There’s certainly a lot to like about the Amazon MP3 store from a features point of view:

• Un-DRM’d MP3 music downloads.
• 256kbps encoding. (Actually it’s Variable Bit Rate encoding)
• Lower cost - $8.99 for top 100 albums compared to iTunes typical $9.99. $0.89 per top 100 song compared to iTunes $1.29 for the un-DRM’d songs.

Since Amazon only sells un-DRM’d songs they have a smaller selection than iTunes. It’s a subjective opinion, but the iTunes store is easier to browse than the Amazon store.

At first I was unhappy to see Amazon wanted to use a helper program. But it’s only needed if you want to buy full albums. Upon further research it seemed unobtrusive and actually helpful by adding the downloaded songs to iTunes automatically (or Windows Media Player if you so desire). There are Windows and Mac versions. I installed the Mac version and it was just like installing any other Mac software. When your done your brought to a page where you can download a free song to test the installation.

I decided to buy OK Computer by Radiohead to give the store a try. It couldn’t be any easier. The album (and all song) purchases are made via one-click ordering. So for better or worse, you click the button and you own it, no chance for buyer’s remorse. The helper app automatically downloaded the songs and added them to iTunes.

All the usual tag information is populated. Unless you have your own standards the pre-filled information is probably all you need. The screenshots below show the free song after being automatically imported into iTunes.

You can also build a smart playlist to track your Amazon purchases similar to the built-in Purchase playlist. Amazon adds “Amazon.com Song ID:” to the comment field of each song. You can create a smart playlist to contain all these songs. Click the thumbnail to see the smart playlist settings.

There was some discussion about the watermarking of downloaded songs. Some record companies do watermark the files to tie them to Amazon, but Amazon says they don’t watermark the songs with any user info. Of course, future deals with record companies may change this.

Amazon’s MP3 store has a long way to go before it becomes a iTunes Store killer but it could become a solid number 2, ahead of Walmart and others. Amazon works on Mac and Windows, their software provides easy integration with iTunes or Windows Media Player and they don’t use DRM, all of which combines for a pleasant experience.

All they need is a bigger selection which all depends on what the record companies want more - competition for Apple or DRM. I’ll be visiting Amazon before buying any new music and even iTunes fans have to be pleased to see serious competition for iTunes.

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I called AT&T again to see if faster DSL was available and it’s not. I also checked Broadband Reports to see what other broadband providers are available to me. There really isn’t an alternative to give me higher speeds than my current DSL other than Comcast. So my choice came down to staying with my current 1.5Mbps/364Kbps DSL connection or switching to Comcast. With no DSL upgrade in sight and more and more annoyances with my current speed I decided to upgrade. I’d been with Comcast before and still had the cable modem and router from back then so at least there wouldn’t be any hardware costs. Plus I still get Cable TV through them so there’s an active connection. I chose speed over price and customer service.

So late Friday night I placed the order online for Comcast while working late at the office. They’re running what now seems a typical 6 month discount on the packages. I went with the “Premium” plan mainly because of the higher upload speed. The “up to” speeds are 8Mbps down and 768Kbps up. Even though I had everything I was still required to spend $10 for the self-install kit. Much to my surprise I was also required to have an online chat session to confirm the order. The rep initiated the session almost immediately. I spent most of the time waiting for the rep to “enter the work order” which was a bit of a concern. I had visions of everything being re-typed. I’d never had a good experience with Comcast customer service and was hoping an online order would avoid human errors.

On Sunday I decided to hook up the cable modem to see what would happen since my online account showed the billing had gone through. Sure enough when I started my browser the Comcast sign-on form came up. They pretty much required I install their software so I canceled out on my Mac and fired up my old Windows XP laptop I use for testing. I figured I’d use the old laptop and use their software, this way if I had any speed complaints I’d be “100% official”. Plus it was the path of least resistence. I ran the install and configuration wizard and went through the setup. It set up my account and email address but also installed their “Desktop Doctor” software and “Configured Internet Explorer”. Then it rebooted the modem.

I did a speed test at Broadband Reports and ran some speed tests with the laptop connected directly to the modem and doing nothing else. The results are below.

Once I knew everything was working I pulled out my Linksys WRT54G router and set it up. It needed a firmware update but other than that the installation was easy. I did need to replicate the Mac address of the PC I ran the setup on. I wired my iMac up to the Linksys and have been using it for a couple of hours.

Here’s the speed results from my first test directly from the laptop to the cable modem so there’s nothing else on the line. Considerably lower than the “up to” speed for downloads. This was done right after the setup.

Then I rebooted everything and waited 15 minutes or so for things to settle down and ran another test. The download is above the “up to” speed while the upload is pretty close.

Generally speaking I found the Flash test to have higher results than the Java results (which questions the accurracy of both). I also found the New Jersey server to have slower results than other servers when the tests were done back to back. So after setting things up on the iMac I did a Flash test to the New York server with these results.

A series of tests done with various servers were in the same ballpark except for a couple extreme variations. Click on any of the test results to go to the Broadband reports speed tests page to run your own test. (Broadband Reports and DSL Reports are the same website.)

Browsing is of course noticeably faster which would be expected even if Comcast gave me 1/4 the rated speed. What I really wanted was the uploaded speed. I started a backup to Amazon S3 using some software I’ve been testing and that showed an average upload speed of over 700Kbps while copying 21MB. I also went out to iTunes and downloaded a TV show at

I have to say I’m happy with the results. I’m getting the upload speed I’m told is the “up to” speed. The download speed is more than I need for now but it’ll be nice to have. When I left Comcast the first time I was getting about 50% of the “up to” speed they advertised. It remains to be seen what the future will bring. My broadband bill will jump 50% during the 6 month promotion and a total of 250% once the promotion ends. In return I get a 500% increase in download speed (assuming they meet the “up to”) and a 200% increase in upload speed.

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I finally opened up my new Wordpress blog - Big Waste of Time and Energy (BWOTAE.com).

I’ve been posting to it for a couple of weeks to see what it would turn into and to see if I’d keep posting to it. I really didn’t pick the name as a theme but it seems to have turned into one. Why I picked the name is covered in the first post.

The blog is hosted on Wordpress.com so I don’t have to worry about software upgrades and website maintenance. Head on over for a visit and let me know what you think.

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First I couldn’t access through SFTP (which I had just had enabled this weekend - about time I did it). So I spent some time figuring I was doing something wrong. Then I had problems getting into the Bluehost control panel followed by all my sites going down. The Control Panel runs off the same server as my sites.

I used SiteUpTime and found that it saw the site was up. I did the usual things that are done out of desperation, clear the browser cache, try another browser, etc… I could get everywhere non-Bluehost that I tried. So I found some other domains that were on the same server I was on and tried accessing a few of them. None responded, all timed out. (I used this reverse IP DNS lookup tool to find the sites) Bluehost status also said the server was fine through all this. With Bluehost and Siteuptime saying the sites were OK I decided to wait awhile and do other things. An hour later no change.

On a whim I decided to remote into my work PC before calling Bluehost since something just didn’t seem right. Behold - I could access my site from my work PC but still not from home. So I reboot my iMac and tried my other Mac while it’s rebooting. Neither the 2nd or rebooted Mac could access anything on my Bluehost server. There was only one thing left - I pulled the plug on my DSL gateway and rebooted that. Sure enough, everything worked after the reboot.

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The first story was actually all the stories covering the upcoming spectrum auction and Google’s announcement that they would bid at least $4.6Billion even if the FCC required the spectrum to be open. They wanted open applications for users, open devices that will work with whatever provider the consumer wants, open services on a wholesale basis, and open networks that would allow third parties to connect at any feasible point. The telcos pushed back but apparently seeing which way the wind was blowing they’ve given lip service to some openness. Their arguments included a statement that the current cellphone market is already competitive. AT&T’s “senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs” (nice job title) Jim Cicconi was quoted as saying (emphasis mine):

The plan would enable the introduction of an alternative wireless business model without requiring changes in the business models of AT&T and others in what is a highly competitive wireless industry.

I’ll avoid the urge to argue that a business model change is probably a good idea and accept that the model is good.

That then lead me to the story about eMusic and AT&T offering music downloads to customer’s cellphones. As some background, eMusic offers downloads of DRM-free music in MP3 files. Their reputation is that most are indie artists but some commercially popular artists (The White Strips, Paul McCartney) are available. Long-time users may have grandfathered plans but new subscribers pay $30 for 30 downloads/month a month for 3 months. This is $1/song and is the most expensive plan on a per song basis. The most expensive booster pack (on a per song basis) is $6 for 10 songs so the per song price drops for booster packs. Other plans (more songs or longer commitment) cost less per song.

So what does our “highly competitive” industry charge. A monthly subscription is $7.49 for 5 songs. That’s $1.50 per song. Booster packs are available for $7.49 for 5 songs. You got it, no discount for quantity. They promote a “free” download to your PC (in addition to the phone) as a benefit. They actually used the word “free”. Oh yea, if the price bump wasn’t enough the fine print says:

Data transport charges apply to sampling, ordering, browsing and downloading.

So this highly competitive industry charges more for the same service that’s available over the internet. They claim it’s due to higher costs but that can’t be delivery costs since the price doesn’t include connection charges. Perhaps they use their lock-in to pay more for the spectrum, pay for lobbying for rules that protect them requiring in the high expenses and need to charge more to keep the vicious cycle going.

I don’t know how hard it is to move music to AT&T phones (if AT&T had a choice it’s no doubt difficult) but if possible do yourself a favor. If you want eMusic, subscribe to eMusic through their regular subscription, download the DRM-free, play anywhere MP3 files and copy them to your phone.

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Wikipedia defines a beta software release as:

A beta version is the first version released outside the organization or community that develops the software, for the purpose of evaluation or real-world black/grey-box testing.

To me this means I should expect problems and I shouldn’t use the software for any important work or rely on the software while it’s still in beta. In the days when almost all betas were closed or private this was fairly obvious. You had to apply to the beta program and when you got the software it was usually made obvious you should expect bugs.

Things began to change a couple of years ago and betas morphed into a marketing tool and a way to avoid having to provide tech support. Google released Mail and Reader (and almost everything else) in extended (seemingly never-ending) betas which saw not just bug fixes but new features being added. While the associated web pages were labeled “beta” the software was promoted in the same way any production software would be. It may have been labeled beta, but it was used as production.

When Microsoft released their anti-spyware utility (now called Defender) they released it as a beta and it remained in beta for awhile. Again, it was promoted as a security utility everyone should have and was frequently recommended by Microsoft. It was beta software promoted as something everyone should use to secure their PC.

Now Apple has released Safari 3 as beta. There’s been a lot of noise about bugs and security holes in Safari 3 on Windows. There are others that say this is to be expected in beta software.

It’s true, problems are to be expected with beta software. I installed Safari 3 under Windows where Firefox is my primary browser. I use the Safari beta on sites I already trust and it’s not my default. I’ve found Safari to be stable on Windows (others have had problems) but I haven’t installed Safari 3 on my Mac and won’t install it while it’s in beta. Firefox is my primary browser on my Mac to0. I do use Safari at times and I don’t want to be forced to use a beta (it would replace the current Safari if I installed it).

The flip side of that is that Apple is marketing Safari 3 as a ready to go browser. The Safari 3 page only mentions the word “beta” once even though it is in the page title. The vast majority of the page is dedicated to enticing you to download and use Safari. No warnings. It doesn’t mention anywhere that it’s “pre-release” or that you should expect bugs. There isn’t a link to a known issues page or even a support forum. Safari 3 just includes a unlabeled button that can be used to report bugs. There’s no actual mention of it’s intended use.

Mozy also has a public beta going for their MacMozy client. As far as public betas go they are doing a better job of communicating what a beta is. Their download page mentions there might be bugs and provides a way to report them and their FAQ lists known issues. The installer also mentions that it’s beta software and provides a warning. Granted, people can and do ignore this, but if a company is going to do a public beta there’s only so much they can do. Mozy has also released updates during the beta process and documented the included fixes.

So yes, problems should be expected with beta software. But Apple claim to that excuse is tenuous at best due to the way they’re promoting the software. It’s a disappointed and growing trend.

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Setup was a breeze even though I kept waiting for a problem to pop up. I had expected to just go to a web interface and be able to configure it but it doesn’t work that way. Going to the standard 192.168.1.1 IP address or the URL I used on my previous 2Wire didn’t result in any page display.

Finally I decided to follow the directions to the letter and instead of using Firefox I used Safari (which is listed as supported along with IE). I fired up Safari and instead of trying to get to the router I just clicked the bookmark to go to Apple (I clicked the bookmark because it appeared the instructions assumed the homepage was set to an Internet page unlike mine which is set to be blank). Lo-and-behold I was redirected by the router to a setup routine. A compressed disk image was downloaded to my Mac and the message was to run the contents. So I did that and from that point on it was fairly simple.

Running setup in the download begins a wizard. The first thing it does is prompt me to enter a admin password and pick a lost password hint. I like the fact that there’s no standard admin password for the 2Wire gateways. Then have to agree with a member agreement.

At this point the install asks if I already have a existing account or if I need to create one. Existing accounts are limited to their domains. Since I already have one I enter it and the setup branches and treats me like a returning user. Then I’m asked to enter the phone number I have DSL on. The rest of the install is fairly straightforward requests for information. In my case the info is pre-filled since it was already provided in the past.

Once the setup was finished I had to customize and secure the gateway for my use.

Configuration and Security

Because I had an existing wireless network it’s easier for me to change the WAP so it appears as the old network and I don’t have to change my PCs and Tivo.

Network Name: Vendors vary, but if you’re using 2Wire the wireless settings are under Home Network -> Wireless Settings. (All wireless settings I mention are on this page.) I change the network name to match what my old network name was. 2Wire’s default to a name of 2WIREXXX where XXX is the last 3 digits of the gateway’s serial number. It can be changed to anything.

Turn off SSID Broadcast: It’s not really a security setting but I don’t see any reason to broadcast the network name.

Wireless Network Security: The gateway arrived with WEP enabled and a unique WEP encryption key printed on the serial number label. WEP has always had security issues and was recently shown to be crackable within a minute or two. It’s pretty much like padlocking a screen door. It tells people you want them to stay away but anyone who wants to get in can do so with minimal effort. I change the configuration to use WPA-PSK and enter in my encryption key. WPA2-PSK has more security features but not all my devices support it.

One the subject of encryption keys I use a 64 character key generated at the Perfect Password Generator at GRC.COM. I generated a set of keys and saved them to a file. I can then carry the file from PC to PC via USB thumb drive and paste it in. Keeping it in a file isn’t a huge risk. Someone already has to be on my network to get it plus there’s no indication in the file what it’s used for.

Misc Settings: I set the mode to 802.11g only and bump the power level to 10 (one of my Macs is far away and through several walls).

Stealth Mode: Technically stealth mode violates some RFC’s that state devices should respond to all requests. Stealth mode tells the router not to respond to any unsolicited requests and is recommended for security reasons. If the router is scanned it won’t respond. If it was to respond and the query was from a hacker it might allow the hacker to exploit a vulnerability on that port. At the very least it lets them know there’s a device there and they may dig deeper looking for an exploit. On the 2Wire this is available through Firewall -> Advanced Settings. I enable “Stealth Mode” and “Block Ping“.

To check the stealth of your router you can head back to grc.com and scroll down and click the the Shields Up page. This will scan your IP and let you know if it’s visible on the Internet.

Getting Connected

Then it was time to connect my Mac Mini and other devices. My Tivo established a connection on it’s own and I didn’t need to do anything. By the time I checked, it had already downloaded an programming update. My Mac Mini didn’t connect even though it says it saw the wireless network. I went into “troubleshoot” and several screens in, just before it wanted to change settings, the network popped up and I connected.

Summary

As much as I hate to say nice things about AT&T I have to in this case. Charging $13.50 for shipping brought the price up a little higher than if I had bought a similar item locally. The product price of $80 was comparable to what’s available from local brick and mortar stores. I consider it a small price to pay to be able to lay any connectivity problems at AT&T’s doorstep without them being able to point to a third party gateway. I ordered late Wednesday night and it arrived Friday. The kit included everything needed including cables, a DSL/phone splitter and four phone filters. My only complaint is that unlike most online stores these days there wasn’t any shipment notification email so I didn’t know to expect delivery or have a tracking number.

The intelligent setup wizard makes me nervous. In this case it worked fine and shows why they are good choices in many cases. But if something goes wrong (and nothing did go wrong here) my experience has been that they’re harder to recover from.

The web interface for the gateway seems to have lost the option to view the traffic over the WAN (DSL) connection and I’m not happy to see it go. I’ll have to do some research to see if the option is moved, hidden or really gone. It’s an option I frequently used.

It’s been well over two years since I’ve setup a new gateway/router from another vendor so they may have updated their defaults. But my experience is that 2Wire was the first gateway/router I’ve seen that tries to default to some security. This was true with my first 2Wire over a year ago. They don’t use a default admin password and they do implement WEP with a unique encryption key (although WEP is not the best choice there are devices which may not be compatible with WPA).

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The latest occurred last night. I was watching TV, working on my laptop when the wireless went out. Not wanting to stop working I just dragged a network cable across the floor and went on working. I expected it to clear itself up. Foolish me.

When I finished working I decided to check things out and browsed to the gateway (a 2Wire 1701 DSL/Ethernet/Wireless gateway). Well, the problem was obvious. The wireless configuration was gone. Not gone as in set to defaults or empty. It was just gone, no wireless config screen. No wireless interface listed. Nothing. So I rebooted the gateway. No change. So I pull the power for a couple of minutes and plug it in. It got worse. the power light glows red (never good and should be green) and none of the other lights come one. I play with it a bit without any success. So I pull the power and go to bed.

In the morning I plug it in again. Phil shows mercy and gives me an internet connection and live Ethernet. But the wireless is still missing. I quit while I’m only a bit behind an head off to work.

After a brief search I decide getting a new DSL modem/router locally is too much of a hassle and won’t save me much money. Plus, getting it from AT&T means I only have one throat to choke if I lose DSL. So I try to order a replacement from AT&T. Their website takes my info but when I click the finalize order button it tells me there’s a system problem and I should start over.

I wait until I get home until I try again and Phil shows more mercy. I still have my internet connection and I’m able to place the order. Will my current DSL Gateway hold out until the new one arrives or was Phil just setting me up for a bugger fall - Gateway failure while a paid for replacement is “in the mail”.

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Microsoft announced Ignition on Monday. Ignition is a service available to emerging recording artists and it leverages Zune, ZBox Live and MSN to offer promotional opportunities with exclusive content from the featured artists across all three platforms for the entire month. The first band is Maximo Park out of the UK (pictured). News reports say Microsoft is demanding exclusive content and hands-on participation from the artists involved.

“We don’t want the same thing that is going out on MTV,” Microsoft director of music marketing Christina Calio said.

It’s not going to make me run out and buy a Zune but it seems like a smart move on Microsoft’s part. They’ll offer music videos via XBox, songs via the Zune and promotion and streaming video and audio on MSN. There will be a free audio download for Zune and a free music video download for XBox Live. While limited to 12 artists a years (assuming they stick to one artists a month) it’ll give additional exposure to new artists. Of course, the quality of the music remains to be seen.

This seems to be something Apple could have (and should have) done with the iTunes store if they wanted to. They offer the free single of the week but stopped there. Maybe it was anti-trust concerns, or fear of annoying the labels even more than they do now, but it seems like Apple could have stepped in and done the same sort of thing and done more to promote new artists. If Starbucks can sell music and start their own music label while selling coffee Apple could have done it with the #1 online music store.

Microsoft avoided the mistake almost everyone else makes by taking what Apple already does and trying to do it better. I’m pulling for Microsoft on this one (but not buying a Zune) because competition for Apple and iTunes can only be good.

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Apple fought back against the rumors by cruelly making the announcements before WWDC. Early this week they “announced” the iPhone release date by posting some ads with the release date on their website. Those rumors of a surprise iPhone announcement at WWDC suffered a cruel death. AT&T employees who wanted to take a vacation June 15th also suffered.

With the iPhone rumors beaten down people went for rumors about a Macbook Pro upgrade at WWDC. Apple put this rumor to a quick death by putting new MacBook Pros on sale today.

What’s left? Could WWDC, a developer’s conference, actually talk about developing for a new OS? Could the developer’s conference actually talk about developing for something as boring as a OS upgrade?

But wait, iPhone rumors aren’t dead. Let’s talk about a SDK for iPhone at WWDC. At least it’s developer related. Just doesn’t have the zing needed for an Apple rumor. The real rumor is much wilder. It must be, otherwise why would Apple kill the buzz by announcing current rumors before WWDC instead of letting them feed the publicity machine?. Here it is:

The real WWDC rumor:

Steve Jobs will reveal a secret project begun when Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, joined Apple’s board last year. The second brick was put in place when Google released Google Gears. Steve will bring it all together when he announces that the real reason Leopard was delayed was that it’s all a web based OS. They had to prepare all that dark fiber Google has been buying up. We need more pipes to handle a web OS. Leopard is a a small client for Google Gears that runs locally and what we consider the OS today runs off the web. This Google Gears client runs on iPods and iPhones.

In a page from Microsoft’s tiered OS version strategy the Gears versions will be Gears Basic for the iPod Shuffle, Gears Premium for the iPod Nano and Gears Multimedia Edition for the iPod. Naturally Gears Ultimate Edition is for the iPhone.

Sure there’s lots of problems with this strategy, especially since the technology is still in it’s infancy. But Apple is at the pinnacle of popularity so the Apple marketing machine will be reviving the Think Different ad campaign to put us in the right frame of mind. The desktop OS and PC, as we know them today, will cease to exist by this time in 2008.

Remember, you read it here first.

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Microsoft counters that it is a matter of principle. “We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property,” says Ballmer in an interview. FOSS patrons are going to have to “play by the same rules as the rest of the business,” he insists. “What’s fair is fair.”

the Fortune article went on

Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.

They don’t list the patents but they do give the following breakdown:

But he does break down the total number allegedly violated - 235 - into categories. He says that the Linux kernel - the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware - violates 42 Microsoft patents. The Linux graphical user interfaces - essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up - run afoul of another 65, he claims. The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft Office, infringes 45 more. E-mail programs infringe 15, while other assorted FOSS programs allegedly transgress 68.

By not providing any details they don’t have to worry about a counter-argument, or if there is actual infringement they won’t have to worry about the software being re-written around the infringement. It’s similar to what SCO did when they tried to sell Linux licenses so purchases would be protected from the infringement on patents SCO owned. The patent lawsuit against IBM over Linux patents hasn’t gone so well. So Microsoft was a bit smarter and appears to be asking for money before ever having to prove anything. And even if they don’t get any money the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) over open source would only help them.

Microsoft does have experience with software patents, as they’ve been on the losing end of several patent claims.

But to make matters worse for Microsoft, the author of the study cited by Microsoft about the infringing patents says Microsoft got it wrong.

The study claimed that Linux has been found to potentially violate 283 software patents. The author of that report, however, doesn’t see things the way Ballmer does at all.

and quoting the study author

“Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does.”

The study talks about “potentially” infringing patents which is very different than proven infringements. The study authors say that the number of potentially infringing patents is so average for software “as to be boring.”

So the bottom line is this seems to be Microsoft FUD. It’s still my opinion that lawsuits are signs of a failing business. I don’t see Microsoft failing anytime soon but wish they stick to writing good software and stop marketing via fear.

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Two companies (one is a subsidiary of the other, so just one bonehead decision was made) sent cease and desist letter to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and RealNetworks because they aren’t using their product. Since this is probably a publicity stunt I decided not to print the company names but here’s the CNet story on this insane company.

They claim that they have a DRM product that plugs the “digital hole” that these other companies leave open. The C&D letter claims the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) requires those companies to use their DRM since it works. No specific info on the cost, but I doubt it’s a free offer.

I take solace in the that:

• Legal action and lawsuits tend to be the last gasp of a failing company. One can only hope these companies are heading the same way and will soon be out of our misery.
• Maybe these companies figure legal action is OK because DRM is losing traction with all the talk of DRM free music and their business is doomed without an artifical bump of a legal edict. These guys don’t seem to sharp so they may think it, but I doubt DRM is going away anytime soon. Just won’t be theirs.

Here’s what the CEO had to say…

We’ve given these four companies 10 days to talk to us and work out a solution, or we will go into federal court and file action and seek an injunction to remove the infringing products from the marketplace,” CEO Hank Risan said in a phone interview Friday.

I have to believe none of these companies will even return the call. RealNetworks is the only one to comment…

RealNetworks spokesman Matt Graves said he hadn’t yet seen the letter, but it appeared to be a ploy by a “desperate company” to get its product licensed. “That’s a rather novel approach to business development,” he said in an e-mail interview Friday.

Seems to be pretty much on the mark, if a tad understated. I would hope the companies never consider any of the companies products and other potential customers are wary of doing business with a company prone to legal harassment.

Of course, my fear is they’ll find a judge who actually entertains the idea at which point it it would be a new low. Maybe that’s a fear of the targeted companies too and they’ll settle, although I kind of doubt that. It’s not like they picked companies with limited resources that had an incentive to settle.

I realize that SCO (another company deep in lawsuits based on weak law) no longer stands for Santa Cruz Operations, but it did at one time. The company sending these cease and desist letters is located in Santa Cruz, Ca. Like SCO, there’s no one to vote out the management since it doesn’t seem to be publicly traded. Hopefully Santa Cruz doesn’t get stigmatized.

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They do have 24 hour phone support but I have a general aversion to talking to tech support. This wasn’t all that important so I went the web route expecting it to be a few days.

The only problem I had with their web ticket system is that they ask for the control panel password. That concerned me so I changed it before opening the ticket an then changed it back when done. In retrospect, and after filling out the ticket, the password may not actually be added to the ticket but they use it to validate against the domain (also in the ticket) to validate authority to request changes,

Granted, it wasn’t a tough request but it was nice to see it handled within 5 minutes.

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But what got my attention, and brings me to write this, was the quote in the article from a “PR rep from Hewlett-Packard Customer Service” after “a couple of weeks of back and forth”. She said…

“warranty terms and conditions are in line with the rest of the industry.”

This seems to be the new mantra for companies these days as justification for unpopular actions. You might even say as justification for screwing the consumer. They didn’t want to do it, the industry made them. In comparison, Apple has it’s share of customer complaints but I’ve never heard them use the “industry standard” justification cop-out. Typically Apple gives you their reasons (then the debate is over the validity of those reasons.)

While HP eventually covered the warranty it was more than happy to default to the industry standard cop-out rather than look at the facts or the validity of their policies. They only honored the warranty after the publicity.

As someone who owns a Compaq PC (an HP brand) and a HP laptop it’s disappointing to see. The next time I see the HP-Invent logo I’ll realize it’s just marketing and when it suites them (and not me) they’ll be saying “HP - industry standard and not invented here” and there’s nothing special about their brand.

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Scott Sigler is a sci-fi/horror author that hasn’t had success selling his books. His book “Earthcore” [Link to Amazon.com] had been picked up for publishing before 9/11 but the publisher never contacted him after 9/11. In 2005 he decided to podcast the novel as a serial. Only after the complete podcast finished was the book released for sale. He now had a small publisher who was willing to experiment and the podcast first, publish second philosophy has continued on into his future books. He’s also released a full pdf copy of his Novel Ancestor.

According to Scott’s site, his upcoming book “Ancestor” [Link to Amazon.com] hit #7 in books overall and #1 in both sci-fi and horror on Amazon.com withough any promotion except the podcast and PDF which were both complete copies of the books. I didn’t finish listening to the podcast or read the entire pdf but I did buy the book, along with Earthcore. So I’m one of the ones the strategy worked on.

How does this relate to The OS Quest? Well, maybe it’s a stretch, but the podcast is done with Garageband which is free on every Mac. But really, I’m just happy a guy who writes stuff I like found some success.

You can get a copy of the Ancestor podcast at Podiobooks.com.

Other Scott Sigler novels:

Earthcore: Podcast at Podiobooks.com Paperback at Amazon.com

Infection: Podcast at Podiobooks.com Not yet available as a book

The Rookie: Podcast at Podshow.com Not yet available as a book

This came to me via the net@nite podcast.

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