By Aidan Malley
Published: 02:45 PM EST
Apple has reportedly begun talks with Immersion to integrate haptic feedback into future touchscreen devices, addressing a complaint leveled against the iPhone by fans of physical buttons and keyboards.
An Apple worker has allegedly leaked to Palluxo that Immersion executives met twice with their Apple peers this week to discuss integrating Immersion's vibration response technology into the cellphone.
The meetings are said to parallel a more publicized deepening of relations between the two companies through indirect means: Immersion this week hired Clent Richardson, a former Worldwide Solutions Marketing VP at Apple between 1997 and 2001.
What exactly would be implemented is unclear. However, Immersion's most recent efforts have focused on using haptics to simulate physical button presses in an increasing number of touchscreen phones, including Sprint's soon-to-be iPhone rival, the Samsung Instinct.
The technique most frequently involves sending short, concentrated pulses through all or specific locations of a phone as the user taps buttons in software. In effect, haptics not only restore some of the feel absent in touchscreens, but also give users a way of confirming that the phone has recognized a command through more than just visual output.
A frequently-cited complaint regarding the iPhone is its lack of tactile feedback for converts from BlackBerries and other smartphones, many of whom expect the relative certainty of physical responses while navigating the interface or typing.
Neither Apple nor Immersion has commented on the rumored discussions, which are still early and so aren't expected to result in a finished product for some time.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Remote control function said hidden in iPhone beta firmware
By Aidan Malley
Published: 02:20 PM EST
Code in Apple's latest iPhone 2.0 beta firmware allegedly contains references to a utility that will let an iPhone or iPod touch play media from nearby iTunes sources
Pointing only to an unnamed person as the source for its leak, TUAW claims that multiple string entries in the cellphone's beta code refer to selecting from different media categories and include mentions of dialog boxes that let users choose their particular source.
The information suggests that the additions are the groundwork for an Apple TV-like feature, purportedly named iControl, that would let users play any iTunes content over a local network with features similarly to the dedicated media hub already on store shelves.
It's unclear as to whether the feature is strictly intended for streaming local content to the iPhone itself or can actively steer other devices, imitating a more advanced home theater remote such as Logitech's Harmony.
However, the listings as they appear would indicate a direct connection to a 2.5-year-old patent filing submitted by Apple in late 2005.
In the filing, the iPhone maker says it has invented a method that would let a portable media player view the contents of a local media server, such as a computer, and send instructions telling the media server to change tracks while it outputs content to a separate media receiver, whether physically attached to the computer (such as speakers) or remote (such as an Airport Express-like connection).
The aim is to let users steer media playback in a networked media system with existing hardware rather than dedicated controllers, Apple engineers state in the earlier patent.
Regardless of its actual purpose of iControl, there are no clues as to when, if at all, the software will be released for the company's handheld devices.
Published: 02:20 PM EST
Code in Apple's latest iPhone 2.0 beta firmware allegedly contains references to a utility that will let an iPhone or iPod touch play media from nearby iTunes sources
Pointing only to an unnamed person as the source for its leak, TUAW claims that multiple string entries in the cellphone's beta code refer to selecting from different media categories and include mentions of dialog boxes that let users choose their particular source.
The information suggests that the additions are the groundwork for an Apple TV-like feature, purportedly named iControl, that would let users play any iTunes content over a local network with features similarly to the dedicated media hub already on store shelves.
It's unclear as to whether the feature is strictly intended for streaming local content to the iPhone itself or can actively steer other devices, imitating a more advanced home theater remote such as Logitech's Harmony.
However, the listings as they appear would indicate a direct connection to a 2.5-year-old patent filing submitted by Apple in late 2005.
In the filing, the iPhone maker says it has invented a method that would let a portable media player view the contents of a local media server, such as a computer, and send instructions telling the media server to change tracks while it outputs content to a separate media receiver, whether physically attached to the computer (such as speakers) or remote (such as an Airport Express-like connection).
The aim is to let users steer media playback in a networked media system with existing hardware rather than dedicated controllers, Apple engineers state in the earlier patent.
Regardless of its actual purpose of iControl, there are no clues as to when, if at all, the software will be released for the company's handheld devices.
Europe's not finished with Microsoft
Microsoft's troubles in Europe are far from over, as Neelie Kroes, The EU competition commissioner, has warned. We review the past and future options for Microsoft and the European Commission.
Posted Richard Hillesley at 2:34PM, 24th April 2008
The 80s were the dog-eat-dog days of business. Top of the pile was Microsoft, the biggest and baddest of them all, led by Bill Gates, who invented the computer, the universe and everything.
Gates looked a bit like the nerd on the cover of Mad Magazine, made it to the cover of Time magazine, and was rich and successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams.
The view of Gates and Microsoft from inside the computer industry was more circumspect. PC software looked amateurish and nobody took it too seriously until the cultures began to collide in the business world during the middle of the decade. The affordable desktop computer, which sprang out of an unholy alliance between IBM, Intel and Microsoft, changed the face of computing in the home and in the work place, and for the most part was beneficial to the user, if only because it was cheap and accessible.
Microsoft always took more credit for this revolution than it probably deserved, but had a way of coming out on top, which owed everything to its early dominance of the operating system market for the IBM PC and its clones. From this dominance grew its prominence on the desktop, and the gradual eclipse of its competitors. The question that was always being asked of Microsoft was how much did the company owe its success to the quality of its software, and how much to the ruthlessness of its marketing?
From the beginning Microsoft had a special relationship with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMS), and made this relationship tell. Each innovation on the desktop, each new tool and the company that made it, either fell by the wayside or was assimilated into the Microsoft hive.
In the hive
Compaq had its arm twisted to stop it bundling Apple's Quicktime on the desktop. Internet Explorer, and later, the Windows Media Player, were bundled into the operating system, and given away free, sucking revenues and market share from Netscape, Real Networks and Apple. The squashing of Netscape and the subsequent death of the browser market led to Microsoft's conviction for monopolistic behaviour before the US antitrust courts.
Microsoft added platform-dependent "features" to Java to render Java's multi-platform features redundant, and when that ended up in court, developed the .NET platform, a very successful and popular alternative that reproduced many of the major features of Java with the notable exception of its multi-platform capabilities.
Kerberos, the encryption standard developed by MIT, was extended by Microsoft with the apparent objective of inhibiting interoperability in the workgroup server space and, in the words of Jeremy Allison of Samba: "these changes were treated as trade secrets, patented if possible, and only released under restrictive non-disclosure agreements, if released at all."
During the US anti-trust trials, Steven McGeady, a vice president of Intel, testified against Microsoft, Intel's most important trading partner, asserting that Microsoft intended to "embrace, extend and extinguish" competition by substituting open standards with proprietary protocols, and claimed that Intel had been warned to cease development of its Native Signal Processing audio and video technology, which promised to vastly improve user experience of the desktop - or else Microsoft would bypass Intel and develop Windows exclusively for AMD and National Semiconductor chips. "It was clear to us that if this chip did not run Windows it would be useless in the marketplace," McGeady testified. "The threat was both credible and terrifying."
Microsoft has always had an ambivalent relationship with the concept of interoperability and with the standards that make interoperability possible, tending to view the protocols and data formats it uses as "de facto" standards and "trade secrets" which it is free to "extend" with no obligation to share. This may not always be deliberate behaviour. Where there is a monopoly standards become incidental, an option rather an obligation. This tendency has been at the root of Microsoft's problems in the US and European courts. Microsoft is not being penalised for success, but for shutting the door on competition, and resisting any requests to modify its behaviour.
Into Europe
Microsoft's troubles in Europe began as early as 1993, when Novell complained that "onerous licensing conditions" imposed on OEMs by Microsoft was pushing NetWare out of the workgroup market.
In this market Novell had been the innovator, but Microsoft had muscled a napping, but still relevant, Novell out of the picture. Thus began a long history of litigation which culminated in the 17 September 2007 decision of the European Court of First Instance, which upheld the European Commission's decision to fine Microsoft and uphold the principle of interoperability.
The September judgement came at the end of a ten year case initiated by Real Networks, supported by Sun Microsystems, Novell and others, all arguing that innovative products were being pushed out of the market on the back of Microsoft's monopoly. Over the years each of these litigants withdrew from the case after doing deals with Microsoft worth billions of dollars, leaving the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), the Samba Team, and their allies to fight the case to the finish.
As Jeremy Allison of the Samba Team told Groklaw: "the copyright in Samba is spread across many, many individuals, all of whom contributed under the GNU GPL 'v2 or later', now 'v3 or later' licenses. You can't buy that. There's nothing to sell. There's no point of agreement for which to say 'here are the rights to Samba, we'll go away'. We're in the, some would say unique, some would say unenviable position, of not being able to sell out. We can't be bought."
Much has been made of the Commission's insistence that Microsoft offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player bundled, and the record fines imposed upon Microsoft. Improbably, some press coverage suggested that the European decision was a blow against innovation and competition. But the fines mean little more than a few pence on the price of Windows to a company as rich as Microsoft. The fines are a penance for Microsoft's prevarications and refusal to comply with the European courts.
The most important part of the judgement was the Commission's insistence that Microsoft be forced to publish the protocols used by Windows clients and servers under "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" terms.
For this decision to have any meaning it was incumbent upon Microsoft to publish the protocols in their entirety, and to reflect the actual behaviour of Microsoft servers and clients in the real world - without evasion, inconsistencies, broken standards, obfuscations, fees or hidden patents - to comply with the commonly understood meaning of open standards and protocols as they have been implemented by other participants in the computing industry.
Microsoft has complied, with reservations, releasing protocols and data formats free for "non-commercial" use, (which immediately discriminates against competition), and making promises of future interoperability with its products. Unfortunately the promises have come with limitations, and the limitations target free and open source software.
As Thomas Vinje of ECIS, noted: "For years now, Microsoft has either failed to implement or has actively corrupted a range of truly open standards adopted and implemented by the rest of the industry. Unless and until that behaviour stops, today's words mean nothing."
Bursting the bubble
It is worth noting that once Netscape was trounced and Microsoft assumed the monopoly position in the browser market there was a five year gap of no innovation or competition between the release of IE6 and IE7. The subsequent release of IE7 was almost certainly prompted by the rapid rise of the open source browser, Firefox, and was notable for its failure to comply with W3C standards. Domminance of a market by a proprietary monopoly does not encourage innovation.
Throughout the European Commission's proceedings Microsoft claimed that the protocols were proprietary to Microsoft, and talked of protocols that were enclosed in a "blue bubble". Georg Greve, president of the FSFE explained: "The blue bubble was a theory that Microsoft invented in order to justify that it had kept parts of the protocol secret. They said that there's a difference between the internal protocols and the external protocols, if you want to describe them like that. They said that certain protocols that are so secret that they are in this blue bubble, because they had visualized this with a blue bubble, that this could never be shared without actually sharing source code, without sharing how the program exactly works. These protocols were so special that somehow, magically, you had to have the same source code to actually make that work. That was the blue bubble theory. So they said things like, 'HTML is outside the blue bubble, but the things you want us to disclose, that is inside the blue bubble.'"
In the wake of the decision, the US Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Thomas Barnett, made the highly contentious claim that the outcome, "rather than helping consumers, may have the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition," which drew a clear response from the EU competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, that it was "totally unacceptable that a representative of the US administration criticised an independent court of law outside its jurisdiction."
In contrast, the American Antitrust Institute noted "the oddity of Barnett's statement" as both Europe and the US had found that Microsoft was "a monopolist which had acted to harm competition, and both insisted on interoperability in framing a remedy," and noted that "the EC has appropriately targeted strategies that would have the effect of deterring investment in innovations that might lead to a reduction of the monopolist's power and new benefits for consumers."
Talk is cheap
As the kerfuffle surrounding MS-OOXML demonstrates, the publication of protocols and data formats is not enough. To become truly universal, proprietary interest must be relinquished, and interoperability frameworks opened up to discussion, contribution and maintenance by third-parties through a neutral party (usually a standards body), and this is something that the European commissioners are beginning to understand.
As the MS-OOMXl kerfuffle has also demonstrated, such processes are highly political, and like the political process, can be influenced and misled.
But for the moment, Microsoft's tribulations in Europe are far from over. The Commission is investigating a complaint from Opera Software demanding that Internet Explorer comply with W3C standards, and one from the industry body, ECIS (European Committee for Interoperable Systems), in which Microsoft is alleged to have "illegally refused to disclose interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information related to its Office suite, a number of its server products, and also in relation to the so called .NET Framework.
The Commission's examination will therefore focus on all these areas, including the question whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
In a press conference to announce Microsoft's latest fine, the EU competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, emphasised that "a press release does not necessarily equal a change in a business practice. And if change is needed... then the change will need to be in the market, not in the rhetoric."
She also said: "There are lessons that I hope Microsoft and any other company contemplating similar illegal action, will learn.
. Talk, as you know, is cheap; flouting the rules is expensive.
. We don't want talk and promises, we want compliance.
. If you flout the rules you will be caught, and it will cost you dear."
Proprietary protocols are anathema to network computing and a deliberate hindrance to innovation and competition in computing environments. Few of the players, or users, maintain the illusion that a Microsoft-only world is either desirable or attractive - and the accusations of ballot stuffing, bribery, and undue political influence that surrounded the acceptance of OOXML as a standard by the ISO has only served to emphasise this reality.
Posted Richard Hillesley at 2:34PM, 24th April 2008
The 80s were the dog-eat-dog days of business. Top of the pile was Microsoft, the biggest and baddest of them all, led by Bill Gates, who invented the computer, the universe and everything.
Gates looked a bit like the nerd on the cover of Mad Magazine, made it to the cover of Time magazine, and was rich and successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams.
The view of Gates and Microsoft from inside the computer industry was more circumspect. PC software looked amateurish and nobody took it too seriously until the cultures began to collide in the business world during the middle of the decade. The affordable desktop computer, which sprang out of an unholy alliance between IBM, Intel and Microsoft, changed the face of computing in the home and in the work place, and for the most part was beneficial to the user, if only because it was cheap and accessible.
Microsoft always took more credit for this revolution than it probably deserved, but had a way of coming out on top, which owed everything to its early dominance of the operating system market for the IBM PC and its clones. From this dominance grew its prominence on the desktop, and the gradual eclipse of its competitors. The question that was always being asked of Microsoft was how much did the company owe its success to the quality of its software, and how much to the ruthlessness of its marketing?
From the beginning Microsoft had a special relationship with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMS), and made this relationship tell. Each innovation on the desktop, each new tool and the company that made it, either fell by the wayside or was assimilated into the Microsoft hive.
In the hive
Compaq had its arm twisted to stop it bundling Apple's Quicktime on the desktop. Internet Explorer, and later, the Windows Media Player, were bundled into the operating system, and given away free, sucking revenues and market share from Netscape, Real Networks and Apple. The squashing of Netscape and the subsequent death of the browser market led to Microsoft's conviction for monopolistic behaviour before the US antitrust courts.
Microsoft added platform-dependent "features" to Java to render Java's multi-platform features redundant, and when that ended up in court, developed the .NET platform, a very successful and popular alternative that reproduced many of the major features of Java with the notable exception of its multi-platform capabilities.
Kerberos, the encryption standard developed by MIT, was extended by Microsoft with the apparent objective of inhibiting interoperability in the workgroup server space and, in the words of Jeremy Allison of Samba: "these changes were treated as trade secrets, patented if possible, and only released under restrictive non-disclosure agreements, if released at all."
During the US anti-trust trials, Steven McGeady, a vice president of Intel, testified against Microsoft, Intel's most important trading partner, asserting that Microsoft intended to "embrace, extend and extinguish" competition by substituting open standards with proprietary protocols, and claimed that Intel had been warned to cease development of its Native Signal Processing audio and video technology, which promised to vastly improve user experience of the desktop - or else Microsoft would bypass Intel and develop Windows exclusively for AMD and National Semiconductor chips. "It was clear to us that if this chip did not run Windows it would be useless in the marketplace," McGeady testified. "The threat was both credible and terrifying."
Microsoft has always had an ambivalent relationship with the concept of interoperability and with the standards that make interoperability possible, tending to view the protocols and data formats it uses as "de facto" standards and "trade secrets" which it is free to "extend" with no obligation to share. This may not always be deliberate behaviour. Where there is a monopoly standards become incidental, an option rather an obligation. This tendency has been at the root of Microsoft's problems in the US and European courts. Microsoft is not being penalised for success, but for shutting the door on competition, and resisting any requests to modify its behaviour.
Into Europe
Microsoft's troubles in Europe began as early as 1993, when Novell complained that "onerous licensing conditions" imposed on OEMs by Microsoft was pushing NetWare out of the workgroup market.
In this market Novell had been the innovator, but Microsoft had muscled a napping, but still relevant, Novell out of the picture. Thus began a long history of litigation which culminated in the 17 September 2007 decision of the European Court of First Instance, which upheld the European Commission's decision to fine Microsoft and uphold the principle of interoperability.
The September judgement came at the end of a ten year case initiated by Real Networks, supported by Sun Microsystems, Novell and others, all arguing that innovative products were being pushed out of the market on the back of Microsoft's monopoly. Over the years each of these litigants withdrew from the case after doing deals with Microsoft worth billions of dollars, leaving the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), the Samba Team, and their allies to fight the case to the finish.
As Jeremy Allison of the Samba Team told Groklaw: "the copyright in Samba is spread across many, many individuals, all of whom contributed under the GNU GPL 'v2 or later', now 'v3 or later' licenses. You can't buy that. There's nothing to sell. There's no point of agreement for which to say 'here are the rights to Samba, we'll go away'. We're in the, some would say unique, some would say unenviable position, of not being able to sell out. We can't be bought."
Much has been made of the Commission's insistence that Microsoft offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player bundled, and the record fines imposed upon Microsoft. Improbably, some press coverage suggested that the European decision was a blow against innovation and competition. But the fines mean little more than a few pence on the price of Windows to a company as rich as Microsoft. The fines are a penance for Microsoft's prevarications and refusal to comply with the European courts.
The most important part of the judgement was the Commission's insistence that Microsoft be forced to publish the protocols used by Windows clients and servers under "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" terms.
For this decision to have any meaning it was incumbent upon Microsoft to publish the protocols in their entirety, and to reflect the actual behaviour of Microsoft servers and clients in the real world - without evasion, inconsistencies, broken standards, obfuscations, fees or hidden patents - to comply with the commonly understood meaning of open standards and protocols as they have been implemented by other participants in the computing industry.
Microsoft has complied, with reservations, releasing protocols and data formats free for "non-commercial" use, (which immediately discriminates against competition), and making promises of future interoperability with its products. Unfortunately the promises have come with limitations, and the limitations target free and open source software.
As Thomas Vinje of ECIS, noted: "For years now, Microsoft has either failed to implement or has actively corrupted a range of truly open standards adopted and implemented by the rest of the industry. Unless and until that behaviour stops, today's words mean nothing."
Bursting the bubble
It is worth noting that once Netscape was trounced and Microsoft assumed the monopoly position in the browser market there was a five year gap of no innovation or competition between the release of IE6 and IE7. The subsequent release of IE7 was almost certainly prompted by the rapid rise of the open source browser, Firefox, and was notable for its failure to comply with W3C standards. Domminance of a market by a proprietary monopoly does not encourage innovation.
Throughout the European Commission's proceedings Microsoft claimed that the protocols were proprietary to Microsoft, and talked of protocols that were enclosed in a "blue bubble". Georg Greve, president of the FSFE explained: "The blue bubble was a theory that Microsoft invented in order to justify that it had kept parts of the protocol secret. They said that there's a difference between the internal protocols and the external protocols, if you want to describe them like that. They said that certain protocols that are so secret that they are in this blue bubble, because they had visualized this with a blue bubble, that this could never be shared without actually sharing source code, without sharing how the program exactly works. These protocols were so special that somehow, magically, you had to have the same source code to actually make that work. That was the blue bubble theory. So they said things like, 'HTML is outside the blue bubble, but the things you want us to disclose, that is inside the blue bubble.'"
In the wake of the decision, the US Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Thomas Barnett, made the highly contentious claim that the outcome, "rather than helping consumers, may have the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition," which drew a clear response from the EU competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, that it was "totally unacceptable that a representative of the US administration criticised an independent court of law outside its jurisdiction."
In contrast, the American Antitrust Institute noted "the oddity of Barnett's statement" as both Europe and the US had found that Microsoft was "a monopolist which had acted to harm competition, and both insisted on interoperability in framing a remedy," and noted that "the EC has appropriately targeted strategies that would have the effect of deterring investment in innovations that might lead to a reduction of the monopolist's power and new benefits for consumers."
Talk is cheap
As the kerfuffle surrounding MS-OOXML demonstrates, the publication of protocols and data formats is not enough. To become truly universal, proprietary interest must be relinquished, and interoperability frameworks opened up to discussion, contribution and maintenance by third-parties through a neutral party (usually a standards body), and this is something that the European commissioners are beginning to understand.
As the MS-OOMXl kerfuffle has also demonstrated, such processes are highly political, and like the political process, can be influenced and misled.
But for the moment, Microsoft's tribulations in Europe are far from over. The Commission is investigating a complaint from Opera Software demanding that Internet Explorer comply with W3C standards, and one from the industry body, ECIS (European Committee for Interoperable Systems), in which Microsoft is alleged to have "illegally refused to disclose interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information related to its Office suite, a number of its server products, and also in relation to the so called .NET Framework.
The Commission's examination will therefore focus on all these areas, including the question whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products."
In a press conference to announce Microsoft's latest fine, the EU competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, emphasised that "a press release does not necessarily equal a change in a business practice. And if change is needed... then the change will need to be in the market, not in the rhetoric."
She also said: "There are lessons that I hope Microsoft and any other company contemplating similar illegal action, will learn.
. Talk, as you know, is cheap; flouting the rules is expensive.
. We don't want talk and promises, we want compliance.
. If you flout the rules you will be caught, and it will cost you dear."
Proprietary protocols are anathema to network computing and a deliberate hindrance to innovation and competition in computing environments. Few of the players, or users, maintain the illusion that a Microsoft-only world is either desirable or attractive - and the accusations of ballot stuffing, bribery, and undue political influence that surrounded the acceptance of OOXML as a standard by the ISO has only served to emphasise this reality.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Apple's ultra-thin MacBook Air also slim on profits?
By Slash Lane
Published: 10:00 AM EST
In its determination to deliver the world's thinnest notebook, Apple admitted to sacrificing some speed and versatility, but a new analysis suggests that it may have given up some early profits as well.
Though the Cupertino-based Mac maker largely beat estimates for its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday, one sore spot appeared to be gross margin, which came in at about 100 to 200 basis points below most analysts' expectations at 32.9 percent.
An ensuing conference call was thus dominated by matter, as Wall Street folk routinely pelted management with questions on the perceived shortcoming as they sought a better understanding for their models going forward.
While management largely attributed the near 2 percent margin decline from the prior quarter to February's iPod shuffle price cut and a routine falloff in sales of Mac OS X Leopard and iWork, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster offered his own explanation.
"We believe the margin outlook may be viewed negatively by investors, who likely wanted to see more of Apple's significant revenue upside trickle down to earnings," he wrote in a note to clients early Thursday morning. "The bottom line, we believe the margin was negativity impacted by a higher mix of Mac Book Air, which we now believe carries a lower margin."
On the bright side, Apple has likely built the potential for margin expansion into its MacBook Air design as adoption swells and component prices fall. What's more, Apple management appeared upbeat in stating that the Air has thus far shown little to no cannibalization effect on the company's other notebook offerings and thus could be considered largely responsible for helping push Mac unit growth to its highest rate in nearly two decades.
"The key takeaway from Apple's March quarter is that the Mac units grew at the highest year-over-year rates (units 51 percent and revenue 54 percent) in 17 years," Munster added in his note to clients. "Macs are the most meaningful category with the most potential and they are performing the best."
Looking ahead, the Piper Jaffray analyst said he's modeling conservatively for Mac growth rates to decline to 12 percent year-over-year for the remainder of calendar year 2008, which leaves "ample room for positive estimate revisions over the next 8 months."
"Mac growth is accelerating despite multiple quarters of strong growth, iPod sales are stabilizing with higher average-selling-prices due to the touch, and the iPhone will be significant in the second half of the year with the release of new hardware and software," he wrote.
Published: 10:00 AM EST
In its determination to deliver the world's thinnest notebook, Apple admitted to sacrificing some speed and versatility, but a new analysis suggests that it may have given up some early profits as well.
Though the Cupertino-based Mac maker largely beat estimates for its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday, one sore spot appeared to be gross margin, which came in at about 100 to 200 basis points below most analysts' expectations at 32.9 percent.
An ensuing conference call was thus dominated by matter, as Wall Street folk routinely pelted management with questions on the perceived shortcoming as they sought a better understanding for their models going forward.
While management largely attributed the near 2 percent margin decline from the prior quarter to February's iPod shuffle price cut and a routine falloff in sales of Mac OS X Leopard and iWork, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster offered his own explanation.
"We believe the margin outlook may be viewed negatively by investors, who likely wanted to see more of Apple's significant revenue upside trickle down to earnings," he wrote in a note to clients early Thursday morning. "The bottom line, we believe the margin was negativity impacted by a higher mix of Mac Book Air, which we now believe carries a lower margin."
On the bright side, Apple has likely built the potential for margin expansion into its MacBook Air design as adoption swells and component prices fall. What's more, Apple management appeared upbeat in stating that the Air has thus far shown little to no cannibalization effect on the company's other notebook offerings and thus could be considered largely responsible for helping push Mac unit growth to its highest rate in nearly two decades.
"The key takeaway from Apple's March quarter is that the Mac units grew at the highest year-over-year rates (units 51 percent and revenue 54 percent) in 17 years," Munster added in his note to clients. "Macs are the most meaningful category with the most potential and they are performing the best."
Looking ahead, the Piper Jaffray analyst said he's modeling conservatively for Mac growth rates to decline to 12 percent year-over-year for the remainder of calendar year 2008, which leaves "ample room for positive estimate revisions over the next 8 months."
"Mac growth is accelerating despite multiple quarters of strong growth, iPod sales are stabilizing with higher average-selling-prices due to the touch, and the iPhone will be significant in the second half of the year with the release of new hardware and software," he wrote.
Bacula: backups that don't suck
By Robert D. Currier on April 23, 2008 (9:00:00 AM)
Good systems administrators know that implementing a robust backup procedure is one of their most important duties. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most complex and least fun. When the phone rings and there's a panic-stricken user on the other end who has just lost a crucial document, you need to be confident that you can promptly recover his missing files. Failure to do so can bring about a speedy end to a promising career in systems administration. So what's a budding sysadmin to do? Download the latest release of Bacula and watch those backup woes disappear into the dark of night.
Led by head developer Kern Sibbald, the Bacula team has built an open source backup solution that is fast, reliable, and exceptionally configurable. Bacula is not a monolithic application, but rather a collection of programs that together provide a robust backup, recovery, and verification toolset suitable for five or 500 systems.
Getting started
For this review we tested Bacula on a single CentOS 4 server using the file system as our backup medium. In our production environment we use Bacula to manage more than 500GB of backups from multiple clients using a tape robot. However, the lengthy process of configuring the tape robot and multiple clients makes this a daunting task for the first-time user. We recommend you stick with a single host for your test drive if you've not worked with Bacula before.
Bacula is available as a package using the standard package management tools yum or apt-get, but we prefer to install the application from source. When you're just getting started with Bacula, building from source gives you a better feel for how the application operates.
After downloading and uncompressing the project's source code you'll need to run the configure script. Bacula's configure script is well written and produces meaningful debug output but requires a large number of command-line settings. To simplify the configuration process the development team has included a suggested list of options that handle most environments. Start with these settings and modify them where appropriate. Case in point: the choice of database. Bacula is a database-driven application and requires MySQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL. Make sure you have one of these databases installed prior to configuring Bacula. Once you've run the configure script, you can build Bacula using the normal make; make install process.
Next, you must create the Bacula database and tables and set appropriate access permissions. Located in Bacula's bin directory, the script create_bacula_database will create Bacula's database after determining what database you are using. After a successful termination of this script, executing make_bacula_tables will create and populate the database tables. Finally, grant_bacula_privileges will establish the necessary access controls. A word of warning: grant_bacula_privileges creates an unrestricted access policy for the user bacula. You should modify this policy to suit your needs. At a minimum you should consider setting passwords for the MySQL users root and bacula.
After successfully building and installing Bacula, the next step is setting up the config files. That can take some time, but once you've gotten them working you won't have to touch them again except when you add a new client or fileset.
To understand the configuration files, you need to understand how Bacula operates. Bacula comprises four main modules: the director, the storage daemon, the file daemon, and the console. The director is the "boss" of Bacula, providing job scheduling, backup media descriptions, and access control. In a typical Bacula deployment there is only one director.
The storage daemon handles all communications with the defined backup architecture: disks, single tape drives, tape robots, and optical drives. As with the director, there is usually only one storage daemon running per Bacula installation, but the storage daemon may have many backup devices defined.
The file daemon is installed on each client machine and provides the communications link between the storage daemon and the client. It needs access to all files that will be backed up on that client.
The console handles communications between the administrator and Bacula. The adminstrator can start or stop jobs, estimate backup sizes, and review messages from Bacula. Consoles are available that use wxWidgets, GNOME, and Web browsers, but we prefer the TTY version of bconsole.
The bacula-dir.conf file, which controls the director, contains detailed information on the clients to be backed up, job definitions, filesets, and job schedules. One of the outstanding features of Bacula is how close the configuration files as supplied come to being ready to rumble. While a large installation with many clients will require significant editing to the configuration files, our test of Bacula required us to only to give Bacula a list of files to back up.
Bacula typically installs to a subdirectory named bacula in the home directory of the user that is deploying the software. The configuration files are located in the bin subdirectory of /home/user/bacula. Switch to this directory and edit bacula-dir.conf. Search for the section of text beginning with "# By default this is defined to point to the Bacula build directory to give a reasonable FileSet to backup to disk storage during initial testing." Directly below these lines should be: File = /home/username/bacula/bacula-2.2.8. This is the FileSet definition, which controls what files and directories are to be backed up. You may change this definition to a directory of your choice or leave it as is during testing.
Your first backup
By default Bacula uses the filesystem as its backup media. To keep things simple we won't attempt to configure Bacula to use a tape drive -- we'll stick with the preconfigured definitions.
Change directories to Bacula's bin folder. Execute the bacula script with start as an argument: ./bacula start. You should see the following three lines:
# Starting the Bacula Storage daemon.
# Starting the Bacula File daemon.
# Starting the Bacula Director daemon.
If Bacula successfully started, that's great -- you're ready to run your first backup. If not, carefully read the error messages and double-check the bacula-dir.conf file. Make sure you've pointed Bacula to the directory you wish to be backed up and that the directory exists and is readable.
The final step in taking Bacula for a test drive is using the console to initiate the job. From the Bacula bin directory execute the bconsole script. Bconsole should return an asterisk prompt. At the prompt enter run. Bconsole will display a list of defined jobs for you to pick from. Since we're only backing up one machine (our test box) you should only have one job resource to choose from. Select the job and press Enter. Bacula will prompt you with a short list of settings, including client name, backup type (full, differential, or incremental) and the storage device. If all the settings look correct, enter yes to kick off the backup.
After a short wait, Bacula should return a "backup completed successfully" message with details including the file(s) backed up, the amount of space the backup consumed, compression ratios, and so on. Congratulations -- you've just run your first Bacula backup.
Only the beginning
Of course at this point we've barely scratched the surface of Bacula's many features -- the user manual is 665 pages long. New users should read the excellent tutorial before embarking on a multi-client Bacula installation.
Despite its apparent complexity, Bacula is straightforward to install and configure, comes with excellent documentation, and works right out of the box. If you have been considering moving from basic tar or rdump backup processes to a more substantial package, you can't go wrong by choosing Bacula. It definitely doesn't suck.
Good systems administrators know that implementing a robust backup procedure is one of their most important duties. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most complex and least fun. When the phone rings and there's a panic-stricken user on the other end who has just lost a crucial document, you need to be confident that you can promptly recover his missing files. Failure to do so can bring about a speedy end to a promising career in systems administration. So what's a budding sysadmin to do? Download the latest release of Bacula and watch those backup woes disappear into the dark of night.
Led by head developer Kern Sibbald, the Bacula team has built an open source backup solution that is fast, reliable, and exceptionally configurable. Bacula is not a monolithic application, but rather a collection of programs that together provide a robust backup, recovery, and verification toolset suitable for five or 500 systems.
Getting started
For this review we tested Bacula on a single CentOS 4 server using the file system as our backup medium. In our production environment we use Bacula to manage more than 500GB of backups from multiple clients using a tape robot. However, the lengthy process of configuring the tape robot and multiple clients makes this a daunting task for the first-time user. We recommend you stick with a single host for your test drive if you've not worked with Bacula before.
Bacula is available as a package using the standard package management tools yum or apt-get, but we prefer to install the application from source. When you're just getting started with Bacula, building from source gives you a better feel for how the application operates.
After downloading and uncompressing the project's source code you'll need to run the configure script. Bacula's configure script is well written and produces meaningful debug output but requires a large number of command-line settings. To simplify the configuration process the development team has included a suggested list of options that handle most environments. Start with these settings and modify them where appropriate. Case in point: the choice of database. Bacula is a database-driven application and requires MySQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL. Make sure you have one of these databases installed prior to configuring Bacula. Once you've run the configure script, you can build Bacula using the normal make; make install process.
Next, you must create the Bacula database and tables and set appropriate access permissions. Located in Bacula's bin directory, the script create_bacula_database will create Bacula's database after determining what database you are using. After a successful termination of this script, executing make_bacula_tables will create and populate the database tables. Finally, grant_bacula_privileges will establish the necessary access controls. A word of warning: grant_bacula_privileges creates an unrestricted access policy for the user bacula. You should modify this policy to suit your needs. At a minimum you should consider setting passwords for the MySQL users root and bacula.
After successfully building and installing Bacula, the next step is setting up the config files. That can take some time, but once you've gotten them working you won't have to touch them again except when you add a new client or fileset.
To understand the configuration files, you need to understand how Bacula operates. Bacula comprises four main modules: the director, the storage daemon, the file daemon, and the console. The director is the "boss" of Bacula, providing job scheduling, backup media descriptions, and access control. In a typical Bacula deployment there is only one director.
The storage daemon handles all communications with the defined backup architecture: disks, single tape drives, tape robots, and optical drives. As with the director, there is usually only one storage daemon running per Bacula installation, but the storage daemon may have many backup devices defined.
The file daemon is installed on each client machine and provides the communications link between the storage daemon and the client. It needs access to all files that will be backed up on that client.
The console handles communications between the administrator and Bacula. The adminstrator can start or stop jobs, estimate backup sizes, and review messages from Bacula. Consoles are available that use wxWidgets, GNOME, and Web browsers, but we prefer the TTY version of bconsole.
The bacula-dir.conf file, which controls the director, contains detailed information on the clients to be backed up, job definitions, filesets, and job schedules. One of the outstanding features of Bacula is how close the configuration files as supplied come to being ready to rumble. While a large installation with many clients will require significant editing to the configuration files, our test of Bacula required us to only to give Bacula a list of files to back up.
Bacula typically installs to a subdirectory named bacula in the home directory of the user that is deploying the software. The configuration files are located in the bin subdirectory of /home/user/bacula. Switch to this directory and edit bacula-dir.conf. Search for the section of text beginning with "# By default this is defined to point to the Bacula build directory to give a reasonable FileSet to backup to disk storage during initial testing." Directly below these lines should be: File = /home/username/bacula/bacula-2.2.8. This is the FileSet definition, which controls what files and directories are to be backed up. You may change this definition to a directory of your choice or leave it as is during testing.
Your first backup
By default Bacula uses the filesystem as its backup media. To keep things simple we won't attempt to configure Bacula to use a tape drive -- we'll stick with the preconfigured definitions.
Change directories to Bacula's bin folder. Execute the bacula script with start as an argument: ./bacula start. You should see the following three lines:
# Starting the Bacula Storage daemon.
# Starting the Bacula File daemon.
# Starting the Bacula Director daemon.
If Bacula successfully started, that's great -- you're ready to run your first backup. If not, carefully read the error messages and double-check the bacula-dir.conf file. Make sure you've pointed Bacula to the directory you wish to be backed up and that the directory exists and is readable.
The final step in taking Bacula for a test drive is using the console to initiate the job. From the Bacula bin directory execute the bconsole script. Bconsole should return an asterisk prompt. At the prompt enter run. Bconsole will display a list of defined jobs for you to pick from. Since we're only backing up one machine (our test box) you should only have one job resource to choose from. Select the job and press Enter. Bacula will prompt you with a short list of settings, including client name, backup type (full, differential, or incremental) and the storage device. If all the settings look correct, enter yes to kick off the backup.
After a short wait, Bacula should return a "backup completed successfully" message with details including the file(s) backed up, the amount of space the backup consumed, compression ratios, and so on. Congratulations -- you've just run your first Bacula backup.
Only the beginning
Of course at this point we've barely scratched the surface of Bacula's many features -- the user manual is 665 pages long. New users should read the excellent tutorial before embarking on a multi-client Bacula installation.
Despite its apparent complexity, Bacula is straightforward to install and configure, comes with excellent documentation, and works right out of the box. If you have been considering moving from basic tar or rdump backup processes to a more substantial package, you can't go wrong by choosing Bacula. It definitely doesn't suck.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Notebook Company Tech Support Comparison
by Kevin O'Brien
Computer problems can be one of the most frustrating situations any person can go through, especially if it is your primary computer for school or work. Downtime can cause missed assignments, projects, or worse if you manage all your finances through a computer and can't pay a bill on time. We decided to call up Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, and Apple to who see was the easiest to deal with, and how long the average call was.
For our calls, we scored each company in multiple areas, including menu navigation, how long until you left the menu system, time to service rep, and total call length. The basic question asked to each company was, "Is there a way to manually eject a CD stuck inside my optical drive". The expected answer was using a paperclip in the manual eject hole, but as you might expect, not all companies came to that answer right away. In one case we were offered a brand new drive at first, and in another we ended up being cut off after 35 minutes on hold.
Dell Support Call
For our Dell support call, we used the Home and Home Office contact number listed on the site. This was 1-800-624-9896, which listed 24/7 availability. This number was fairly easy to find using Google, and a bit of navigating on the Dell site.
The first interaction the user gets is a voice activated menu system which was not very difficult to navigate. It took me about 30 seconds to get through the system, and 10 seconds later I was speaking to a service rep. The service representative was very friendly, and as soon as I mentioned my problem he prompted me to find a paper clip and insert it into the small hole on the side of the CD tray. After thanking him for his help, the total time on the phone was 3 minutes and 21 seconds.
Toshiba Support Call
For the Toshiba support call, we used the computers support line, listed as 1-800-457-7777. The website does not display if this is a 24/7 support line on the main "Contact Toshiba" webpage, but it worked for our Saturday afternoon call.
The support line was very easy to navigate, using all phone prompts to navigate the menus. Total time to navigate the menus and be routed to a support representative was 60 seconds. The representative was very helpful, and immediately knew about the pinhole on the side of the CD tray. Total time of the call was 3 minutes and 40 seconds.
HP Support Call
For our HP support call, I used the standard support line, which offered 24/7 availability. The number listed was 1-800-474-6836. Finding this number was very simple, using both Google and a little site navigation.
The HP support line was all voice navigated and the most frustrating to navigate. You are prompted for the type of product, as well as the product model name. In the case of our dv6500t test notebook, it was quite challenging to get the system to understand what I was saying. The voice prompt misunderstood me three times when I said "DV...." and routed me directly to the TV technical support center. On the 4th try, speaking very carefully, I finally got it to recognize what I was saying. After 4 minutes, I had finally made it to a human.
The technical service representative was frustrating to talk with, and would not assist me without a valid serial number. With some poking and prodding, he put me on hold to talk with his manager to find out if he was allowed to tell me how to manually eject a CD without a verified serial number. After 4 minutes of being placed on hold, he came back and thought that a paper clip used on the tray release hole would do the trick. The total time on the phone was 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
Lenovo Support Call
For our Lenovo support call, we used the United States 24/7 support line. The listed number was 1-800-426-7378, with about 200 additional numbers depending on what country you were located. Finding this list was quite simple using the help of Google and minor site navigation.
One quirk that cropped up with the Lenovo support line was when I first attempted to use my Skype VOIP line from my home. When the support number was dialed, the phone just rang and rang with no pickup from the other end. When I switched to my cell phone to make the call, the line picked up on the first ring.
The Lenovo phone system used a combination of voice and phone prompts to navigate the system. It took about 60 seconds to get routed to a human on the system. The representative required all of my computer and personal contact information before he would start, which added a bit of time to the service call.
After 4 minutes, I started to explain the problem, and received a very odd answer. He explained the drive did not have a manual release to eject a stuck CD, but they would be more than willing to send out a new drive for my notebook. While a new drive would be nice, what about my precious CD that was stuck? After additional hinting towards a possible fix, he finally suggested that a bent paperclip might work using the manual tray release hole. The total time on the phone was 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
Apple Support Call
The Apple technical support line was very easy to find, and it was listed as 1-800-275-2273. The Support page did not shot that the line was 24/7, but it worked just great on the weekend when I called.
Let me preface this support call by saying that I did not expect a quick answer for my standard stuck CD question. The MacBook Pro does not have a quick release on the CD tray, and it requires service to fix. I was hoping for a quick answer stating that fact, and hopefully some recommendation on the closest Apple Store.
The phone system used both voice and phone prompts to navigate to the correct area, and quickly routed me to a human in about 60 seconds. The service rep was very friendly, and was quick to help me once I gave him my information. When I explained the problem of the stuck CD, he asked questions about the noises the system was making, and if dragging the disc to the trash bin would eject the CD.
When I explained that the CD never fully clicked into position, he put me on hold to further research the problem. I was expecting a quick return, and explanation that it would require service, but I never heard from the guy again. I was on hold for 35 minutes and at the 39 minute total time mark, was disconnected from the call and routed back to the original Apple technical service menu. If I was real customer I would have gone crazy at that time.
Since the service was so bad the first time, I gave it another shot the next day during normal business hours. Getting through the phone prompts were just as easy as before and this time around the lady whom I spoke with seemed to be more eager to help me out. We went through some of the same troubleshooting steps such as pressing the eject button, restarting the computer, and so on. In the end she decided to send me to an Apple store for further help, and went as far as scheduling an appointment at my local genius bar. Total time was 6 minutes.
Gateway Support Call
Gateway technical support is set up differently from other manufacturers; they have different contact numbers depending on if the system was purchased directly from Gateway or instead, a retail store. The number I called was the retail support line, which was 1-408-273-0808.
The Gateway support line leads you through multiple voice prompts that require you to explain your intentions as well as share your model number. During this call the system did require multiple corrections, but unlike the HP line, never transferred me to a different support area. In all it took about 2 minutes to get through the voice prompts and finally speak with an agent. The support agent was very friendly and, even though I did not have my serial number handy, helped me along with my support request. Without referencing any support material he knew about the manual release off the top of his head, and quickly solved my problem. With a friendly reminder about locating my serial number in the future, I was done with the call in 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
Conclusion
Besides realizing that I have way too much free time on the weekends, I found that simple things can make the technical support experience either wonderful or frustrating. The interactive voice prompts were hands down the worst part of most calls. With HP, I was rerouted to the wrong area multiple times because the computer kept thinking my "DV6500t" model number meant I was saying "TV", which then cut me off and routed me to the wrong system. In others you had to pronounce the category you wanted multiple times before it would understand you. Having a simple "press 1 for computers ..." made the interaction much easier.
Overall, Dell and Toshiba were the best for ease of access and quick resolution. They had the easiest phone menu systems to navigate, fastest times to talk with an agent, and the shortest overall call length. Gateway ranked 3rd, with the phone prompts being the only negative aspect of the phone call. Lenovo was also very good, but a new optical drive isn't always the best answer when you are trying to get work done now. Apple ranked in the middle with Lenovo when you averaged the poor call experience with the excellent call the next day. HP came in last with the frustrating phone system that was nearly impossible to navigate. While your experience could vary greatly depending on the individual service representative, we hope this gives you an idea of how each company handles support and what to expect from each of them.
Computer problems can be one of the most frustrating situations any person can go through, especially if it is your primary computer for school or work. Downtime can cause missed assignments, projects, or worse if you manage all your finances through a computer and can't pay a bill on time. We decided to call up Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, and Apple to who see was the easiest to deal with, and how long the average call was.
For our calls, we scored each company in multiple areas, including menu navigation, how long until you left the menu system, time to service rep, and total call length. The basic question asked to each company was, "Is there a way to manually eject a CD stuck inside my optical drive". The expected answer was using a paperclip in the manual eject hole, but as you might expect, not all companies came to that answer right away. In one case we were offered a brand new drive at first, and in another we ended up being cut off after 35 minutes on hold.
Dell Support Call
For our Dell support call, we used the Home and Home Office contact number listed on the site. This was 1-800-624-9896, which listed 24/7 availability. This number was fairly easy to find using Google, and a bit of navigating on the Dell site.
The first interaction the user gets is a voice activated menu system which was not very difficult to navigate. It took me about 30 seconds to get through the system, and 10 seconds later I was speaking to a service rep. The service representative was very friendly, and as soon as I mentioned my problem he prompted me to find a paper clip and insert it into the small hole on the side of the CD tray. After thanking him for his help, the total time on the phone was 3 minutes and 21 seconds.
Toshiba Support Call
For the Toshiba support call, we used the computers support line, listed as 1-800-457-7777. The website does not display if this is a 24/7 support line on the main "Contact Toshiba" webpage, but it worked for our Saturday afternoon call.
The support line was very easy to navigate, using all phone prompts to navigate the menus. Total time to navigate the menus and be routed to a support representative was 60 seconds. The representative was very helpful, and immediately knew about the pinhole on the side of the CD tray. Total time of the call was 3 minutes and 40 seconds.
HP Support Call
For our HP support call, I used the standard support line, which offered 24/7 availability. The number listed was 1-800-474-6836. Finding this number was very simple, using both Google and a little site navigation.
The HP support line was all voice navigated and the most frustrating to navigate. You are prompted for the type of product, as well as the product model name. In the case of our dv6500t test notebook, it was quite challenging to get the system to understand what I was saying. The voice prompt misunderstood me three times when I said "DV...." and routed me directly to the TV technical support center. On the 4th try, speaking very carefully, I finally got it to recognize what I was saying. After 4 minutes, I had finally made it to a human.
The technical service representative was frustrating to talk with, and would not assist me without a valid serial number. With some poking and prodding, he put me on hold to talk with his manager to find out if he was allowed to tell me how to manually eject a CD without a verified serial number. After 4 minutes of being placed on hold, he came back and thought that a paper clip used on the tray release hole would do the trick. The total time on the phone was 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
Lenovo Support Call
For our Lenovo support call, we used the United States 24/7 support line. The listed number was 1-800-426-7378, with about 200 additional numbers depending on what country you were located. Finding this list was quite simple using the help of Google and minor site navigation.
One quirk that cropped up with the Lenovo support line was when I first attempted to use my Skype VOIP line from my home. When the support number was dialed, the phone just rang and rang with no pickup from the other end. When I switched to my cell phone to make the call, the line picked up on the first ring.
The Lenovo phone system used a combination of voice and phone prompts to navigate the system. It took about 60 seconds to get routed to a human on the system. The representative required all of my computer and personal contact information before he would start, which added a bit of time to the service call.
After 4 minutes, I started to explain the problem, and received a very odd answer. He explained the drive did not have a manual release to eject a stuck CD, but they would be more than willing to send out a new drive for my notebook. While a new drive would be nice, what about my precious CD that was stuck? After additional hinting towards a possible fix, he finally suggested that a bent paperclip might work using the manual tray release hole. The total time on the phone was 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
Apple Support Call
The Apple technical support line was very easy to find, and it was listed as 1-800-275-2273. The Support page did not shot that the line was 24/7, but it worked just great on the weekend when I called.
Let me preface this support call by saying that I did not expect a quick answer for my standard stuck CD question. The MacBook Pro does not have a quick release on the CD tray, and it requires service to fix. I was hoping for a quick answer stating that fact, and hopefully some recommendation on the closest Apple Store.
The phone system used both voice and phone prompts to navigate to the correct area, and quickly routed me to a human in about 60 seconds. The service rep was very friendly, and was quick to help me once I gave him my information. When I explained the problem of the stuck CD, he asked questions about the noises the system was making, and if dragging the disc to the trash bin would eject the CD.
When I explained that the CD never fully clicked into position, he put me on hold to further research the problem. I was expecting a quick return, and explanation that it would require service, but I never heard from the guy again. I was on hold for 35 minutes and at the 39 minute total time mark, was disconnected from the call and routed back to the original Apple technical service menu. If I was real customer I would have gone crazy at that time.
Since the service was so bad the first time, I gave it another shot the next day during normal business hours. Getting through the phone prompts were just as easy as before and this time around the lady whom I spoke with seemed to be more eager to help me out. We went through some of the same troubleshooting steps such as pressing the eject button, restarting the computer, and so on. In the end she decided to send me to an Apple store for further help, and went as far as scheduling an appointment at my local genius bar. Total time was 6 minutes.
Gateway Support Call
Gateway technical support is set up differently from other manufacturers; they have different contact numbers depending on if the system was purchased directly from Gateway or instead, a retail store. The number I called was the retail support line, which was 1-408-273-0808.
The Gateway support line leads you through multiple voice prompts that require you to explain your intentions as well as share your model number. During this call the system did require multiple corrections, but unlike the HP line, never transferred me to a different support area. In all it took about 2 minutes to get through the voice prompts and finally speak with an agent. The support agent was very friendly and, even though I did not have my serial number handy, helped me along with my support request. Without referencing any support material he knew about the manual release off the top of his head, and quickly solved my problem. With a friendly reminder about locating my serial number in the future, I was done with the call in 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
Conclusion
Besides realizing that I have way too much free time on the weekends, I found that simple things can make the technical support experience either wonderful or frustrating. The interactive voice prompts were hands down the worst part of most calls. With HP, I was rerouted to the wrong area multiple times because the computer kept thinking my "DV6500t" model number meant I was saying "TV", which then cut me off and routed me to the wrong system. In others you had to pronounce the category you wanted multiple times before it would understand you. Having a simple "press 1 for computers ..." made the interaction much easier.
Overall, Dell and Toshiba were the best for ease of access and quick resolution. They had the easiest phone menu systems to navigate, fastest times to talk with an agent, and the shortest overall call length. Gateway ranked 3rd, with the phone prompts being the only negative aspect of the phone call. Lenovo was also very good, but a new optical drive isn't always the best answer when you are trying to get work done now. Apple ranked in the middle with Lenovo when you averaged the poor call experience with the excellent call the next day. HP came in last with the frustrating phone system that was nearly impossible to navigate. While your experience could vary greatly depending on the individual service representative, we hope this gives you an idea of how each company handles support and what to expect from each of them.
Monday, April 21, 2008
PayPal may block Safari users
By Aidan Malley
Published: 06:20 PM EST
As part of a multi-tiered approach to guarding against online fraud on its site, PayPal says it will block the use of any web browser that doesn't provided added validation measures, potentially restricting the current version of Safari from the e-commerce site.
The money transfer service's Chief Information Security Officer, Michael Barrett, makes the new policy clear in a white paper (PDF) posted this week, which highlights the browser as a key means of putting an end to phishing (false website) scams alongside such steps as blocking fraudulent e-mail messages and criminal charges.
When addressing web access, Barrett argues that any user visiting a financial site such as PayPal should know not only that their browser will block fake sites meant to steal information, but also that the browser can properly indicate a legitimate site. Without either precaution, visitors may not only be victims of scams but may lose all trust in an otherwise safe business. This doubly harmful outcome is likened to a car crash without protection.
"In our view, letting users view the PayPal site on one of these browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts," the expert says.
To that end, PayPal is said to be implementing steps that will first provide warnings against, and eventually block, any browser that doesn't meet these criteria.
Most modern web browsers, including Firefox and newer versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, are able to support at least basic blocking of phishing sites. The newest, such as Internet Explorer 7 or the upcoming Firefox 3, also support a new feature known as an Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer (EV SSL) certificate. The measure of authenticity turns the address bar green and identifies the company running the site, letting the user know any secure transactions are genuine.
Safari, however, lacks either of these features and so could fall prey to the blocks and warning messages. Barrett doesn't mention the browser by name but notes that any "very old and vulnerable" software would ultimately be blacklisted from the future update to PayPal's service, placing Safari in the same category of dangerous clients as Microsoft's ten-year-old Internet Explorer 4.
Apple's approach to browser security has so far been tentative. The Mac maker has briefly incorporated Google's database of fraudulent sites into a beta builds of Mac OS X Leopard this past fall, only to pull the feature in later test versions. Release builds of the stand-alone browser for both Macs and Windows PCs have also gone without the anti-phishing warnings, but notably leave code traces inside the software that raise the possiblity of improvements through a later update.
Apple hasn't responded to the white paper but is likely to face pressure as PayPal and similar institutions ask for an all-encompassing approach to fighting scams that involves EV SSL and other software techniques. Internet Explorer 7's debut has already had a demonstrated effect on customers, who are more likely to finish signing up for PayPal knowing that the web browser has authenticated the registration page.
"We couldn’t eradicate this problem on our own – to make a dent in phishing, it would take collaboration with the Internet industry, law enforcement, and government around the world," Barrett explains.
Published: 06:20 PM EST
As part of a multi-tiered approach to guarding against online fraud on its site, PayPal says it will block the use of any web browser that doesn't provided added validation measures, potentially restricting the current version of Safari from the e-commerce site.
The money transfer service's Chief Information Security Officer, Michael Barrett, makes the new policy clear in a white paper (PDF) posted this week, which highlights the browser as a key means of putting an end to phishing (false website) scams alongside such steps as blocking fraudulent e-mail messages and criminal charges.
When addressing web access, Barrett argues that any user visiting a financial site such as PayPal should know not only that their browser will block fake sites meant to steal information, but also that the browser can properly indicate a legitimate site. Without either precaution, visitors may not only be victims of scams but may lose all trust in an otherwise safe business. This doubly harmful outcome is likened to a car crash without protection.
"In our view, letting users view the PayPal site on one of these browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts," the expert says.
To that end, PayPal is said to be implementing steps that will first provide warnings against, and eventually block, any browser that doesn't meet these criteria.
Most modern web browsers, including Firefox and newer versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, are able to support at least basic blocking of phishing sites. The newest, such as Internet Explorer 7 or the upcoming Firefox 3, also support a new feature known as an Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer (EV SSL) certificate. The measure of authenticity turns the address bar green and identifies the company running the site, letting the user know any secure transactions are genuine.
Safari, however, lacks either of these features and so could fall prey to the blocks and warning messages. Barrett doesn't mention the browser by name but notes that any "very old and vulnerable" software would ultimately be blacklisted from the future update to PayPal's service, placing Safari in the same category of dangerous clients as Microsoft's ten-year-old Internet Explorer 4.
Apple's approach to browser security has so far been tentative. The Mac maker has briefly incorporated Google's database of fraudulent sites into a beta builds of Mac OS X Leopard this past fall, only to pull the feature in later test versions. Release builds of the stand-alone browser for both Macs and Windows PCs have also gone without the anti-phishing warnings, but notably leave code traces inside the software that raise the possiblity of improvements through a later update.
Apple hasn't responded to the white paper but is likely to face pressure as PayPal and similar institutions ask for an all-encompassing approach to fighting scams that involves EV SSL and other software techniques. Internet Explorer 7's debut has already had a demonstrated effect on customers, who are more likely to finish signing up for PayPal knowing that the web browser has authenticated the registration page.
"We couldn’t eradicate this problem on our own – to make a dent in phishing, it would take collaboration with the Internet industry, law enforcement, and government around the world," Barrett explains.
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