Microsoft Downgrades Claria Adware Detections

Via Slashdot: Microsoft Downgrades Claria Adware Detections: "Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware application is no longer flagging adware products from Claria Corp. as a threat to PC users."

I'd love to hear from somebody at MS as to why I shouldn't be worried about this. To me it seems out of character for Microsoft.

Crossroads Dispatches: Dot's Flowers: Lack of Ethics? How About Lack of Imagination?

Crossroads Dispatches: Dot's Flowers: Lack of Ethics? How About Lack of Imagination?: "I'm too jaded to be appalled by lack of ethics, but I am amazed by the lack of imagination. Paying bloggers $5 for a blog mention (assuming transparency)? Original, huh?"

Evelyn is cool. Sometimes her writing is a little hard to read, but I like the point she's highlighting here.

Some people don't get it. Blogs are compelling because they cut through the marketing BS. They are "the people's voice". That's what makes them compelling. Some marketing folks see them as nothing more than another place where they can yell their message. They want to treat them like radio, tv, or print advertising.

Here are my thoughts about "using" blogs to promote a product.

Step 1: Engage in what your customers are already doing.
Step 2: Make something completely awesome. Using what your learned by engaging your customers.
Step 3: Support the hell out of your customers.
Step 4: Don't try to control the message, learn from the one that takes shape.
Step 5: Act on the message that takes shape.
Step 6: Profit?

I used to think not everything could be marketed through blogs. But Joel seems to be marketing fogbugz through his blog pretty well. I suppose if you are marketing into an industry that doesn't blog you might find it harder.

Only slightly related question:
How transparent is too transparent?

As a customer, how would you like to hear "We couldn't fix your bug because the dev team went out last night and they're all hung over, we'll do it tomorrow."? Or "We want to fix your bug but this other customer pays us more so we have to do their bugs first"?

I can't imagine there's a company out there willing to be that transparent, but is there anything wrong with it?

Coolest blog of all

I forgot to mention the coolest blog of all. The one that belongs to my wife Gwen.

Some cool blogs

Usually I link to other people when they have something I want to comment on. I thought I'd devote a post to just listing a few blogs that I'm finding to be good reads .

Gretchen Ledgard's Jobs Blog: A good look at recruiting at Microsoft. She usually has something interesting to say about the world of recruiting talent.

Josh Ledgard: Josh is doing some interesting things to get the community at large involved. I especially liked his reader rewards program.

Mark Cuban: I don't always agree with Mark Cuban (and I don't really care about basketball), but he gets points for being pretty pointed in his criticisms of the RIAA and the like.

Joel Spolsky: A must read for anybody in the software industry.

Project Aardvark: It's been fun to watch the interns at Fog Creek build some new software. I definitely want to see how this product turns out. The fact that Joel can set these interns up to succeed speaks volumes about his skills as the head of a software company. I wonder if Joel is trying to build a visionary company or if he just happens to be a visionary leader. Will Fogcreek software produce more Joel Spolsky's?

Scoble: Also known as "never miss another blogging related piece of news ever".

Wil Wheaton: Cause it's Wesley Crusher! ;-) Actually Wil is just an interesting person. His posts are almost always a good read on several levels.

Those are my must reads at the moment. (except that Josh has been posting a bunch of stuff about the MSDN forums that doesn't interest me)

DVD-Audio copy protection "cracked"

DVD-Audio's CPPM can be got around with a WinDVD patch - CD Freaks.com: "but instead pipes the decrypted audio output to the hard drive instead of the sound card"

That's part of the fundamental problem with trying to secure bits. They must be available for playback, which means the customer has to have the key to unlock the bits available to them. This isn't a very sophisticated crack from what I can tell, but it's effective.

(Side note: Part of what is so frustrating about this is that this method is very inefficient for everyday users that would like to copy their music onto their computer for convenient listening, but mass "pirates" will have no problem waiting an hour for their one perfect master that they can stamp thousands of copies from)

I've wrestled with similar problems before, and what I've seen is that this false sense of security tends to be worse overall for the producer of the content than the removal of all barriers.

When there is a weak security system in place, those that don't understand the technical limitations tend to think "This solution is so great, I don't understand how it works but I feel secure". This false sense of security tends to make them take more risks because they think they're covered.

Perhaps those in the content industry actually think that the copy protection they've put in place is working. "We" all know (anecdotally) that copy protection doesn't stop hard core pirates from stealing and distributing illegitimate copies of content. But do the executives in charge of these decisions (like including macrovision protection on a DVD) know that it doesn't actually "work"? Do the technical people at those companies have a voice?

Has somebody stood in front of the leaders of the major labels and said "Here is what copy protection is doing for us and here is what it is not doing for us." I'd love to work with anybody in that kind of position on putting together a presentation of the costs/benefits of a copy protection scheme. :-)

Note:
I think it's very important for artists to be compensated for their work. I'm an artist, as is my wife, and I like getting money for the work I do. The more money I make the more time I can spend on my music and the more inclined I am to make more of it. But I also recognize that the old model is broken. That's why we released our music under a creative commons license.

Vespa

My wife and I bought a Vespa ET2 about a month ago. Turns out that a 50cc motor is not quite enough to pull two people around Seattle's many hills. So we're considering adding a granturismo to our garage. (I don't actually have a garage).

Vespa GT 200 (warning: flash)

I was able to drive one once and they are pretty darn fun. If we do end up getting it I will be sure to post up pictures of the pair.

Living in the city is cool.

Technorati Weirdness

I had to remove the link to my technorati profile because it was pointing to somebody else's blog. I wonder what's up with that...

M-Dollar: Microsoft kicking Claria's tires?

M-Dollar: Microsoft kicking Claria's tires?: "there is a US$500 million offer on the table, despite a large amount of internal debate at Redmond about the wisdom of picking up the company formerly known as Gator."

*shiver*

Gator was my first experience with adware. I almost installed it several times without knowing what it was, but since I didn't know what it was I didn't every click yes to any of those popup windows.

This has gotten me thinking about google's "don't be evil" policy. I need to strike up a conversation with Phil about not doing evil. Evil seems like a tricky concept in philosophy and theology. I wonder if it's more clear from a business perspective.

If Microsoft goes through this acquisition how will they reconcile their anti-spyware stance with a new product they've acquired (is Gator or the next incarnation of it still out there?)? Can adware ever be considered not evil. Many consider it evil today... who decides whether it's evil or not?

scooblog by josh ledgard : Barrier to Entry

scooblog by josh ledgard : Barrier to Entry: "but blogging without a comment Field is not blogging to engage in a conversation."

I've been "entering into conversation" with Josh Ledgard at MS about Scoble's new magical way of linking posts together.

Blog blog blog

I said the word blog so much in the previous post I feel a little nauseous. I gotta stop saying that word. (I've always dislike the word "blog")

New Blog (sorta)

The studiogo homepage has been converted to a blog. It's kind of a blog, but mostly I'm using the blogging tools in blogger to maintain the "news" section. I'll be hacking on the blog template when I need to add more links from the front page, but blogging is easy, and content management seems hard. So I choose blogging.

check it out Studio GO

EP Downloads

Just checked the stats for June.

29 | /letsgo/downloads/01%20Ashes.mp3
17 | /letsgo/downloads/02%20For%20Household%20Use%20Only.mp3
16 | /letsgo/downloads/03%20Home.mp3
12 | /letsgo/downloads/04%20Sister_Brotherhood.mp3
13 | /letsgo/downloads/05%20The%20Grand%20Finale.mp3

Ashes takes the lead with 29 downloads from June 1st through June 21st

Here are the same stats from May.

83 | /letsgo/downloads/01%20Ashes.mp3
56 | /letsgo/downloads/02%20For%20Household%20Use%20Only.mp3
55 | /letsgo/downloads/03%20Home.mp3
57 | /letsgo/downloads/04%20Sister_Brotherhood.mp3
41 | /letsgo/downloads/05%20The%20Grand%20Finale.mp3

The downloads appear to be slowing down. Perhaps we should restart the advertising in ernest (after the website update of course).

Remix Resources

I've had a request for some sources to use for remixing. I'll work on getting those produced and packaged up under creative commons. Just remember that we'll be using the share alike license, which means if you remix you'll need to release your remix under the same license.

Unless there is gnashing of teeth, then I suppose we could talk about using a different license.

Oh and the remix resource wont be available before the new website is up. If I have time and feel like delaying it may go up at the same time, but not before.

Website Progress

I was able to make some good progress on the new website tonight. It wont be radically different but it will finally have a paypal buy-now button, which is good.

We'll also have a little more content up. I'm still not using a content management system, but I think the website will be relatively static for the most part. Maybe I'll look into using blogger or some such simple content management system to keep the root of the studiogomusic site fresh.

Paypal and an EP progress report

I've been hestitant to start really promoting the CD online until I get paypal setup on the website. For some reason I just haven't been super motivated lately.

Here's what going on though. We've sold about 42 of the original 50 cds that we produced. So next we're going to do another run of 50-100 cds. Then get paypal setup on the website. Then I actually want to start the online "advertising" in ernest. Hit up the online groups that I know. Flesh out the last bits of the website. Print up some new handout sized flyers that I can give to people who show an interest in the music. Send a promo copy to KEXP. etc... etc...

I think spending so much time making the CD has got me all burned out on it. I'm finally picking up some steam again though.

Sony to accidentally encourage P2P, iTMS use

Sony to accidentally encourage P2P, iTMS use: "This scheme is just the latest in a long series of attempts by Sony to cripple their products, annoy users, and drive consumers to competing products that are uncrippled and less painful to use. Maybe one day they'll learn, but until then they'll continue to throw money away."

The day I bought a the NetMD mini-disc players was one of the most frustrating (technological) days of my life. "You mean I have to speed hours transcoding my library of music so that I can put 2 hours of it on a mini-disc that costs 2 bucks?!?"

Mark Cuban: What am I missing Macrovision?

What am I missing Macrovision? - Blog Maverick - www.blogmaverick.com _: "I could see if the stuff worked and it kept the bad guys from doing bad things. Then it would have to be a price consumers paid. Publishers have a right to protect their content. But, it obviously doesn’t work. If it did, there would be nothing to sue anyone over."

Mark writes a good article pointing out why DRM is such a waste of time and money.

You can ask Gwen... occassionally I'll let a DVD play through to the very end and when the Macrovision logo is displayed, sometimes I can't stop a few swears from coming out... and it's because all Macrovision has been able to do, is stop me from doing things that should be covered under fair use.

Here's some free advise to the MPAA:

Stop wasting your money with Macrovision, and spend it looking for those big internet warez sites that host your movies. Also, spend 9 months and create a full featured rip/burn/mix piece of software for DVDs. Give me the same flexibility that I have with my CDs for my DVDs and I'll buy more DVDs. Get it? Let me do more with them, and they'll become more valuable to me.

Branch out, get into the hardware market... build some mobile playback devices... build a piece of software to manage your library. Screw the DRM, just target the pirates directly. The DRM doesn't stop the pirates anyway. So stop wasting your time and money.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says: "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them."

I'm simply amazed at the arrogance displayed here. Jobs honestly thinks that no other person in the last 30 years would have ever thought to add good looking typography to the computer.

I have a prediction:

"When Jobs dies, Apple dies with him."

And here's why.

Steve is such an ego maniac and control freak that he's set his company up to rely on him completely. He craves acceptance so badly that he's created a company that is utterly dependent on his control. Now don't get me wrong. I have a 12" powerbook, and I love it. It's a great piece of engineering. But, it's only a great piece of engineering because Jobs has personally willed it into creation. He hasn't built a company that, when left alone, will create similarly well designed devices.

Think Different.... that is... Let Steve Jobs think for you.

WIL WHEATON dot NET: Where is my mind?: i am not a number! i am, rather, a series of numbers, painted across my fingernails

WIL WHEATON dot NET: Where is my mind?: i am not a number! i am, rather, a series of numbers, painted across my fingernails: "i am not a number! i am, rather, a series of numbers, painted across my fingernails"

If you look at a picture like this and think to yourself: "Is that US-ASCII or ISO Latin 1" that's a good indication that you've been emotionally scarred by internationalization.

If you don't understand what I just said, that's a good indication you haven't been scarred by internationalization. :-)

arstechnica: Can we deal on the Broadcast Flag?

Can we deal on the Broadcast Flag?

As usual, Ars does a good job of summing up what's going on with copyright. This is a good read for anybody that's heard me complaining about copyright restrictions but doesn't really know what's going on.