Teaching my boys right from wrong…

Aidan Prefers Chrome from Eric Burke on Vimeo.

Sony gives you the option to remove crapware from certain new Windows 7 PCs. They call it their “Fresh Start” option, as shown here:

Problems:

• A crapware-free PC should be the DEFAULT selection, not an easily missed opt-out selection
• Fresh Start is only available for Win 7 Professional

This leaves me with a very uneasy feeling about Sony. If I were to buy a laptop from them, it would be Win 7 Home Premium. But since Fresh Start is not available with Home Premium, what kind of crap is pre-loaded?

From the moment I heard about Google Chrome Frame, the idea bothered me. Here is the situation:

• Many big companies still run IE 6
• These companies depend on legacy web apps that only work in IE 6
• Because so many companies are stuck on IE 6, everybody else has trouble moving forward with modern web sites

The Google Fix

Google Chrome Frame runs inside of IE. It allows IE users to access modern web sites, so long as those sites include this tag:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

This is a clever workaround and is probably the best Google can do.

What Bothers Me

The workaround is backwards. It means 99% of your web usage remains stuck in old fashioned IE 6, treating modern web sites as special cases. Instead, I propose that Microsoft do exactly the opposite of what Google did.

Microsoft should create an IE 6 Frame. It would work like this:

• Everybody installs a modern web browser. IE 8, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.
• Companies with ancient, mission critical IE 6 proprietary web sites could install the IE 6 Frame plugin.
• Most web sites would use the modern browser. Old web sites — ones that only work in IE 6 — would run in the IE 6 Frame plugin.

I believe this approach would be far more beneficial. You want the old crappy stuff to be the “special case” that runs in a plugin.

Microsoft sure stirred up some controversy with this browser comparison chart. Here is a picture, because I suspect they’ll take down that page fairly soon.

As several people mentioned on Twitter, the chart fails to include Opera or Safari. Plus, most of the items are highly subjective. This is obviously a marketing document, not a scientific comparison. We get it.

Lack of Trust

When IE first arrived, it had to compete with Netscape. Once they crushed the competition, Microsoft slept. For five years. They released IE 6 in 2001, and IE 7 in 2006.

Lack of competition hurt our industry and stifled innovation. Because of those five years, a lot of us simply do not trust Microsoft when it comes to browsers.

Competition

Thank goodness for the people behind Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and probably other browsers that I’m not thinking of. It is perfectly clear that Microsoft is now focused on improving Internet Explorer through better security, performance, and even standards compliance.

Good for them. IE 8 is their best effort yet.

Good for us. Web standards are good for us all.

But…I am skeptical.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Those five years cannot be swept under the rug with one new product release. Microsoft needs to earn back our trust. It will be hard, but not impossible.

What I Want

I want all of these browsers to compete, and to focus on web standards. Supporting today’s standards are an important first step for Microsoft, and I applaud their efforts.

To make up for the years lost with IE 6, Microsoft needs to do a lot more to win back my trust. I want Microsoft to boldly lead the way toward HTML 5, including support for embedded video, the canvas tag, native drag-and-drop to the browser, and more.

This means making standards-based browsers that will directly compete with proprietary plug-ins like Silverlight and Flash. Browser lock-in is old school. Proprietary plug-ins are old school. This video shows what I expect from my browser:

It would be wonderful if I could embed that video with a simple tag, but for now, that’s impossible. I eagerly await the day when that ugly <object …><embed… type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”> …</embed></object> crap is a distant memory.

When I first tried Microsoft Live Mesh 13 days ago, I was not impressed. The installation experience on Vista is pathetic:

• It is slow (the installer)
• It temporarily puts Vista into a downgraded graphics mode
• It seems fairly invasive, requiring a reboot to remove

Adding insult to injury, Live Mesh is crippled if your default browser is Firefox. The error page says in order to use that particular feature, use the desktop notifier instead. But when I use the notifier, it redirects me to my default browser, producing the same error message. I promptly removed Live Mesh from that PC. And then I had to reboot.

The Leopard Experience

Because I know how to have a good time, I installed the Live Mesh client for OSX Leopard just now. Here are my initial impressions:

• They provide a normal OSX installation experience. Specifically, you download a DMG file, drag it to the Applications folder, and it’s done.
• It works. After entering my Live username/password, well…that’s all I had to do.
• Using the Live Mesh tool, I created a folder in my Documents directory. The other option is to share existing directories. These are just normal directories that Live Mesh syncs to.
• Now, I can drag files to that directory and they sync to my Live Mesh account in “the cloud”.

What. The. Fuck. The Leopard Live Mesh experience is intuitive and obvious, completely different than what I experienced on Vista. If they can make the Vista client work as well, this will be a killer product.

(yes, I know about Dropbox.)

This month’s Wired has an article about Ray Ozzie, where they mention Live Mesh:

Then comes a demonstration of Live Mesh, which will allow people to seamlessly synchronize all their information with as many people and places as they want, across as many devices (computer, phone, camera) as they want.

So I installed it. The installation process kicks Vista into a degraded video mode:

While not a deal breaker, this is annoying and kind of broken. The real FAIL moment comes when you try to use the service with Firefox:

So I tried double-clicking on the “notifier” icon in the Vista task bar, but that just takes me back into Firefox with the same failure message.

Ozzie won’t fix Microsoft with products like this. They still do not “get” the Internet — at all. Nothing Microsoft produces for the web feels like a normal part of the Internet. Live Mesh is already a failure.

This was inspired by Dion Almaer’s tweet.

My wife’s ancient PC finally died; it was a $400 Gateway we bought many years ago. Fortunately the hard drive was OK, so here I am, transferring the files from the old hard drive to a different PC. This process takes forever and is really annoying when it comes to application migration.

Here’s something PC users might not realize about OSX: most apps are simply dropped into the applications directory. I assume that moving most apps from one Mac to another is as simple as copying these directories. (I could be wrong, my Mac hasn’t died yet, so I have not had to try this!)

This is certainly not the case on Windows, where each application builds a web of intricate registry references, requiring a fresh install when moving to a new PC. What a pain.

For most applications, the Windows Registry seems like a huge design flaw. Why does a simplistic application like Print Shop need the Registry at all? Can’t installation be as simple as unzipping into Program Files and storing user preferences under each user’s profile directory?

I’m done with my rant. I feel better. Files are still copying…this could be a long night.

The DirecTV HDPC-20 is generating lots of buzz. In a nutshell, this product will let you record DirecTV to a Vista PC, which you can then (perhaps?) stream to any TV in the house via Media Center Extenders like the XBox 360. This image comes from the back of the device, revealing several patent numbers:

I thought it’d be fun to track these down via Google Patent Search.

4631603

1986, John O. Ryan, Macrovision: Method and apparatus for processing a video signal so as to prohibit the making of acceptable video tape recordings thereof.

4819098

1989, John O. Ryan, Macrovision: Method and apparatus for clustering modifications made to a video signal to inhibit the making of acceptable videotape recordings.

4907093

1990, John O. Ryan, Macrovision: Method and apparatus for preventing the copying of a video program.

5315448

1994, John O. Ryan, Macrovision: Copy protection for hybrid digital video tape recording and unprotected source material.

6381747

2002, Peter J. Wonfor, Derek T. Nelson, Macrovision: Method for controlling copy protection in digital video networks.

6516132

2003, William J. Wrobleski, Ronald Quan, Macrovision: Method and apparatus for improving the effects of color burst modifications to a video signal.

None of this is surprising. Although DRM-free music seems attainable, video is an entirely different battle. Most of the patents describe techniques to prevent analog copies, such as recording to VHS. Patent 6381747 is a lot more interesting, however. This one lets service providers like DirecTV “activate, control and reconfigure the copy protection process”.

You should be very skeptical before buying into this system.

• Will they prevent you from recording certain types of shows? DirecTV already does this for music channels, for instance.
• Will you be able to stream all recorded shows to Media Center Extenders, or will certain categories of shows only work on the PC?
• With Windows Home Server, will you be allowed to stream your recorded DirecTV content to remote locations via the Internet?
• Will recorded shows expire after a certain number of days?
• Will recorded content expire after a certain number of viewings?
• Will your existing monthly DirecTV DVR fee cover this device, or is this a new charge?

This could be a really kick ass product, but it could also be a nightmare if you spend thousands of dollars on computer equipment and extender devices, only to discover your favorite shows are blocked.