order list yet, although some of them are selling systems online even when their B&M stores can’t get any. )

Second, online stores often have small quantities of Xbox 360s in stock at unpredictable times. By using a tool like Webmon, you can fairly easily monitor Amazon, eToys, and other major online retailers to get immediate notification when systems are available. Amazon, for instance, has been selling a few dozen units per day, but unless you’re using a site monitoring tool (or hanging out all day at FatWallet or your preferred equivalent) you have no hope of finding one via this method.

Suggestion: make sure you’ve already got registered accounts at whatever sites you monitor so that, should you find one, you can buy it quickly. I’ve successfully ordered systems from Amazon and eToys; Barnes and Noble, Dell, JC Penney, and Kmart were all accepting orders within the past week for immediate shipment, though I don’t know if all the orders they accepted will actually be fulfilled. Of course, not all vendors who take orders will actually be able to ship them; I ordered a system from CompUSA, then got a notice today that my order was now on backorder until January. Oops.

Finally, there’s eBay. Yes, there are lots of consoles and bundles for sale there. Caveat emptor, but if you want one badly enough, this may be your best route. It appears that prices for a Premium system are still $700-900, with Core systems going from $450-600. There’s a good deal of price variability. Your best bet: find auctions that end in the middle of the night, then keep a very close eye on them to keep from getting sniped in the end.

Happy hunting!

Update: fixed a few errors in the original post and to note that some retailers that take orders can’t or won’t fill them before Christmas.