Why isn't this guy locked up in an institution?

First of all, how the hell can anybody be a Zune fanboy? I mean, take a look at it. It looks like crap, and on top of that just like everything else from the big Satan in Redmond it's a handicapped device weighted down by DRM and functionality that only works a little bit (such as the retarded song-sharing). It's ugly, stupid and the claim that it was the "iPod killer" is the silliest ever.

But still, there's people actually delusional enough to willingly call themselves fans of the device. The most radical example of a Zune fanboy is the wacko with all those Zune tattoos and apparently now he's taking it one step further - he wants to change his name to Microsoft Zune!!!

This guy is beyond retarded. I'm really at a loss for words here. It almost makes me want to buy an iPod just to counteract his "Zune-love".

Windows Vista provides the greatest user experience ever

Yeah, you got me. That sure was sarcasm.

A couple of weeks ago I assisted my dad in buying a new laptop. Their old laptop was state of the art when they bought it about five years ago, but today it's not really cutting it. So, time to buy a new one.

We went to the Sony Center and there my dad fell in love a pretty sweet Vaio-machine. It's really a damn sexy piece of hardware and after inspecting the specs I gave it the thumbs-up. Only one problem really, it ran Windows Vista.

Now why is this a problem besides the fact that I loathe Windows? Well, it's no secret that plenty of people that have gone from Windows XP to Vista have had and still are having a shitload of problems with Microsoft's new and sparkly OS. My dad is not a complete computer imbecile at all, he's a pretty ordinary user. He does some e-mail, surfs the web, plays some simple online games, does his banking online, organizes photos from his digital camera and things like that. Nothing fancy, nothing very advanced or odd at all.

So, while I was sceptical I thought that since good 'ole dad's computer habits were nothing out of the ordinary I said "what the hell" and hoped for the best.

Silly me. Stupid damn fuckin' silly me.

I assisted with starting up the new laptop, installing all of the bundled software (Norton Security-stuff, a bunch of Google-apps, etc.) and configured it as best I could (remember that this was my first hands-on experience with Vista and that I haven't been a regular Windows-user for over six years) and when I left my parents' house it seemed to be working fine.

It took about two days until I received the first desperate call from my dad about his new computer "not working". I googled some stuff and helped him out as well as I could over the phone. That was just the first of a seemingly never-ending series of calls, and all of them had to do with the new and fancy features in Vista fucking up my dad's computing experience. In most cases I managed to hook him up with some sort of temporary work-around to the problem that he could live with until I had the time to get over there and get under the hood of the thing.

This week however things got so bad that my dad called me to say that he needs the old laptop back (I'd borrowed it to do some experimenting on) because the new one was completely unusable to him.

He couldn't send e-mail properly, no applications except Internet Explorer 7 were allowed access to the internet, every time he tried to do just about anything useful he was driven mad by a bombardment of security pop-ups, the list goes on and on. What finally did it though was that IE and Vista wouldn't allow him to install the certificate for his bank, thus making it impossible to pay their bills online. Awesome. Now tell me what's so great about Vista again? Fuck.

So here's someone that uses computers at work and has been using Windows XP both at home and at work for the past five years. Not a dimwit at all, actually pretty computer-savvy for a man in his late fifties. He goes out and buys a brand new awesome computer for $1800 with the "latest and greatest OS" and after three weeks he switches back to his old piece of cyberjunk because he's being terrorized by Vista. Good one Microsoft.

Seriously, Vista must be the biggest piece of shit ever released by Microsoft. When experienced XP-users can't get the damn thing to work properly you gotta call it a freakin' failure, because that's what it is. I don't give a rat's ass if it's "more secure" (I doubt it) or looks snazzier than XP. It's completely unusable to ordinary computer users as proven by my dad and many others I've read about online.

If it wasn't for my dad having to run a few work-specific applications (which requires Windows) on his computer I'd have him buying a Mac or switching to Linux in a heartbeat.

And you know I'm gonna have to go over there next week and spend a hundred hours "fixing" that brand new Sony Vaio. Just because it's been soiled by Vista. Damn.

Windows Vista is a sad piece of shit and once again Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such a pathetic excuse for an operating system.

OK, now you lost me again Apple

I long since accepted the fact that I don't need an iPod. It wouldn't make any sense at all for me to get one, especially since I loathe iTunes and if you don't live your life according to what is dictated by iTunes, your iPod is pretty much a crippled device. Also, I only have one Mac-computer (my iBook) and all my other boxes run Linux, so even if I swallowed my pride and started using iTunes it would still be a pain in the ass. So, no iPod for me.

However, lately I've heard from friends and fellow Linux-zealots that there are application available that actually work pretty well if you want to use an iPod with your Linux-computer. I've been told good things about Amarok for example, and there have been other pieces of software mentioned as well. This has naturally gotten me thinking that maybe an iPod could be in the cards for me after all.

But nooooooo, Apple doesn't want me to buy their hardware as is proven by what they've come up with for the current generation of iPods. From the article:

The latest iPods have a cryptographic "checksum" in their song databases that prevents third-party applications from synching with the portable music players. This means that iPods can no longer be used with operating systems where iTunes doesn't exist -- like Linux, where gtkpod and Amarok are common free tools used by iPod owners to load their players.

Notice that this has nothing to do with piracy -- this is about Apple limiting the choices available to people who buy their iPod hardware.

What the fuck Steve? Why the hell would you do something like this? That's just plain evil and stupid as hell.

It's not gonna get anybody to switch to Mac that hasn't already done so. I mean, it's not like I'm gonna go out and replace all of my Linux-boxes with MacPros and iMacs just so that I can bask in the glory of iPod-ownership. That would be really stupid.

Instead, Apple have just decided for me that if I buy myself some sort of portable mediaplayer in the future it will not be an iPod. I know they'll get buy pretty well without my $299 but it strikes me as odd and damn stupid that they'd actively reject some customers in this manner, especially since the existence and development of iPod-software for other platforms than the Mac doesn't impact Apple in any negative way what so ever. It expands their user base without costing them a dime.

Real dumb Steve, outright moronic really.

And you Mr. Internetsupportman are an idiot

The past three months or so I've been experiencing some problems with my internet connection. It works and is stable like it should be, the problem is though that it's waaaay slower than it should be.

When I measured it three months ago I had a download speed of about 12 Mb/s, which is OK. But since then it has decreased to about half and that is simply not acceptable. So today on my lunch hour I went home and called my provider. Little did I know that I would be talking to the biggest moron in internet support ever.

After waiting in line for five minutes I get to talk to Mr. Internetsupportman and here's how it went:

Me: Hello, my name is so-and-so and I have a problem... (I explain my problem as per above)
Mr. Internetsupportman: According to my measurements you're connection is fine. You have 14 Mbit/s.
Me: No, I don't. I used TPTest and tested and it clearly states that my speed is way lower than that.
Mr. Internetsupportman: You know that TPTest is only reliable 80% of the time don't you? (Note: this might very well be bullshit, I've never heard anything like that about TPTest)
Me: Well, even if it is I've been doing these tests every day for weeks and it shows the same results every time. I think it's safe to say that TPTest is not the problem here.

Mr. Internetsupportman then starts to blame all manner of things for my decrease in speed ("your cables could be busted", "is your router properly configured?", "maybe you have a weird firewall or antivirus software?", "your network card is probably old and defective"), and I claim him to be wrong in every single case. I'm not running any particular firewall or antivirus software on the computer doing the test (my iBook G4), I've done the test straight into the modem without my router and I know there is nothing wrong with my hardware.

He's basically trying to bullshit me so I'll give up and stop bothering him. Well, that didn't make me give up but little did I know what kind of superior moronic firepower I was up against. The conversation continues...

Mr. Internetsupportman: Did you say you ran TPTest from a Mac?
Me: Yes, it's an iBook. So yes, it's a Mac.
Mr. Internetsupportman: Well, you see these days Macs run Unix which is a very safe and stable system. But you see, Unix demands a lot of resources so I think that's probably your problem. Could you run TPTest from a PC?

WTF?!?! So because my Mac runs Unix (or Mac OS X in reality), which it has done since I bought it a couple of years ago, all of my computers are experiencing a slower connection? This guy is clearly an idiot.

Me: But it's not just the Mac that's feeling the decrease in speed. All of my computers are having the same problem. I clearly notice the difference from now and three months ago no matter what computer I use.
Mr. Internetsupportman: I don't know what to tell you. From here your connection looks fine. Can you run TPTest again, but from a PC this time?
Me: Sure. I'll do that. (and this is where I hang up)

Seriously, how much dumbass bullshit is it possible to shovel in one day? I just gave up at this point and hung up because this guy had obviously crawled out of the ocean just 20 minutes ago.

I'm calling them back when I get home from work though. Hopefully I'll get to speak to someone with at least a quarter of a brain this time.

MySpace - BAD! Facebook - better? We'll see.

I make no efforts to hide the fact that I think MySpace is a skidmark in the underpants of web 2.0 and more or less represents everything that is wrong with the internet today. I loathe MySpace basically.

Most of my ill thoughts towards MySpace is because of the way they let people bombard their pages with all manner of crap making most of the pages on the site completely unviewable unless you wanna risk an epileptic episode of grand proportions. I agree that people having bad taste and no judgment is not the fault of MySpace, I already knew that people are idiots way before MySpace got into the game, but the core of the matter is that MySpace is the enabler here. There are tons of other communities that look really neat and that don't make my brain's synapses lapse into a screaming rage when I visit them.

The only thing that I actually enjoy with MySpace, and that I repeatedly curse for being a feature of said website and not some other site less worthy of my hatred, is what it's done for underground music. It's awesome to be able to go on there and listen to and occasionally download songs with less known bands worthy of greater fame. This is, as I see it, MySpace's only feature worth any praise and the only reason that I don't want it completely wiped off the internet.

Sure, it's probably nice that MySpace helps people keep in touch and stuff like that, but that's hardly anything new as far as online-communities go. I've been active on various communities on and off during the past ten years but none of them have even come close to being the cesspool of bad taste and animated GIFs gone wild that is MySpace. This is why I would rather choose almost any other community out there over MySpace.

I actually had a MySpace-account once, but I closed it down after a few months because I just couldn't live with being a part of it. That's how bad I think it is.

It was brought to my attention today through an article on TechCrunch that MySpace are apparently not only enablers of crap but also testy bastards that enjoy shutting down companies that supply services linked to the MySpace-site, i.e. companies that add value to their business without it costing them anything except some bandwidth and CPU-time.

In this web 2.0 day and age I think this is pretty appalling and it's just another reason to steer clear of MySpace. Sure, they're looking into opening up their platform to developers, something that Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and a myriad of other web 2.0 sites have already done aeons ago, but even if they do they're pretty late to the dance and with them having behaved badly towards third party developers already I'm guessing that such a venture could be actually be a failure.

I have very little experience with up and comer Facebook, practically none actually. But although I've told several of my friends that have wanted me to get on there that I'm not interested in another generic online community, I'm actually now thinking about setting up an account. This is partly to check out what all the fuss is about but mainly to play around with the site and its API. Yeah, I know that's a really dorky reason but hey, that's what I am - a dork.

Plus, Facebook doesn't give the members the right to soil their pages with a multi-colored vomit of Flash, animated GIFs and movie-clips. At least, that's what I hear, and if I do set up an account that's what will determine if I stay more than a few minutes or log off immediately and delete my account while screaming profanities at the top of lungs.

Bullshit by any other name is still...

So Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on the much despised FUD-campaign "Get the facts". In it's place it has erected a new site called "Windows Server compare".

As far as I can see this new site serves the exact same purpose, i.e. to throw dung on Linux, it's just a new name for the same old crap. Completely ridiculous and pointless in other words.

How hard is it to understand that bullshit and lies are just that no matter what you call them?

It is particularly interesting how they seem to come down extra hard on Red Hat, with them being one of the major Linux-distributors that have refused to sign a patent-protection agreement with the devil (unlike Novell and Linspire, for example). "So Red Hat doesn't wanna play with us? Then let's behave like babies and make a site that makes them look bad. Oh, and our dad is stronger than Red Hat's dad." Geez...

Microsoft needs to get a grip and concentrate on improving their deeply flawed software instead of embarking on new hate-campaigns against Linux. This is just plain embarrassing.

I hate the iPhone

It's not even out yet (unless you're special) and I've never seen one in real life, but damn, do I ever hate the iPhone.

To be more precise it's not the actual gadget I hate as much as all the exaggerated hype and media hoopla surrounding it. For goodness sake people! It's a friggin' cellphone! It's not some magical device that will bring peace, stability and prosperity to the Galaxy.

Goddamnit, there are actually people camping outside of the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York already, just to be the first to get one. I'm sorry, but that's simply retarded.

Every damn tech news site I read is completely drowning in iPhone-spam (i.e. repetitive articles about how awesome it will be) and I'm just sick of it. On top of it all now that's it's just a couple of days until release the reviews are starting to pop up. I wanna puke.

But it's not just the hype that gets on my nerves, it's also the fact that I don't see what is really that special about the iPhone. Sure, it's most certainly a nice gadget, Apple's stuff usually is one way or another, but it's not that great. I mean, calm down people.

Just by reading not much more than the specs on Apple's website I quickly find the following serious flaws:

• It's just a GSM-phone, i.e. no 3G. That sucks.
• No videocamera, and that means no videochat. This from the computer manufacturer with the largest install base of webcams of all. Suck-o-rama.
• It can't send MMS-messages. Come fucking on! Can you say "medieval technology"?
• The camera is just 2 megapixels. Hardly impressive.
• No support for other video-formats than MOV and MP4. That means no DivX/XviD, which means it's hardly an ideal video playing device. More suckage.
• You can't use songs as ringtones. Wow, that's really fresh for a cellphone released in 2007.
• No removable battery. Are you kidding me?
• Non-expandable storage space. No memory-cards, nothing. Oh man, more suckage.
  
• Apple decides what provider you can use, not you. Suckfest deluxe.
• And finally, taking into account all of the above, it is way too expensive.
• Being a programmer myself I find the lack of an API for the iPhone very disturbing. Sure, Steve says it's all gonna be webapps run from within the phones browser, but no matter how awesome the web2.0 and AJAX revolution is there are still a shitload of things that simply can't be done with webapps. So yes, a real API would be nice.

That said, will someone please give me one real valid reason why this should be seen as such a revolutionary and a must-have item? Yes, I've seen the demo-movie on Apple's website and I know all about the snazzy touch-screen and its glorious sexiness. But hey, the fact that Apple make great user interfaces shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone and still, no matter how awesome the GUI is, it doesn't make up for the lack of features.

Or are you gonna spend the time you would sending MMS-messages to your friends flipping windows about and pinching stuff on the screen instead? And instead of videochatting with your peeps, maybe you can watch a video and gasp in awe when the movie pivots automatically as you rotate the device? Wow dude, that's real productive and worthwhile.

There is basically nothing that the iPhone does that my Nokia N80IE can't do, or at least nothing really significant, and it does everything noted above that the iPhone doesn't. In comparison the new wonder from Apple is a technological cripple. My cellphone (or any other phone out there) is however not enjoying the most tremendous tidal wave of hype ever like the iPhone is.

So for $499 I could buy a phone that compared to my current cellphone more or less sucks but has the power to make all Apple-fanboys wet themselves in awe? No thanks.

And please stop yapping about it. Really. STOP.

I don't get how some people still have jobs

I don't get how some people still have jobs. Not with the moronic things they think up and say. Like this guy, HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter, who probably makes millions every year.

His latest mindvomits are possibly the stupidest things that've been said the past week (I can't be sure though, haven't checked up on George W. Bush in a while). It's already been reported on in plenty of places online (here, here and here for example) and the verdicts are unanimous, the man has no concept what so ever of what DRM is or the kind of problems people have with it.

To him DRM is just some acronym that he's been told will help HBO make even more money. He doesn't give a shit about the crippling and annoying effects of DRM and I'm seriously questioning if he even knows how pissed off the public is with it.

Digital Consumer Enablement, would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods.

Wow, that's a load of bullshit so thick and heavy that it can't even be shoveled with an industrial strength shoveling-machine. Way to go Bob. You really are a retard.

Please tell me Bob, about these "enabling" effects. What is it that I can do with the media I lawfully buy that isn't possible without it being maimed by DRM?

I'll tell you what: NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. The consumer doesn't want DRM, you do and only you. DRM, DCE or whatever you call it is a contraption put in place to limit what the consumer can do with the product that he's bought and paid for. It does jack-shit against piracy.

If I was to download an illegal digital copy of a movie I could most likely play that movie in any of my multimedia-devices (Xbox, cellphone, DVD-player, computer, etc.). The same would not be possible with a movie bought and downloaded from iTunes Store for example. It only plays on a select number of devices and using special software. So consequently the only people annoyed with DRM are the ones that obey the law. The pirates don't give a rat's ass, their media is free to play on any multimedia-device with support for the encoding-format of the mediafile.

Many of the most monumental struggles throughout history one way or another have to do with freedom. Somebody wants freedom, while somebody else refuses to grant it to them. This is the very same thing. The consumers want the freedom to use media they've paid for in any way they choose, the media-corporations will not let them.

But believe you me, sooner or later the consumers will get fed up with it and the media-corporations will be the ones suffering losses in revenue and possibly even bankruptcy if they don't get their heads straight in time.

It's time they wake up and realize that the old economical models that have kept them afloat for the past century need to be revised for the digital future, and the sooner the better.

No more DRM. Free all media now.

Oh, and Bob... I hope you lose your job very soon. You sure as hell don't deserve it you idiot. Fuck off.

I'm sorry, but you're too much of an asshole for that cellphone

One recent occurrence in our high technological society that really ticks me off is that of people with MP3-playing cellphones that walk around with music playing through the cellphone-speaker. You've probably stumbled upon a couple of these morons roaming our streets and shopping malls yourself.

They wander around with (most of the time) third rate bullshit R'n'B streaming from the substandard and loudly crackling speakers of their cellphones as if everybody in the world had the same crappy taste in music that they have.

Hey fuckheads, I'm not interested in listening to R-Kelly against my will while I'm shopping for groceries OK? Turn the shit off right now dumbass!

What is it that motivates these morons to terrorize their surrounds like this?

It can't be that they think the song is so awesome that they simply have to share it with everybody, because there's no chance in hell of making out wether it's a good song or not when it's wailing from a tiny speaker on somebody's cellphone and completely destroyed by distortion.

Could it be that they think somebody will be impressed that they own a MP3-cellphone? If so, they're even dumber than I thought. Hey cockbrains, everybody and their dog has a cellphone that plays MP3s these days, it doesn't make you special!

I suggest that cellphone dealers from here on give their customers an IQ-test and check for any signs of an asshole personality before selling them an MP3-cellphone. If they don't, I just might be arrested for assaulting a moron with his own cellphone in the near future.

Cellphone-toting assholes of the world, consider yourselves warned.

Taking web 2.0 too far

Today in our digital age everybody is, or should be, worried about their personal integrity and paranoid about being watched and having their internet-habits recorded. New "1984"-esque laws have been taken into effect or at least proposed by people that wish to take away our rights and enslave us by the very tools that gave us digital freedom in the first place.

Enter Cluztr, quite possibly the most moronic browser-extension ever.

This piece of software let's you surf the web in a more "social" manner, i.e. other users will be able to read your browser history in real time! But wait, there's more. It let's you (and other users) see who is reading the page you're currently on and (wait for it...) you can send them messages! Yay! How very goddamn "web 2.0"...

Isn't this taking the whole "web 2.0, let's be a community on the internet"-thing a quite a bit too far? Why the hell would I want other people to know about my surfing habits? Why would I want to share my browser history with the whole online planet? It's just stupid, plain and simple, and the only people jumping on this bandwagon will be morons and teenagers who have already been MySpace-lobotomized.

And what's with the name? "Oh, I'm so hip and down with the next generation of teh internets that I can't spell. I'm so cool and web 2.0. I speak fluent Ruby On Rails and all my web applications are Beta too." Retards.

I think I'm gonna start a website where people can share their email inbox with each other. Wouldn't that be awesome? Everybody can read everybody's emails and leave comments about them? Awesome! Totally web 2.0 too! I think I'll call it stupdfuckr.com. Cool name huh? Very web 2.0.

There is such a thing as "too much"

OK, I'm all for modding your box and I love all sorts of silly gadgets with blinkenlights deluxe but this is just plain retarded.

I will however ask my boss for one for my box at work ;-)