Getting Your Stuff Done, or Stuff Done To You

This is the response I wanted to leave to "MrChimei" on the spot-on YouTube video, "Steve Jobs Vs. Steve Ballmer". Since YouTube has such a tiny (but understandable) limit on comment size, a proper response would not fit. Therefore...

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Let me put it this way. It doesn't matter whether you're speaking out of limited experience, or limited cognition, or what; your flippant attitude will not survive first contact with reality (to paraphrase von Moltke).

I'm a Windows developer who's been developing for Windows since Windows 1.0 was in early developer beta, on up to Windows 8. I had nearly ten years professional development experience on five platforms before I ever touched Windows. I had three stints at Microsoft back when that was cool, and sold most of my stock when it was still worth something.

I've also supported users of Windows and various operating systems, from groups of 3-5 small businesspeople on up to being comfortably high in the operational support pecking order in a Fortune 100 company. I've seen what helps and doesn't help intelligent non-geeks get their work done.

Both in that position, and in my own current work, I've observed and experienced order-of-magnitude-or-better differences in productivity, usability, reliability, supportability… all in Apple's favour. I've worked with and for people who became statistics junkies out of an emotional imperative to "prove" Windows better, in any way, than other systems. The next such individual I meet who succeeds, out of a sample of over 20 to date, will be the very first.

In 25 years, I have never experienced a Windows desktop machine that stayed up and fully functional for more than approximately 72 hours, *including* at Redmond, prior to a lightly-loaded Windows 7 system.

In the last 6 years of using Macs and clones half-time or better, I have never experienced a Mac that failed to stay up and working for less than a week. In the last five years, my notes show, I've had two occasions where a hard reset to the Mac I'm typing this on was necessary; both turned out to be hardware faults. Prior to Windows 7, any Windows PC that did not need to be hard-rebooted twice in a given fortnight was a rarity. Windows 7 stretched that out to 6 weeks, making it by far the most stable operating system Microsoft have shipped since Windows NT 3.51. (Which I will happily rave about at length to any who remember it.)

For many years, I too was a Windows bigot. The fact that Unix, then OS/2, then Mac OS had numerous benefits not available in Windows was completely beneath my attention threshold. The idea that (on average over a ten-year period) some 30% of my time seated at a Windows PC was devoted to something other than demonstrably useful or interesting activity was something that I, like the millions of others bombarded by Ziff-Davis and other Microsoft propaganda organs, took as the natural order of things.

Then I noticed that Mac users were having more fun. "Fine," I thought, "a toy should bring amusement above all." Then I noticed that they were getting more and better work done. "Well," I said to myself, "they're paying enough extra for it; they should get some return on their investment. I'm doing well enough as is."

And then, within the space of less than a year, all five of my Windows systems were damaged through outside attack. "Why," I asked. "I've kept my antivirus current. I've installed anti-spyware and a personal firewall in addition to the (consumer-grade) router and firewall connecting me to the Internet. I don't browse pr0n or known-dodgy sites. I apply all security patches as soon as they're released. Why am I going to lose this development contract for lack of usable systems?"

I discovered a nasty little secret: it's technically impossible to fully protect a Windows PC from attacks, using tools that a reasonably-bright eight-year-old can master in a Saturday afternoon. People responsible for keeping Windows PCs have known this for over a decade; it's why the more clueful ones talk about risk mitigation than prevention, with multi-layered recovery plans in place and tested rather than leaving all to chance. For as long as DSL and cable Internet connections have been available, it's taken less time to break into a new, "virgin" Windows PC than to fully patch and protect it against all currently-likely threats.

People used to think that using cocaine or smoking tobacco was healthy for you, too.

What I appreciate most about the Mac is that, no matter what, I can sit down in front of one and in a minute or less, be doing useful, interesting work. I don't have the instability of Windows. I don't have the sense that I'm using something that was designed for a completely different environment, as Windows too closely resembles the pre-network (let alone pre-Internet) use of isolated personal computers. Above all, I appreciate the consistency and usability that let me almost forget about the tools I'm using to work with my data, or with data out in the world somewhere, than on what I'm trying to accomplish.

One system treats its users as customers, whose time, efficiency and comfort are important and who know they have choices if they become dissatisfied. The other platform treats its users as inmates, who aren't going to leave no matter what... and if that's true, then quality sensibly takes a back seat to profitability.

Which would you recommend to your best friend? Or even to a respected enemy?

My reaction to the new, pico-sized iPod Nano

This is the content of a comment I originally posted on ZDNet, in the Talkback section for the article New iPod Nano rumored to shrink further, by Jason D. O'Grady.

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Cupertino, CA (1 April 2012) (UPI) Apple Inc (s AAPL) today introduced the new iPod Implant, which is to replace both the existing Nano and Shuffle models.

At the launch event at the now-traditional Yerba Buena Center, retiring Chairman Emeritus Steven P. Jobs announced that the new device would be available immediately. Roughly the size and shape of two typical breath mints, the newest iPod model is designed to be implanted next to the user's cochleas where, using very low-powered vibrations, it plays stereophonic music which the user hears in "perfectly detailed clarity," according to Mr. Jobs.

Apple announced a partnership with The Curanderismo Group, a nationwide chain of medical practitioners who have been designated as "preferred installers" of the new device. At the event, Dr. Yuri Gallyutsinogenov, President of the Group, explained, "Installing the iPod Implant is a simple surgical procedure, which nearly all our practitioner members are now trained in. For the low, low price of $199, a customer can buy the new device and have it implanted on the same day by our specialists."

Mr. Jobs was quick to clarify that the price quoted by Dr. Gallyutsinogenov was just for the installation procedure. The iPod Implant, available with storage capacities of 8, 16 and 32 gigabytes (GB), is priced from $199 to $399 for the device itself.

The Debate between Adequacy and Excellence

I was clicking through my various feeds hooked into NetNewsWire, in this case The Apple Core column on ZDNet, when I came across this item, where the writer nicely summed up the perfectly understandable strategy Microsoft have always chosen and compared that with Apple and the Mac. Go read the original article (on Better Living without MS Office and then read the comment.

As I've commented on numerous times in this blog and elsewhere (notably here), I'm both very partial to open standards (meaning open data formats, but usually expressed in open source implementations) and to the Apple Mac. As I've said before, and as the experience of many, many users I've supported on all three platforms bears out, the Mac lets you get more done, with less effort and irritation along the way, than either Windows or Linux as both are presently constructed.

But the first two paragraphs of this guy's comment (and I'm sorry that the antispam measures on ZDNet apparently don't permit me to credit the author properly) made me sit up and take notice, because they are a great summation of how I currently feel about the competing systems:

The Macs vs. PC debate has been going on for about 25 years or so, but the underlying debate is much older. What we are really discussing is the difference between adequacy and excellence. While I doubt I would want to be friends with Frank Lloyd Wright or Steve Jobs, both represent the exciting belief in what is possible. While Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer rake in billions, their relative impact on the world of ideas is miniscule.

Bill Gates understands that business managers are on the whole are a practical, albeit uninspired and short-sighted bunch. By positioning Microsoft early on to ride into the enterprise with the implicit endorsement of one of the biggest, longest-lived, and influential suppliers of business equipment, Gates was able to secure Microsoft's future. Microsoft's goal has never seemed to me to be to change the world, only to provide a service that adequately meets business needs. Microsoft has also shown from early on a keen awareness that once you get people to use your product, your primary goal is not to innovate to keep your customers, but, rather to make leaving seem painful and even scary. Many companies do this, but Microsoft has refined this practice into an art.

He then expands on this theme for four more paragraphs, closing with

Practically speaking Microsoft is here to stay. But I am glad that Apple is still around to keep the computer from becoming dreary, to inspire people to take creative risks, to express themselves, and to embrace the idea that every day objects, even appliances like the computer, can be more than just the sum of their functions.

Aux barricades! it may or may not be, depending on your existing preferences and prejudices. But it does nicely sum up, more effectively and efficiently than I have been able to of late, the reasons why Apple is important as a force in the technology business. Not that Microsoft is under imminent threat of losing their lifeblood to Apple; their different ways of looking at the world and at the marketplace work against that more effectively than any regulator could. But the idea that excellence is and should be a goal in and of itself, that humanity has a moral obligation to "continually [reach] well past our grasp", should stir passion in anyone with a functioning imagination. Sure, Microsoft have a commanding lead in businesses, especially larger ones — though Apple's value proposition has become much better there in the last ten years or so; it's hard to fight the installed base, especially with an entrenched herd mentality among managers. But, we would argue, that does not argue that Apple have failed, any more than the small number of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his direct professional disciples argue for his irrelevance in architecture. If nobody pushes the envelope, if nobody makes a habit of reaching beyond his grasp, how will the human condition ever improve? For as Shaw wrote,

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man.

And that has been one of my favourite quotes for many years now.

Standard Standards Rant, Redux: Why the World-Wide Web Isn't "World-Wide" Any More

The "World Wide Web", to the degree that it was ever truly universal, has broken down dramatically over the last couple of years, and it's our mission as Web development professionals to stand up to the idiots that think that's a Good Thing. If they're inside our organization, either as managers or as non-(Web-)technical people, we should patiently explain why semantic markup, clean design, accessibility and (supporting all of the above) standards compliance are Good for Business. (As the mantra says, "Google is your most important blind customer," because your prospective customers who know what they're looking for but don't yet know who they're buying it from find you that way.) Modern design patterns also encourage more efficient use of bandwidth (that you're probably paying for), since there's less non-visible, non-semantic data in a properly designed nest of divs than in an equivalent TABLE structure. Modern design also encourages consistent design among related pages (one set of stylesheets for your entire site, one for your online product-brochure pages, and so on). Pages that look like they're related and are actually related reassure the user that he hasn't gotten lost in the bowels of your site (or strayed off into your competitor's). It's easier to make and test changes that affect a specified area within your site (and don't affect others). It's easier to add usability improvements, such as letting users control text size), when you've separated content (XHTML) from presentation (CSS and, in a pinch, JavaScript). Easier-to-use Web sites make happier users, who visit your site more often and for longer periods, and buy more of your stuff.

Experienced Web developers know all this, especially if they've been keeping up with the better design sites and blogs such as A List Apart. But marketing folks, (real) engineers and sales people don't, usually, and can't really be expected to -- any more than a typical Web guy knows about internal rate of return or plastic injection molding in manufacturing. But you should be able to have intelligent conversations with them, and show them why 1997 Web design isn't usually such a good idea any more. (For a quick Google-eye demo, try lynx).  Management, on the other hand, in the absence of PHBs and management by magazine, should at least be open to an elevator pitch. Make it a good one; use business value (that you can defend as needed after the pitch).

That's all fine, for dealing with entrenched obsolescence within your own organization. What about chauvinism outside — from sites you depend on professionally, socially or in some combination? For years, marginalized customers have quietly gone elsewhere, with at most a plaintive appeal to the offenders, pointing out that a good chunk of Windows usees don't browse with Internet Explorer anymore (check out the linked article; a major business-tech Website from 2004(!!); the arguments are much stronger now). But some companies, particularly Microsoft-sensitive media sites like CNet and its subsidiary ZDNet, still don't work right when viewed with major non-Windows browsers (even when the same browser, such as Opera or Safari, works just fine with that site from Windows). And then there are the sites for whom their Web presence is the entire company, but they haven't yet invested the resources into competent design required to take their site construction from a point-and-drool interface virtually incapable of producing standards-compliant work, and instead present a site that a) actively checks for IE and snarls at you if you're using anything else, and b) has their design so badly broken and inaccessible that people stay away in droves. (Yes, I'm looking at you — every click opens a new window).

When we encounter Web poison like this, we should take the following actions:

• Notify the site owner that we will use a better (compatible, accessible, etc.) site, with sufficient details that your problem can be reproduced (flamemail that just says "Teh site sux0rs, d00d!" is virtually guaranteed to be counterproductive);
• When you find an acceptable substitute, let that site's owners know how they earned your patronage. Send a brief thank-you note to one or two of their large advertisers (if any), as well as to the advertisers on the site you've left (if you know any). Politely thank them for supporting good Web sites, or remind them why their advertising won't be reaching you anymore (as appropriate);
• Finally, there really ought to be a site (if there isn't already) where people can leave categorized works/doesn't-work-for-me notes about sites they've visited. This sounds an awful lot like the original argument for Yahoo!; I can see where such a review site would either die of starvation or grow to consume massive resources. But praise and shame are powerful inducements in the offline world; it's long past time to wield them effectively online.

I'm sure that there are literally millions of sites with Web poison out there, and likely several "beware" sites as well. For the record, the two that wasted enough of my week this week to deserve special dishonor are ZDNet and JobStreet. Guys, even Microsoft doesn't lock people out and lock browsers up the way you do; I can browse MSDN and Hotmail just fine on my Mac, on an old PC with Linux, or on an Asus Eee. And if you need help, I and several thousand others like me are just an email away. :-)