If you saw the TV movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” you probably have a negative view of how Bill Gates and Steve jobs get along. Certainly if you look at the ongoing rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, you’d get the distinct impression that these aging veterans of the technology wars are dire enemies.

However, if you happened to witness the on-stage bantering between Gates and Jobs at Wednesday night’s event sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, you might come away with a totally different conclusion, that these worthy corporate leaders actually like and respect each other.

So is there some underlying truth between these two extremes? Is there any way to even know the truth?

I don’t want to disappoint those of you expected some secret information, but you can get some really obvious surface impressions that might give you a good idea of the things that the corporate spin-makers will never reveal.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Apple Circles the Wagons
• So Will Apple/Google Dwarf Apple/Microsoft?
• Is Apple Forgetting History?
• Should Apple Remove the Gloves?
• Newsletter #393 Preview: Attention Mac Users: Microsoft Makes Good Stuff Too!

As the dust settles on the newest version of iTunes, and iTunes Plus music, DRM-free and of higher quality, you wonder about the implications of this new way of distributing online music.

Let me start by asking you a question: What’s better than selling you something? How about selling you the same thing, or a slight variation thereof, a second time, or even a third? It just gets better and better, if you can get away with it at any rate. And right now I’m certain the music industry, in the throes of rapidly declining CD sales, must be feeling a little desperate and hoping for such miracles to turn things around.

Now of course this doesn’t mean that the likes of Madonna and Paul McCartney will necessarily suffer. We all know they are comfortable, cozy and very, very rich. The music executives aren’t starving either, although there are countless numbers of lesser acts that have yet to see the big money that’s supposedly part and parcel of show business success.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Mac Music Report: Would You Pay $1.49 for a Hit Song?
• The Apple Music Report: Where’s the Rest of the Industry?
• Newsletter #384 Preview: On the Meaning of the Phrase:
  “Indistinguishable From the Original Recording”
• Memo to the Entertainment Industry: It’s the Product, Stupid!
• The Mac Music Report: The iPod Features You Don’t Want

Among all the crazy occupations anyone could dream of, I never thought I’d be running a tech commentary site on the Internet, not to mention those radio shows, of course. I actually got started in this crazy business in the 1990s, when I was writing books about — believe it or not — how to use America Online.

Writing books like that must have seemed outrageous, especially considering the fact that a lot of folks regarded AOL is the kindergarten of the Internet. Why would anyone need an instruction manual for that?

Up till then, my primary writing experience was confined to the broadcast and print mediums. I had written lots of books that few heard about, and hundreds of magazine articles for various tech magazines. During one of the book projects, I had to explain how to create a personal Web site on AOL, and thus The Mac Night Owl was born.

After a while, I got the silly idea to actually put content on the site rather than just placeholders, and here I am.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Why Do Others Have Problems and Not Me?
• It’s the Critics Versus the Users
• The iPad Report: Now About Multitasking
• Welcome to the World of Ya-Bing!
• Newsletter #469 Preview: Announcing the Night Owl’s Microsoft Death Watch

If you’re a fear merchant and get a charge out of spreading suspicion about Mac security, you have to be delighted. If you’re a Windows user wondering what the fuss is all about and whether a switch to the Mac is a good idea, you might want feel a little concerned. And certainly my fellow Mac users are wondering if Apple’s world-class operating system isn’t quite as bullet proof as it’s supposed to be.

You see, every few weeks so far this year, Apple has released a security update to address potential vulnerabilities of one sort or another. Some of them sound awfully frightening, using such pithy phrases as “remote execution” and “denial of service” or laced with other dark prose that delivers images of impending doom and gloom.

Is there something wrong here? Isn’t Mac OS X built upon a solid Unix foundation, tried and tested across the planet for several decades? Where did all these terrible-sounding security leaks come from and why isn’t Apple doing more to be proactive about allowing them to appear in the first place?

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Mac Security: Don’t Get Overconfident!
• So Where’s the Windows Only Label?
• Apple’s Prospects: What a Difference a Year Makes!
• The Windows User’s Dilemma: They Hear But Do Not See
• Newsletter #386 Preview: More Mac Security Monkey Business