My very first Mac virus: fake Flip4Mac?
I just received this in my mailbox:
That really, really looks like a virus infiltration attempt. Which is amazing, because although I’ve seen many of those, they always end in a .exe or some such Windows extension. This is the first I’ve seen targeted for Mac.
A quick google reveals that Flip4Mac, which is an actual legit Mac application for viewing Windows Media files, has a vulnerability … but nothing that suggests that there is a virus out there masquerading as Flip4Mac, or Flip4Mac components.
Sounds new. Anyone else seen it yet?
Tags: virus, mac, flip4mac, security, apple, windows, john koetsier
Great Kurt Vonnegut quote
Was just checking out Roger van Oech’s site creativethink via a Scoble story and saw this great Kurt Vonnegut quote:
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. . . . He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Ouch, that hurts! I’ve had that experience myself a few times.
What about you?
Tags: kurt vonnegut, scoble, roger van oech, ignorance, john koetsier
Entrepreneurs vs. wanna-bes
I get Perry Marshall’s AdWords/marketing email newsletters. Today’s had a section on entrepreneurs versus wanna-bes that I thought was really, really good:
- Wanna-be’s obsess about ideas. Entrepreneurs obsess about implementation.
- Wanna-be’s want more web traffic. Enrepreneurs focus on sales conversion.
- Wanna-be’s focus on positive thinking. Entrepreneurs plan for multiple contingencies.
- Wanna-be’s want to get on TV and get “famous.” Entrepreneurs build their list.
- Wanna-be’s seek a perfect plan. Entrepreneurs execute and adjust the plan later.
- Wanna-be’s wait for their lucky break. Entrepreneurs engineer four, five, six plans and execute them in tandem, wagering that at least one plan will get traction.
- Wanna-be’s fear looking stupid in front of their friends. Entrepreneurs willingly risk making fools of themselves, knowing that long-term success is a good trade for short-term loss of dignity.
- Wanna-be’s shield their precious ideas from harsh reality, postponing the verdict of success or failure until ’someday.’ Entrepreneurs expose their ideas to cold reality as soon as reasonably possible.
- Wanna-be’s put off practicing basketball until they’ve got Air Jordans. Entrepreneurs practice barefoot behind the garage.
- Wanna-be’s believe what they’re told, believe their own assumptions. Entrepreneurs do original research and determine what paths have been already trod.
- Wanna-be’s believe they can do anything. Entrepreneurs do what they’re gifted for and delegate the rest.
- Wanna-be’s think about the world in terms of COULD and SHOULD. Entrepreneurs think in terms of IS and CAN BE.
To be honest, it’s a great checklist to check up on my own behavior. Am I acting like an entrepreneur or a wanna-be?
Tags: perrry marshall, adwords, entrepreneur, john koetsier
Decision data/complexity matrix
Last week I finished up almost a month’s intensive investigation, analysis, synthesis, and creation, and planning.
We have a major product family that needed a huge refresh. The product manager for that line was transferred elsewhere in the company … and I got the file 3 weeks before a executive meeting in which I had to present the plan. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake.
So I had to plow through a ton of data, figure out what was happening with the line, understand it, decide where to take it, plan the new approach, formulate my presentation and style, and sell it to the top stakeholders.
That was an intensely interesting experience, and made me think about the relationship between data, complexity, and the quality of decisions. In honor of Kathy Sierra and her wonderful charts, I fumbled together this graph in 37 seconds or less:
So here’s my back-of-the-envelope theory:
- With little data, decisions are a crapshoot. Who knows: might be right, might be wrong.
- With lots of data but inadequate synthesis, decisions are even worse. Still might be right and might be wrong, but even more likely than the little data scenario to be fuzzy, unfocused, and confusing.
- With even more data but extremely rigorous synthesis (lots of interesting but not ultimately relevant datapoints dying on the cutting room floor) you have the chance - repeat, the chance - to make good decisions that can actually be implemented in a clear, direct, and powerful way.
I’m sure there’s lots of holes in this bathtub analysis: poke away!
Tags: decisions, matrix, data, complexity, kathy sierra, analysis, synthesis, john koetsier
First rule of marketing
OK, my blog is my memory, which means that you, dear reader, get treated to gems like this:
[First Rule of Marketing:] If you want to be interesting, don’t talk about yourself. Amen.
That’s from Hugh at GapingVoid, and when I re-read it today, I wanted to remember it. So I posted it.
Very simple rule, and very simple reason: who likes to be with the person at the party who’s alrways replaying personal movies: did this, did that, went here, went there, my kid this, my kid that, blah blah blah?
No-one.
Here’s how Kathy Sierra puts it:
Tags: marketing, rule, hugh macleod, gapingvoid, john koetsier
Sony camcorder & Mac OS X: not happy together?
Yesterday I bought a new camcorder - the Sony DCR-SR82 with a 60 GB hard drive. Today I shot some video, and tonight I tried to hook it up to my Mac and play in iMovie HD.
No such luck.
- Sony wants you to use their proprietary software … which is Windows only
- Sony provides a sort of a dock for this camera, which you are then supposed to connect to your computer - there’s no real USB output on this camera
- iMovie HD doesn’t recognize that a camcorder is attached, and won’t import any video from it
- The Mac finder can see the camera via disk mode, and I can see my movie clips in QuickTime format … but I can’t open them. They’re “muxed,” meaning that the audio and video are mixed together and QuickTime can’t open them
- Well, actually QuickTime can open them … if I spring for a $20 plug-in to QuickTime. Hrm … do I look stupid? Shouldn’t QuickTime just come with this needed component in the first time? Isn’t this the zen of Mac we’re talking about here … stuff just works?
- But even if QuickTime can open them after I pay extortion, iMovie HD will still not like me very much … iMovie HD won’t import, play, or edit muxed files
This is just wrong. OK, there’s only one course of action:
- Return crappy camcorder
- Buy new camcorder with better outputs and Mac compatibility
- Write nasty blog post about this hassle (check!)
To be completely frank, being on a Mac should mean that I never have to think of or even hear something so esoteric as “muxed video.” That’s what Apple engineers are paid for.
To be completely george, Sony is smoking something powerful if they think I’m going to change my computer to work with their camera. Not bloody likely.
They just lost a customer.
Tags: apple, mac os x, mac, sony, DCR-SR82, incompatible, muxed, iMovie, john koetsier
Worst car shopping experience ever …
Ever felt like the car salesman was taking you for a test-drive before you even got to touch the car?
I need a new car fairly quickly, and a Mini Cooper S is at the top of my list. Unfortunately, yesterday I had the worst car-shopping experience of my life at Affinity Auto in Vancouver.
[ update Jan 10 2008 ]
See comments at the bottom of this page - there have since been some changes at Affinity which bode well for customer service. BTW, here’s the Mini I did buy …
[ back to regularly-scheduled programming ]
Affinity Auto is obviously a niche car lot … not a dealership, but focusing pretty intently on higher-end vehicles. There were a few BMWs, some Audis, 3-4 Porsches, and a couple of other higher-end vehicles on the lot. And, of course, the Mini - an ‘04 S model with 25K klicks, leather, and a sunroof.
So obviously I was not looking at the higher-end merchandise, and boy was I made aware of that fact. (Which is interesting, considering that I can afford any vehicle on their lot - if I choose to spend that much on a vehicle. I don’t, of course!) It’s amazing what impression you can give with selective attention, delays before answering questions, and so on …
Then the salesman, Cornelis Bobeldijk, wanted to start negotiating price with me before I actually took the car for a test drive! Quite clearly he was wondering if I was his kind of customer.
Eventually I managed to satisfy him - I had driven half an hour to check out this vehicle, and it’s the closest one to what I want available right now in the Vancouver area, so I really wanted to check out the car.
The irony of the matter is that by the time I had finished the test drive I was in no mood at all to do business with this salesperson and this car lot … so that even though the car is just about exactly what I want, I don’t think I’ll even make an offer.
Life is too short to spend with people like that … and there are too many other businesses out there that are courteous and enjoyable to work with to reward one like this for nasty behavior.
Tags: affinity auto, mini cooper s, john koetsier, cornelis bobeldijk, car, shopping, customer service
Adlinks will ruin the web
If every page starts to look like this, we’re in big, big trouble.
All those links are fake links - ad links … what I’m going to call adlinks. This particular bit on nonsense is featured on /Film’s Indiana Jones story.
They don’t actually go anywhere that you might think they do, they’re only ads, and they’re either selling something at best barely related to what you’re reading about, or they’re just a way to benefit from adwords arbitrage (insert whatever pay-per-click program you wish, even Microsoft’s).
Plus, they’re too dense, meaning that the value of each individual link is less. And finally, since they bear no relationship to the story/post, they actually inhibit communication.
When you mouse over them, they look like this.
Links are the roads and the currency of the web. When they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, we’re putting potholes in our roads. We’re inflating the currency.
And we’re pissing in our own well.
Tags: adlinks, ads, links, advertising, online, john koetsier
Accidentally making love not war
I love fortuitous mispellings. Someone at Trendhunter, a social trend-following site, posted the following:
the future solider will be equipped with “intelligent amour, which remains light and flexible until it senses an approaching bullet, then tenses to become bulletproof.”
I like that - intelligent amour. This is ironic on so many levels.
Tags: funny, soldier, armor, amour, mispelling, john koetsier
Easter egg clues …
This past Easter we, naturally, had an easter egg hunt. Each of the kids had a chance to hide the eggs and let the others find them.
And Gabrielle, being the creative girl she is, had to make it more interesting … with clues. Here they are …
Hrm …. in the library?
Outside?!?
This doesn’t sound too good for chocolate ….
OK, this one’s easy:
But I’m not sure I want to eat this egg:
Tags: easter, eggs, hunt, fun, kids, pictures, john koetsier, gabrielle
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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