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Saturday, May 03, 2008 4:57 PM

Can You Write Good Code for an OS you Despise?

No, this isn't another of my anti-Mac frothing rants. This is one of my "here's what I hate about many of the open-source projects I deal with" rants. I'm trying to find an SFTP client for Windows that works the way I want it to...
Posted by Alun Jones | 3 comment(s)
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Friday, March 21, 2008 9:15 PM

Retro-bundling - another suck of the Apple

I thought I was done blogging about Apple Software Update, having removed QuickTime from my system completely, and sworn never to install it again or watch another QT or MOV file. But nooo, someone had to spoil it by telling me what Apple Software Update...
Posted by Alun Jones | 8 comment(s)
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Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:09 PM

MacBook Air debuts; iTunes Pesters Me Again

The big news from Apple this week was that they have a flatter laptop than anyone else (except Intel, who have a "Lorado" concept model that is much cooler, is demonstrated with Vista, and comes with an optional sleeve that has a Sideshow display...
Posted by Alun Jones | 3 comment(s)
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Monday, December 17, 2007 5:38 PM

Removing Apple Mobile Device Support

As mentioned before, I'm not a fan of Appple 's, particularly because they tend to impose crap on me that I'm not interested in having. I've been trying to figure out how to remove iTunes , iPod and Aple Mobile Device Support on and off...
Posted by Alun Jones | 42 comment(s)
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Saturday, December 15, 2007 12:25 PM

Microsoft Support Switches to Live Search

In the spirit of the famous review of Spinal Tap's album "Shark Sandwich", I was tempted to post a two-word review,the first word of which is "Advanced". My three-word review, then - "Worst. Search. Ever". But, just in...
Posted by Alun Jones | 5 comment(s)
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:35 PM

DRM should always be a choice

Jesper's recent frustration with a bug in the DRM support on his Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) system demonstrates a couple of basic truths in system reliability: Complexity negatively impacts reliability. DRM contributes to complexity. Clearly...
Posted by Alun Jones | with no comments
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Monday, September 03, 2007 8:51 PM

Why complain about UAC prompts?

Jesper's article in TechNet Magazine on the purpose and future of UAC in Windows Vista and beyond reminded me that there's a whole slew of behaviours more annoying than UAC's prompting (which, as Jesper points out, is only the most visible...
Posted by Alun Jones | 2 comment(s)
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007 9:53 PM

Larry Osterman isn't that into you, either.

In previous articles, I've pointed out: Programmer Hubris - He's just not that into you Programmer Hubris - I don't run your software all the time Programmer Hubris Part 3 - Microsoft Knows I'm Not That Into Them I'm still not that...
Posted by Alun Jones | with no comments
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Monday, May 14, 2007 9:20 PM

I'm still not that into Apple

Apple Updater showed me two new software updates the other day - "Quicktime" and "iTunes + QuickTime". Now, remember, I never installed iTunes , and went out of my way to install only QuickTime . I use QuickTime about once every six...
Posted by Alun Jones | 4 comment(s)
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Thursday, April 26, 2007 9:50 PM

Alternate Data Streams in Windows Vista

Windows NT 3.1 was released ... oh, back in the early to mid '90s. Ever since then, I've been aware that it supported Alternate Data Streams, also known as ADS, or in some technical documents that didn't make it to final review, Alternative...
Posted by Alun Jones | 6 comment(s)
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006 1:32 PM

Converting from AD time to Excel time

Here's a little formula that works to convert times and dates from Active Directory (or other LDAP servers) to Excel - really useful to use if you've exported a number of entries from Active Directory to an Excel spreadsheet or CSV, and want to...
Posted by Alun Jones | with no comments
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Saturday, August 12, 2006 3:17 PM

I'm a developer - I don't do operations.

Okay, so there's a point that Larry has here, in referring to Dare's posts 1 and 2 - that operations and development are two separate skills. [ Joe refers to it , too] I've suggested for a long time that developers should spend some time on technical...
Posted by Alun Jones | 1 comment(s)
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