Day 2 of 50 complete. $140 of $3250, 4.30% raised. Finish: November 1st.

Revised my numbers for 330 dollars a week. (Short day for Tuesday math class.) Doing pretty well, a bit tired, though, but I think that's just because I'm working, because I'm still getting 8 hours of sleep a night, like I have even when waking up at noon. (Actually, more like 7 hours, since I can't fall asleep at midnight, yet... I'm sure that'll change.) I actually plotted a finish date, too. November 1st! Maybe I will be able to do NaNoWriMo again this year... Hmm. Or I might be too busy playing Oblivion to care. We shall seeee.

Here's something I've been wanting to share for a few day, but never got around to it. The definition of irony. The definition of irony isn't seeing Microsoft Windows merrily booting itself on an Apple computer. It's this:

Irony is when Apple iTunes, a music player, needs to restart Windows... Windows Vista, I might add. The version of Windows that doesn't REQUIRE restarts anymore. (With the exception of OS update, which, I might add, requires that most OSes reboot after applying.)

I'm sitting here still wondering why in all heck an MP3 player needs to reboot Windows after installing. Especially since it's merely an upgrade. Is it because it can't restart the services? Lame. Apache2Triad can do that, and look, it asks me for administrative privileges in the first place! It certainly has the power to start and stop services. If services are the fault here, then chalk it up to lousy programming.

Is it installing a kernel-level piece of code that Windows can't start? I certainly hope not. It's a music player, for crying out loud, not a critical security update. If iTunes is installing kernel code... I'm going to be angry. If Winamp can upgrade without rebooting, certainly Apple's "glass of water in hell" (according to Steve Jobs) shouldn't have to. If it's installing kernel code, what do we chalk it up to? Lousy programming.

Fear not, Vista nay-sayers... For I have also updated my XP system and it also asked for a reboot. Perhaps it installs a driver? In which case, rebooting in XP would indeed be required. But in Vista? With the previously cried for, yet now oft-overlooked feature of user-mode drivers? Not required in the least bit. Not even my VIDEO CARD DRIVER asked for a reboot. It merely uninstalled, flickered the monitor a few times, and voila! Done deal. Why should iTunes ask for a reboot?

But what driver could it possibly be for? The iPod? No, I honestly don't think so. Windows XP and Vista can both discover an "iPod" when you plug it in... Without having installed iTunes. It's a built-in driver. Is it an iPhone driver? That would certainly be the pinnacle of irony. But still, let's not forget that Vista doesn't need to be rebooted for drivers.

Still, I find it oddly humorous. iTunes, a music player, asking for a reboot.

So Apple released Safari for Windows is a really funny effort to... I'm not sure what, exactly. The general consensus is that since the iPhone uses Safari as a sort of driver for applications, that releasing Safari to the largest market share operating system would be the only smart thing. "The World's Best Browser", as good ol' Steve Jobs referred it to, had a horrible launch with bugs to rival Internet Explorer. Betas aren't supposed to be this terrible, and Digg, one of the most rabid cesspools of Apple fanatics there are, was thoroughly humbled.

But oh, boy! A million downloads in 48 hours! That means people are using Safari all over the place right?! Yeah! A million downloads! It has to be! Well, you know... This is like Sony saying "we shipped 800 bajillion PSPs this week! We've got a great user base!" We all know Sony likes to twist "ship numbers" with actual "sale numbers". When independent sources do the research, it's only a tiny fraction of actual people buying/using the thing.

Saying Safari has a million downloads? I'm sure that's accurate. (I mean, that's probably all the Apple users there are, right?) But honestly, that's equivalent to shipping PSPs to Walmart. They're out there and they have exposure, but are people actually using it? I've personally been hearing lots of reports of people installing and then uninstalling because of bugs, rendering errors and the fact that Firefox (and even Internet Explorer 7) have more useful addons than Safari does. I saw a joke comment that said "Only 1,000,000 downloads in 48 hours and only 990,000 uninstalls in the same amount of time!"

I'm not really bashing Apple here. (No, seriously, I'm not.) I have to be honest, though, I think Safari is quite possibly the worst browser to ever grace this planet. I wouldn't even use it if I was a Mac fan. I would use Firefox or Opera, sorry. What I AM bashing, more or less, are the people who are taking this the extra mile and saying "there are a million users for Safari on Windows!!" No, I'm afraid there isn't. I'm willing to bet at least half of the downloads are people who are curious what makes Safari different than anything else, and then uninstalling/not using it after the first few minutes.

Personally, I will be downloading it sometime (after they get a little grasp on security) to use in testing my web sites for Safari compatibility. (Like IE, it's nice to have other browsers to see how they screw things up!)

If you're an open-minded Apple user, I suggest reading some of the comments on that Digg article I posted. A lot of it is just random "haha, sweet justice" comments that can be skipped over, but some of it is pretty interesting like how Apple uses their operating system to cover up some security holes in their other applications. While not necessarily bad, Apple really doesn't seem to be very prepared to release stuff like this to the Windows world. You can't blame Windows... Not at all. Just, cut the crap there for a minute. You have to admit that Windows is pretty darn secure with 95% of the computer market share thrashing it around for security holes. Apple just simply doesn't have that kind of exposure yet. I guarentee you that any program with a user base the size of Windows will have just as many bugs.

Oh well... The point is: A million downloads does not equal a million users. Remember that, okaaaaay? I think my friends realize that, and I'm glad they're not batty enough to buy into the general hype and junk about anything, Apple or otherwise. (Except maybe Pixar! They're pretty much the most awesome CG studio on the face of the planet and have done nothing but equally awesome movies for the entire lifetime of the company, and they can pretty much just do no wrong right now.)

Behold! Microsoft has decided to try their hand at designing a cell phone that will rival Apple's iPhone. Microsoft first made the announcement with this video that they presented at the Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference in Las Vegas on May 1st:

Although, before any Apple fanatics read this and blow a fuse at how Microsoft is "copying" Apple again, I need to mention that, according to the MSNBC article, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, assured everyone that the oFone is just a silly parody video they made and that there are absolutely no plans to release such a thing.

Still, it's funny reading all the comments by Apple fanatics on Engadget and Digg.

And, of course, with my increased usage of the phrase "Apple fanatic", I must say that I don't mean Apple users in general, but the Apple users who go out of their way to plug Macs and rip Windows at every possible moment because they're sad, bitter little boys. I know my fair share of Apple users who don't act like rabid fanatics.

So I was talking with someone... Let's call him "MisterMan". I just came back from a college class where we were supposed to give presentations on different operating systems and one of them gave a presentation about OS X Leopard... Of course, I knew at least one of them would.

We get all the way through the presentation, and then the typical Apple elitism strikes and there's a video with all the stuff Vista "copied" from Apple. You know... Important stuff like calendar applications and mailing applications and instant search. Yeah. If Apple has to point fingers at Microsoft and say "you copied our calendar!" Then you go right ahead. I didn't know you owned the concept of a calendar, but if you think you do, then by all means, continue thinking that, and if that's all you got on Microsoft as far as copying goes, then I think you're just being whiny.

Anyway, so I told this MisterMan guy that the first thing I noticed about the video was that everyone in that audience was laughing and pointing fingers at how silly and stupid their competition was. That's just typical for Apple... And so this IM conversation ensued:

(9:27:38 PM) GermanShepherd: Microsoft doesn't mock... EVER NOTICE THAT?!
(9:27:46 PM) GermanShepherd: They just do their thing and make their products stand on its own merit.
(9:28:05 PM) MISTERMAN: would you mock if you owned 90% of the world?
(9:28:23 PM) GermanShepherd: would you mock if you owned 5% of the world?
(9:28:35 PM) MISTERMAN: to make myself feel better, yep

Perfect! Just... perfect. Apple's the low-end of the computer market share and they're just trying to make themselves feel big and bad by pointing out all the things Microsoft ripped off of them. (Things like an RSS reader in the bundled internet browser. Aww, poor Apple. Microsoft put an RSS reader in Internet Explorer... They copied your hard work... Did Firefox copy you, too?)

Anyway, this is just one of my random rants.

Oh, oh! I have the perfect set of animals that Apple can use for their next chain of operating systems! They can use birds! Yeah! And they can start with the MOCKINGBIRD, hahaha. Ahem.

You know, I never did like iTunes. I'm a WinAmp doggy myself, but my iPod forces me to incorporate all my music into iTunes. (Yes, I know there are add-ons for other programs so that they can sync iPods, but I had so much trouble with add-ons at the beginning that I'm just too scared to try it.)

At least I can now say that iTunes is proof that Apple has Windows on the back-burner, and that Apple users need to shut up about how Microsoft has THEM on the back-burner. How long has Vista been out for corporations? 2 months before public release? Something like that... Has Apple taken the time to make sure iTunes works in Vista? Maybe, maybe not. Does iTunes work in Vista? Nope. Sure, it'll work for about 10 minutes before it'll just randomly generate a mass of GUI errors and then freeze up solid.

I haven't run into any other problems like this... Just in iTunes. Oh, and did I neglect to mention the fact that if you try to sync your iPod with iTunes, it doesn't work? At all? Permission errors. My iPod's been having trouble with lost clusters and minor file errors, so I think I'm going to reinitialize the entire thing. Hopefully that'll fix all these dumb iPod vs Vista errors. Ugh.

A Digg comment by someone named 'geoken':

So let me get this straight. When it comes to Vista we're allowed to take existing DRM shcemes, come up with unrealistic, contrived situations about how that DRM 'could' be used, then bash Vista as if the imaginary DRM scheme was already being implemented. When it comes to OSX, which has an even stronger, more invasive, hardware based DRM backbone it's perfectly fine to say 'yeah, they have EFI, which is way worse than any software based DRM MS has, but they aren't using it for anything right now so it's fine".

He is absolutely right. The article this comment comes from is a major trash against Vista and their "all-powerful Digital Rights Management" that "might be able to be used to lock your computer". Key phrase here is that "might" part, as in... Nobody's actually witnessed that ever happening before, but since Vista is capable of doing that, then it must be set up to do exactly that.

I'm actually impressed with Digg. Some of the more popular comments talk about how the DRM in Vista was required so they can legally play HD content... And an operating system that doesn't support HD content right now is a dead operating system. It's not Microsoft's fault the movie and music industry is innundating us with DRM, and that Microsoft had no choice but to include their DRM on Vista to remain legal and keep Windows support.

Honestly, we know you Mac addicts despise Windows for various reasons, how they copy Mac features (yet these are the people who would like to see patents go away so everyone can benefit from all technology), how it's susceptible to so many attacks (which I would bet is directly proportional to the market share Windows has), and so many other stuff. Fine. You hate Windows. Just stop talking about it because we already know you hate Windows and have undying love for Steve Jobs. Butt out and let us actually try to make intellectual decisions about the quality of operating systems.

Now I know some of you Mac users aren't crazy like this, and I'm not talking to you. But I also know some of you who ARE crazy like this, and I AM talking to you. (For the record, so neither of you are stuck thinking if I mean you or not, Capella and Iaian7 are not crazies... We may play around with Mac vs Windows fanatic talk, but when it comes down to it, I think we all know the pros and cons of both systems well enough to make educated, non-fanboy decisions about why each of us uses the other OS.)

CNET is reporting on a virus that magically appeared on a small number of Video iPods manufactured after September 12, 2006. Good ol' Slashdot was quick to pick of a comment made on Apple's support page for the mistake:

As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

Apple, ever the elitist, just had to subtley attack Microsoft here, didn't they. It's just impossible for them NOT to attack the leader of the market. Everyone, repeat after me: "It's a sign of weakness when the only way to make yourself look good is to make your competition look bad." (Even when it makes you look like a total loser.) You know why Windows is so susceptible to virus attacks? Well, let me see, one of the reasons could be poor coding, but why is there poor coding? There's that whole backwards compatibility thing Microsoft has to do to keep everyone happy, because, believe it or not, not all people like to just up and forget all the applications they purchased when they get a new operating system. Windows is messy because it's built upon old code and is designed to work on an infinte amount of computer system configurations. It's a mammoth conglomeration of code that nobody knows how it works anymore, but it got that way so Windows XP could still run DOS applications. Also, there's that whole 90% marketshare that Windows has. It's in more places than your pretty little OS X. So of course virus attacks are going to be higher, just because of the simple fact that there's more Windows system TO ATTACK owned by people who don't know how to use a computer.

...and then there's Apple Macintosh OS X. That thing that's illegal to install on any non-certified Apple computer system, and is therefore only designed to work on one particular assembly chain of computer systems. Which, I might add, is very expensive, no matter what those fanboys say. Sure, there's the Mac Mini, but, uhm... you just get some dinky little cube without any peripherals or even a decent videocard. (But I guess you don't need one, since OS X doesn't play games, hahaha.)

Anyway, Apple just screwed up and took the opportunity to make fun of Windows. They actually managed to somehow package a computer virus on their iPods that were then wrapped, boxed and sold to unsuspecting buyers. How DOES that happen? But anyway... no apology. Just a poke at Windows and a "you should've had an anti-virus program installed". Wow. Due to the nature of the virus, they say to be sure to scan your computer, and any removeable media you have, which includes external harddrives, digital cameras, USB memory sticks and anything else.

No wonder most Apple users are the way they are. The company itself is the same way.

Bottom line: Apple ships some iPods with a virus and makes fun of Windows for being susceptible. Let's forget the fact that they shipped a product with a virus and make fun of Windows. After all, it's Apple, so it must be okay.