bitgeist

So here begins another rant about commercial software.

I upload a quicktime movie (.mov) to a web site. When you click on the link on the web page, the quicktime application launches within the web browser window and plays the movie. Sounds nice, doesn't it? If you right click on the movie, you get some options, including some that are listed but greyed out and not available. If you attempt to select those options, you are encouraged to upgrade to quicktime pro. What are these options? "Save as Source" and "Save as Quicktime". Guess what? You can already save it as a quicktime. This is not a special feature of the Quicktime plugin. When click the link that brings you to the movie, you can already just do a "Save link as" instead of viewing it. Here is a commercial company hiding options that you already have available, and using it as a way to get money out of you. I'm sure that Quicktime Pro has some other feature that are worth paying for, but not this stuff.

Ok. So everyone and their uncle is talking about google's new IM and voice offering. Many see it as just Yet Another Instant Messenger. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps is doesn't have any amazing features, but I think it is still significant. Google chose the open Jabber protocol, XMPP. Jabber has been around for a while, and the protocol has been accepted as a standard. Jabber allows anyone to run a server, just like email. Current IM services are closed and use a single name space. Once there is a bob on the yahoo IM, there cannot be another. With Jabber, your company can choose to run a Jabber server, and your jabber ID can be the same as your email. Google's choice may help push the IM market towards the same model as email. There once was a time when email systems at different companies could not talk to each other. IM is still fragmented, and perhaps google will help push us in the right direction.

Just spent the weekend in the woods where there is no cell phone signal. What a nice break. It is almost sad that there is an effort to get rid of these "cell phone free" zones. Some parks are now offering wireless internet access. Geez!

McDonalds provides proof that aliens are here. According to the CIA, the world population is currently 6,446,131,400, and McDonalds claims over 50 billion served. So where did those extra 44 billion people come from? Maybe they aren't people!

It is still about freedom. Updated quicktime on OSX, and it pushed some advertising at me when quicktime started up again. Now I hear that the latest version of OSX no longer includes iMovie. Open Source is about freedom, and about not suffering under the whim of the commercial manufacturer.