dot unplanned

Emacs Key Bindings Make You Retarded. via Ed

Lifehacker: Give gedit the Power of TextMate … by turning it into a Leopard installer. Har.

Trot FIGHT! Trot FIGHT! Trot FIGHT!

So you downloaded the iWork ‘08 demo and gave it a spin. You decided to buy it after using it for a documentation project, but the project finished and you didn’t need iWork for a few weeks, and your demo expired. Now you’ve got a presentation to do in a week and you need iWork ‘08 to work.

No worries!

When the iWork ‘08 demo expires, it tells you so the next time you want to use it. Contrary to self-pitying crybabies on Apple’s own forums, iWork ‘08 will not “flush all your work down the crapper” if the demo times out … it’ll just put you into read-only mode until you pay up. If the software was incapable of exporting to the dominant file formats for presentations, word processing or spreadsheets, there’d be a complaint here, I guess … but it can so there’s not.

So … you fire up Pages and the splash screen comes up and it says the trial is over. A very large and helpful button lights the path to ownership. Click it and the splash changes to show a large field into which you can type a serial number, or a slightly less large link direct to the cash register in Steve’s living room.

Awesome!

Click the “buy a serial number online” link and your browser pops up and takes you straight to …

Huh …

Straight to the front page of the Apple store.

No worries! Surely you can just navigate to the iWork ‘08 page and buy your serial number!

Navigate navigate click click click!

Buy!

Name … address … just one please!

Checkout time!

Where’s the part about them giving you your license key right away like the friendly, lozenge-shaped splash screen said? Nowhere! Better back out!

(You can skip this part if support boards depress you as badly as they do me)

Search the Apple store for information on where you can buy a serial number for your downloaded demo. Come up empty-handed. Visit the forums and search for “iwork serial number.” Come away with nothing but gnawing contempt for a. whining instant gratification freaks and b. androids masquerading as content Apple users who don’t actually have any problems to get support for or solutions to offer … they just want to make sure the whining instant gratification freaks are kept in check.

Hm.

(Unskip … we’re done with all the whining and advocating and grumping and crying)

Hey! There’s a link you can click at the store for instant chat with the staff! Click it!

Start chatting with a helpful staffer, but suddenly notice an option in the iWork menu for “registering” your copy. Thank the staffer, follow the menu to the Apple page. Step through some answers only to realize you just registered a product you don’t own, because when it thanked you and sent you on your way it didn’t ask for a credit card number. It was just curious about who thinks they own iWork ‘08.

Fine. Better just call the store and order the serial number by phone.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Talk to the store worker. He is confused! What is this business about buying a serial number!? That sounds like a support issue!

Transferred!

Answer some phone menu questions!

Home user! Stuff that isn’t iPods!

Hold! Hold! Hold!

Talk to the support guy …

Learn from support guy that this is a store issue … not a support issue! Back to the store with you!

Muzak!

Menu!

Home user! Buy! Stuff that isn’t iPods!

Muzak!

Talk to the store worker. He is confused! What is this business about buying a serial number!? He does not have an expired copy of iWork ‘08 and has no confidence in his ability to help you click the button that says “buy a license online” then get dumped into the front of the Apple store where you have to navigate to the iWork ‘08 page and go through most of an order before realizing they aren’t going to mail you a serial number that way! That sounds like a support issue!

Phone menu!

Home user! Stuff that isn’t iPods!

Hold! Hold! Hold!

Hold! Hold! Hold!

Hold! Hold! Hold!

Hold! Hold! Hold!

15 minutes later, having caught up on mail and read a few feeds, go back to that live chat … they answered quickly!

“Hi, chat lady!”

“Hi! I want to help you today! Explain your problem!”

Explain explain explain. Leave out the part about all the transferring … that’s not going to help her and you’ll sound like a support board whiner who wants an interactive experience.

Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Oh! Oops! Still holding on the phone at the same time. Hang up at the 29 minute mark!

Chat lady has installed iWork ‘08 and is trying to buy a serial number online.

Chat lady says “Hold it! Something is broken! The buy link does not do what it is supposed to!”

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Chat lady says “We’re working on a fix! We’ll send you a link!”

Hey! A link in the chat window!* Click it!

Arrive at the store page for buying a license to iWork ‘08 that will be e-mailed to you!

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Wait! Just one copy!

Buy!

Get license!

Activate iWork!

Thank the lady!

Easy!

Don’t Buy Linux From Wal-Mart: Didn’t see this coming.

Super-thorough review of the new crop of Mac image editing tools: Pixelmator, Acorn & DrawIt.

I’d ordinarily linklog this, but it’s so cool I CAN’T CONTAIN IT IN A MERE SIDEBAR!

Eye-Fi Wireless Camera SD Memory:

Never scrounge around for a USB cable again! Eye-fi is a magical orange SD memory card that will not only store 2GB worth of pictures, it’ll upload them to your computer, and to Flickr, Facebook, Picasa (or 14 others) [including SmugMug -mph] wirelessly, invisibly, automatically!

This little guy looks like a normal 2GB memory card and works with nearly any camera that takes SD memory. There are no antennas, no protrusions, no subscription fees, and no cables.

Works with Macs, too.

It would be really fun to have something like this as part of a deliberate project, dialing the camera down to relatively modest capture settings and letting fly, Crapshoot-style.

If you visit that link, consider subscribing to PhotoJojo’s free newsletter while you’re there. I wrote Amit, one of the proprietors, to tell him his newsletter is one of the few I remain happy to see every time it lands in the inbox. They maintain a positive, pro-creativity buzz in the newsletter that almost always manages to restore my good feelings about picture-taking when it arrives after the latest Popular Photography, which usually manages to drive my inner censor to new heights of anxiety.

PhotoJojo is where I learned about the photo blocks project:

Last in a series, because I think there’s nothing left to report about installing Leopard. A few third party apps have kicked up a fuss (1Password (since fixed, see comments) , Saft, Lightroom) but everything has mostly just worked. It was a good idea to leave the machine alone to reindex Spotlight and kick off its first Time Machine backup.

There is one detail I didn’t have time to post yesterday:

Confronted with what it believes to be an unpowered mouse during installation, Leopard does a very polite thing: It reminds you that your mouse might need batteries and provides a diagram illustrating how to put those batteries in the mouse. Then it sits there until it detects a mouse.

Slightly less awesome: It did that with a mouse that had fresh batteries in it.

Wired — ‘Criminal’ Botnet Stumps for Ron Paul, Researchers Allege :

“If Texas congressman Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to computer-security researchers who’ve analyzed a recent flurry of e-mail supporting the long-shot Republican candidate.

“‘This is clearly a criminal act in support of a campaign, which has been committed with or without their knowledge,’ says Gary Warner, the University of Alabama’s director of research in computer forensics. ‘The question is, will we see more and more of this, or will this bring shame to the campaigns and will they make clear that this is not a form of acceptable behavior by their supporters?’ Warner pointed to provisions of the federal Can-Spam Act.

“Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton says the campaign has no knowledge of the scam.”

I was no more annoyed by that spam than any other. And the bit about RFID implants actually encouraged me to go look at 2decide.com again, which encouraged further reading on other issues. I can only imagine the amount of learning I’ll indulge in when I get a spam that leads with “Only Hillary Can Protects Us From the Carnivorous Dino-Bot Invasion!”

I don’t think the answer to bad pitches from flacks has to involve public humiliation, even if I felt a moment of schadenfreude reading that post.

Which is to say, my own approach is much more passive. I usually just ignore the badly misdirected pitches, along with any pique I might feel about the disconnect between the cordial and warm boilerplate salutation and the obvious ignorance about what it is I’m up to. Why bother with pique? I mean … it’s a little weird to run a site with the words “networking” and “enterprise” in the title and get pitches about ultra-fuel-efficient heavy agricultural machinery, but it doesn’t warrant more than passing annoyance, and maybe a little bemusement over the crummy, wasteful mechanisms that caused that pitch to land in my inbox.

If I were the sort to characterize the relationship between editor and flack as one of never-ending war broken up only briefly by obligatory expressions of cordial solicitousness before a conference call prezo begins in earnest, I might even argue that the lameness of the ridiculously poorly targeted pitch-blast is a useful reminder of why it’s right to hate.

But I don’t see it that way. Most flacks — PR professionals, I suppose it’s nicer to call them — seem like decent people who’re entitled to a few mistakes. And I’m generally only mean when I think I have privacy.

I think the most irritating thing about that post and the ensuing comments is all the suck-ups falling all over themselves to show that they Get It. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the Hip Flack Who Gets It as its own kind of marketing campaign deserves to hear as much bilge about the flack’s clients and their “passion” as can be stuffed into an inbox or left in voicemail.

You know the bit about “If you have to ask, you’ll never know?”

If you have to tell, you’ll never be.

That includes any blathering about how much you Get It.

Or maybe that whole entry was a wily trap designed to trick all the Hip Flacks Who Get It into gathering in one place. The opportunity to crow about the failings of other flacks is like catnip to those people.

Update: Oops.