Macintosh

Microsoft admits Vista UAC is designed to annoy users

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Just as I suspected, a Microsoft executive admitted that Vista’s UAC (User Account Control) is designed to annoy users.

In a Thursday presentation at RSA 2008 in San Francisco, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft who was part of the team that developed UAC, admitted that Microsoft’s strategy with UAC was to irritate users and ISVs in order to get them to change their behavior.

“The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I’m serious,” said Cross.

Microsoft not only wanted to get users to stop running as administrators, which exacerbates the effects of attacks, but also wanted to convince ISVs to stop building applications that require administrative privileges to install and run, Cross explained.

“We needed to change the ecosystem, and we needed a heavy hammer to do it,” Cross said.

Most likely it actually makes the system less secure since most people I know turn off UAC. Anyone who doesn’t turn it off soon gets so used to clicking ‘yes’ that they don’t even bother to read the alert and just respond automatically, so when it’s caused by real malware they won’t realize the difference.

Net4Mac

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I joined net4mac a few days ago, but so far I don’t see much point to it. This is a new “social network for Mac users”, but it’s severely limited by requiring their proprietary software. You can view public pages from a web browser, but to write anything or contact anyone, you need to use their software. This means you can’t access it from an iPhone (unless they release iPhone software).

If anyone’s interested, here’s my member profile.

Revisiting Mii Transfer

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I haven’t had a chance to do much work on mii transfer for a long time, but now that DarwiinRemote 0.7 was released, I’m taking a look at the latest code to incorporate into Mii Transfer.

My goal in this version is to avoid modifying the WiiRemote framework, but rather to extend the classes in it through a Mii category. I see that the latest version of the framework incorporated my Mii reading code, but not the code for writing Miis.

I’m also working on a MiiView class, which will display the Mii, and of course be able to export it in various graphics formats supported by NSImage. The actual code is pretty simple but involves lots of grunt work, creating lots of graphic resources for every variation of each part, which I then composite into the image. Right now I’m still bogged down in creating those pieces.

Sneaky Installations

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There’s a major controversy about Apple’s software updater pushing Safari 3.1 for Windows with iTunes & Quicktime updates, even if Safari wasn’t installed previously. Adobe did something much sneakier with their CS3 applications. Adobe Bridge CS3 contains a full copy of Opera embedded inside the application.

The current version of CS3 includes Opera 9.2. The latest non-beta Opera version is 9.2. You can even place an alias to the embedded copy of Opera in your applications folder and use it, if you don’t mind running an older version.

Adobe Bridge CS3 Contents
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Evernote

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I depend on an application where I can store snippets such as notes, passwords, serial numbers, etc. For years I used StickyBrain, but it started getting too slow & bloated, so I switched to Yojimbo, which is still my favorite.

Now I’m trying Evernote, which has some pretty unique features. Although it stores notes, it’s nothing like Yojimbo or StickyBrain (now SOHO Notes). It doesn’t provide specialized entries for serial numbers, passwords, bookmarks, etc. Evernote does let you store text, images, web clips, snapshots from an iSight or mobile phone, or even handwritten notes from a tablet.

Evernote has a few unique features that set it apart from any other application. It’s actually an online service that syncs with the desktop software. You can grab web pages or add notes online as well as from your Mac. You can also access Evernote via IMAP on your iPhone. Evernote’s most amazing feature is the ability to search for text within images.

EvernoteHelper.jpg

Open data from a pipeline in any application

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Here’s a feature I wasn’t aware of, thanks to MacOSXHints.com. The open command (man page) provides a -f option, which open‘s own help says “Reads input from standard input and opens with TextEdit”. But, in fact, you can load the data into nearly any application. Simply combine the -f flag with the -a flag:

  • curl 'http://example.com/example.html' | open -a 'TextMate' -f
  • curl 'http://example.com/example.png' | open -a 'Preview' -f

I usually don’t bother using the open command with TextMate; I simply use the command line tool, which can read from standard input:

  • ps -ax |mate

BBEdit can do the same.

New Mouse

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I finally got disgusted with my Wireless Mighty Mouse, which will only scroll up even after repeated cleanings, so I got a new mouse to replace it. None of the Logitech or Kensington mice I like are available in Bluetooth and I don’t want a wireless mouse that uses a dongle. After looking around I decided on Microsoft’s Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000. It’s the perfect size for comfortable use while still being small and light for travel.

Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse 5000

NewsFire vs. NetNewsWire

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Since NewsFire is now free, I decided to take another look at it. After only a few minutes I went back to NetNewsWire. Since both are free, I see no compelling reason to switch to NewsFire.

Although NewsFire is attractive and fast, it lacks many of my favorite features of NetNewsWire. Most notably, there’s no way to sync your feeds online, so I can’t synchronize my news reading between my Mac and my iPhone as I now do with NetNewsWire and NewsGator Mobile. Also, as far as I can tell, NewsFire doesn’t have a view that lets you see both the headlines and summaries at the same time, as NetNewsWire does with its combined view.

Making money with freeware

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David Watanabe came up with a great idea to make money on the new free version of NewsFire: include three paid-for feeds that the user cannot unsubscribe from. Site owners can bid for a spot as one of these feeds, bringing Watanabe revenue while offering a great product for free.

Recently there was an uproar when David added affiliate links to Inquisitor, his Safari search plugin. It was actually a good move, since it allows him to distribute his software for free, while still making money from it. Everyone wins – we all get a good product and David gets paid for his effort. Most people don’t pay for shareware, so this sponsored model is a good alternative for many developers. I’m sure many people would rather use ad-supported software with full functionality instead of limited demo versions.

It’s nothing new. Eudora used his same model many years ago. You could use it in one of three modes: a sponsored mode with full functionality although it displayed ads; a lite version that didn’t show ads but eliminated functionality; and a paid version that had full functionality with no ads. Twitterrific is doing the same thing now. It’s fully functional but displays unobtrusive ads, although you can pay to eliminate those ads.