Critiques

Amazon's MP3 Download store--a book report

Many people love iTunes, but installing the software on a Windows computer that you depend on is a mistake, from a Defensive Computing standpoint. I say this for two reasons. For one, iTunes is a large complex program and installing any such program is risky, Windows being what it is. In addition, iTunes includes QuickTime, which has been fraught with security bugs. And personally speaking, the fact that I must use iTunes to play music purchased from Apple, rules the whole system out for me.

So, when I heard about Amazon's new MP3 Download store selling normal, ordinary, plain … Read more

Mistakes in Wall Street Journal editorial

Today, July 10th, the web site of The Wall Street Journal is free, sponsored by Dell. Normally the vast majority of the site is available only to paying customers - of either the web site or the hard copy paper.

I mention this to draw attention to an editorial that appeared in the paper on July 3, 2007 entitled Google v. Microsoft.

Background

Windows Vista includes desktop search functionality out of the box and Google offers a free desktop search application that anyone can download from their web site and install. Google complained to Microsoft's antitrust regulators at the … Read more