Flickr

Okay, when Flickr was first introduced, I, being the early adopter that I am, quickly signed up and took a look. It was pretty cool, especially with all of the cool tagging and metadata stuff you could do with your photos. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have (and still don’t) much use for stuff like that. On top of that, I’m not really in the business of sharing my personal photos with the world.

However, I was reevaluating online photo solutions again last night and realized actually how cool Flickr is and has gotten (especially after having been bought by Yahoo! and can take advantage of that powerhouse). It’s integrated into many popular blogging tools, including MovableType, there’s a cool plugin to directly export from iPhoto (although developed by a Flickr user and not officially supported), has very granular privacy options, and encourages people to take advantage of Creative Commons licensing. The last one is what really got me, so I went ahead and paid for the full Pro account and am a new convert to Flickr.

If you’re on Flickr, look me up and we can share contacts. If you’re not on Flickr, you should check it out for your photo needs. Here’s a link to my public photos.

The way things ought to be

Ah ha! After the Quicktime pro key trap incident, Panic (the Mac software company, not the emotion or state of mind) comes through with a free upgrade to Transmit:

(click for the full screenshot)

Now, everyone go buy and download Transmit for your Mac OS X (graphical) FTP needs.

The Absurd

I was in NY this weekend visiting friends and family and being the United Colors of Benetton ad that we are (if Benetton was more about poor suburban and urban people than about rich suburban people), a lot of race relations issues came up for discussion. You can imagine that we had a lot to say.

I finally got home a few hours ago and I’m look through my news headlines to find this:

Racial Switch Halts ‘Huck Finn’ Production

Have race relations really become this absurd in this country? For that matter, has copyright really become this absurd in this country?

The Quicktime Pro key trap

I’ve had my new PowerBook for a couple of months now, but I haven’t been blogging much about it. Not because I haven’t had anything to say, but just because I’ve been too busy. However, quite recently, especially because of the new release of Tiger (or rather than it has been “unleashed”– grr!), I have been once again reminded that no matter how much we want to think of Apple as our knight in shining armor, they’re just as bad as the next guy when it comes to software licensing schemes at least.

Case in point: I recently gave in and decided to buy Quicktime Pro for my Mac. (I think I actually bought it before, but in the great hard drive crash of Memorial Day Weekend 2004, my license key was lost forever and for some reason, I could not get it from Apple). In any case, I bought QT Pro for my new Mac on April 24th. (When I had previously purchased it, I had purchased it for Windows– yeah, that’s right, you have to buy separate license keys for Windows and Mac.) Now, I realized that Tiger was coming out on April 29th, but just because it was, I didn’t think that A) a new version of QT would also be released and, more importantly, B) my QT Pro registration key would not work with future versions of QT.

Obviously, I was sorely mistaken. I was still running Panther since I didn’t pre-order, did not bother going to the Apple release party on campus and wasn’t willing to stand in the line that literally went down along University Avenue in Palo Alto. (Seriously, people: it’s just an operating system. Calm down.) So the way I realized that there was a new version of QT was when Software Update automatically prompted me to download and install. Assuming (albeit incorrectly) that my recently purchased pro registration key would work with the newer version and wanting to see if QT 7 is better than 6, I downloaded and installed right away.

But I again mistakenly assumed that it would retain my previously entered registration information, which it did not, and when I did provide the registration key, it no longer worked on QT 7. So, $29.99 to legitimately purchase a QT Pro license and four days later, I can’t use it anymore because they’ve forced QT 7 on me.

Okay, so maybe I was naive to think that the license I purchased would work on the newer version as well since QT has always had this idea of “free upgrades.” So, in my mind, that means, if I have a free upgrade on QT from 6 to 7, that should hold true for QT Pro from 6 to 7, right? I mean, we’re the people who paid the $29.99 in the first place– at least you could hook us up with the upgrade, especially when you release a new version four days later, couldn’t you?

But in looking at the Quicktime Pro FAQ, it says:

I already have QuickTime 6. Can I upgrade to QuickTime 7 for free?
Upgrades to QuickTime 7 Player are free. Upgrades to QuickTime 7 Pro are $29.99.

Which is all just misleading since there is no difference in the software delivered in QT and QT Pro. They’re the same piece of software with the same set of features and functionality– all “QuickTime Pro” means is that you purchased a registration key that will now “unlock” those “Pro” features. That’s not really paying for an upgrade then. That’s paying for another key. When you really do look closely at the item description on your receipt, you see that you are buying a QT6 Pro Key, not just a QT Pro Key and therefore, for the rest of time, they will be able to make you pay for a new key every single time they decide to push out another version of QT (especially since you can’t run two different instances of QT on the same machine– i.e., you can’t run QT 6 PRO and QT 7 on the same computer, a note straight from the FAQ).

Obviously, this whole thing annoyed me as I hoped to convert some videos the other day and fell into this pit of hell. So I thought, let’s make this an experiment: let’s just see how willing Apple is to step up to the plate and be fair (or at least provide some nice customer service). So, on April 30th, I sent them the following email:

I ordered a Quicktime Pro key for Mac OS X on April 24. Now, only 6 days later, Apple pushes out the newest version of Quicktime (7) via Software Update and now my key doesn’t work anymore. At the time of the purchase, had I been told the key was not going to work on a newer version and that the newer version would be out within days, I would not have purchased. I would like a refund or a new key that will work with Quicktime 7.

Surprisingly enough, they did in fact respond within a day or two:

Finally, someone stands up just a little

At least somebody at one of the universities I’m affiliated with is saying something about the RIAA’s witchhunt on college campuses and it certainly is helping to improve my view of CMU in general:

CMU Professor’s Rebuttal Against RIAA Propaganda (from Slashdot)

Take-back

I don’t know if this take-back really erases their lame cop-out. Here’s an interesting line from Ballmer’s email:

After looking at the question from all sides, I’€™ve concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda.

If Microsoft is supposed to be such a leader in diversity, why did it have to be pressured to make it a priority in its legislative agenda?

Lame cop-outs

I wasn’t going to comment on this, but this Daily Show clip is just too funny to pass up: Quicktime, Windows Media.

When I first heard about this, I was really surprised– I thought Microsoft’s change in stance on HB 1515 was very strange. Say what you will about Microsoft as a technology source or even as a corporate power, but from what I’ve heard, they have had a pretty good track record on supporting charitable causes. They have a sizable matching program for their employees’ charitable donations and everyone has heard of Bill Gates’s personal philanthropic efforts. Moreover, in terms of queer rights, Microsoft has a sizeable queer community (GLEAM, Gay and Lesbian Employees at Microsoft. And as Steve Ballmer says in his email to Microsoft employees, they were one of the first companies to provide domestic partner benefits and to include sexual orientation in anti-discrimination policies.

However, the peculiar thing is that Ballmer (and Gates, by extension) says that they are wondering if a corporation should become involved in broader social issues, that if they take an active stance for or against legislation, what kind of message does it send to employees and shareholders who might hold an opposing view?

Well, with the increasing corporatization of America, I would think that its obvious that corporations have an enormous influence on social and political issues and if they want to continue to exert that influence in some areas, shouldn’t they also feel some moral responsibility to, put bluntly, not be a bunch of wusses when it comes to broader social issues? Perhaps the case would be different if Microsoft did not have a history of becoming involved in social and political issues, but to back down when things get a little interesting seems cowardly. By instituting domestic partner benefits and including sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination efforts, Microsoft’s internal policy was already making a broader social statement and while Ballmer says he does not want to promote a law that goes against the personal beliefs of many of its employees is really a lame-ass copout. By supporting HB1515, Microsoft wouldn’t be saying that gay marriage should be legalized or that employees have to embrace homosexuality. What they would be saying is that no matter how you feel about homosexuality personally, a lifestyle choice that is in no way illegal, you should not disciminate against homosexuals in the workplace. You may not like black people, Asian people, white people, Jewish people, Muslim people, red fish, blue fish, but it’s illegal to discriminate against them in the workplace. Obviously, Microsoft agrees with this idea since they have an internal policy against discinination based on sexual orientation and have recognized domestic partners in providing benefits. If they think it’s good enough for Microsoft, why isn’t it good enough for the workplace in general?

Drug fashion

Because of my perennial sinus problems, I went to the store yesterday to buy a decongestant. Everybody knows that the standard decongestant is, by brand name, Sudafed, and generically, pseudoephedrine. However, at the store yesterday, they had a new Sudafed PE, or generically Nasal Decongestant PE. One of the side effects of taking decongestants is that it can raise your blood pressure and can make you a little jittery– possibly causing sleep problems. So, I had hoped that this new PE formula– which stands for Phenylephrine HCl– possibly addressed that issue.

But no. Or rather, sort of. When I asked the pharmacist why there was a new formula, it was basically because it’s harder for people to make methamphetamine (”meth”) from it. If you haven’t noticed in some drugstores now, if you want to buy a nasal decongestant, you are either limited to a certain number at a time and/or you have to ask for it from behind the counter because meth addicts have been either buying up or stealing pseudoephedrine products to make meth. I knew that this was possible, but it’s interesting to see that homemade meth has become so popular (check out this Boing Boing post about crystal meth manufacturing being demonstrated at a high school) and it’s become such a problem nowadays that these types of actions have been taken. It’s not exactly news, but meth has seriously become today’s drug of choice.

For more info on meth, take a look at the Wikipedia page on Meth.