Jackassery

Blogger-Reviewers, Tech Reviews, Bias, Freebies, Rants and why Apple Singapore hates me

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Warning – This article might come across as being messy and distasteful.

Let’s face it – everyone has their bias. Every blogger, reviewer has their own bias. Anyone telling you otherwise is just plain lying in your face.

Sites that try to be like Engadget and Gizmodo are totally biased as well – they tend to be bias towards Engadget’s reviews. And since Engadget loves to write what I call a favor of reviews which I like to term “not here not there”, the kind of reviews you get from such sites are usually “neither here nor there” either.

Which might be just what you want – if you are not a fan of any brand or company – in other words, if you lack passion about your gadgets.

Do you?

Read more

Why school-based Mac User Groups are a terrible idea

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This is a tale of something good going horribly bad when it falls into the wrong hands.

I was probably the first person who really injected life into the establishment known as MacNUS, despite not being the founder. Lots of events, lots of ideas for improvement, lots of pushing the establishment and improving the status quo for Mac users in NUS. My EXC0 members, whom I have termed “The Original Team MacNUS” were superb, and despite me putting in nonsensical requests for their attention at times, they delivered and we were successful in turning MacNUS into the best tertiary Mac User Group in Singapore.

Time passed and I had to move on, retiring as President of the group when I graduated and passed the baton on to a dear friend and fellow EXCO member. Another member of the Original Team MacNUS was supposed to succeed him, but that member has to give up on the position because of school work.

Here’s where the problem came in. Unfortunately, a A Rank person(my dear friend) chose a B Rank person as his successor. Then the B Rank person got C and D Rank people to be his EXCO members. And it all went into a downhill spiral from then on.

For example, the current EXCO. Of whom some of them are working at the current NUS Matriculation Fair Mac sales booth, due to Apple SG pushing for their participation.

The following information is taken from extremely reliable sources.

For almost all the major events, including the recent/ongoing Mac sales at the NUS Matriculation Fair 2009, the EXCO did not do any work at all. They made the reseller come up with the ideas for the events, make them do all the work, and all the EXCO really did was to put their logo on everything the reseller has planned and produced and claim all the credit for themselves.

Can any other Mac User Group be more shameless than this?

The reseller themselves do not want to work with this group of people but they were apparently forced into cooperating with MacNUS by the very people who supply them with everything they sell – the same department in Apple SG whom I have wrote an email to a week or so ago (whom, if you can read the article two posts down, has not replied at all).

What kind of Mac User Group EXCO demand money from the resellers they work with for giving seminars to their users? I will understand if a third party/external vendor was involved, but there wasn’t one.

There is no decent dedication and drive from them at all. One wonders if they have any other motives for being in the EXCO other than the so-called “fame” it brings them.

Two of my Original Team MacNUS and myself were so disgusted that it totally dampened our spirits for the remainder of the fair. Of course, as usual, I was the most vocal and decided to quit after the first day of the fair. Another decided just not to turn up. And the last one, unfortunately, needed money and so had to stay through everything.

A friend and ex-customer asked, “why dun u tell them off? u have the right to. i feel that u built this club for a purpose, no? so if that purpose is not fulfilled, i feel that despite u nt being a member of nux, u still have the right to say it”. But no, I don’t really want to complicate matters. In that university, rank/position is everything and I have learnt that so long you no longer pay tuition fees, the university is never your friend.

Needless to say, I was totally disappointed and saddened by the whole state of things. Yes, sales of Macs might be at a all-time high in NUS, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the Mac User Group in that university.

Then I realized.

This is an ongoing problem with all clubs/societies in all universities and schools – the need to change management every year causes extreme instability in the functioning of the clubs and societies themselves. MacNUS is exactly such a victim.

It seems like the only way to solve this problem is to create a inter-tertiary Mac User Group – one where the management does not change every year, one where your school does not matter, and one where serious Mac users will be able to enjoy being part of.

And so begins the process of brainstorming and creation of such an entity.

P.S. Everything in the article reflects only my official stance and NOT the official stance of any other entity, institution or company.

P.S. and P.S. In case you are wondering, everyone knows that the best tertiary Mac User Group in the land now is SMU’s.

Words of idiocy from idiots

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idiots

28th July 2009

Girl working at Apple booth, sent from Apple SG:

“The current Mini Displayport adapters totally don’t work for doing presentations. My old MacBook and MacBook Air adapters do, but the new ones don’t. Apple probably got something wrong in the design”.

29th July 2009

Guy working at Apple booth, sent from Apple SG:

“You can install on multiple computers, your Adobe CS4 Web Premium and Microsoft Office 2008, even though you only have one serial. They will work so long the computers are on different networks”.

To clarify those who don’t understand why the above examples were words of idiocy, the current Mini Displayport adapters do work for presentations. I personally tested them. It’s now July so I think everyone should have installed the Mini Displayport to VGA adapter firmware update by now. There have only been some prior reports that DRM-ed videos do not play on the connected screen, but they work perfectly for normal Keynote/Powerpoint presentations.

As for the Adobe CS4 comment, the Adobe apps phones home regularly regardless what network you are on, so long you are connected to the net. There’s a high chance that the apps installed on multiple Macs will deactivate and return to trial status if Adobe realizes that the same SN has been used more than once. As for Office 2008, you can use the same SN on multiple Macs, so long you do not update the apps. The “different network” comment probably came from Office 2004, where a “feature” was built in by Microsoft to shut down running copies of Office 2004 once a certain SN has been detected to be in use in more than one Mac in a certain network. Apparently the “feature” has been removed in 2008. How outdated can someone professing to know lots about Macs be?

If you are buying from the NUS fair, it helps to do your homework before you purchase. Don’t expect the staff there to be giving you correct information. Ask someone who knows better.

Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz tries to cover Steve Jobs’ health screwup through misleading article

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Gizmodo and Jesus Diaz is getting out of hand.

Instead of posting some kind of apology for screwing up the Apple stock prices after the release of Steve’s and Apple’s statement earlier today, they went again and posted a disgusting article about how they were right after all.

Are they?

In this original article, they claimed that “the real cause (for Apple dropping out of Macworld) is his(Steve’s) rapidly declining health” while in the latest article written to cover his shit tracks, Jesus Diaz wrote “The reason why Steve Jobs is not doing the Macworld 2009 keynote is his health”.

In the first article, he specially suggested that Apple’s total dropout of Macworld is because Steve is dying and that there is no way Apple keynotes at Macworld will ever be the same again, thus the decision by Apple to pull out from Macworld. This suggestion was made through these words “Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring. This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why Macworld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. “

The main point of his first article, thus, is not about Steve Jobs deciding to drop out from the 2009 Macworld Keynote due to his health, but rather “Steve Jobs is dying, thus Apple decides to pull out from all future Macworld Expos”.

His most recent article addressing this issue, therefore, is nothing more than a shitty attempt to try and cover the fact that he screwed up badly.

This is absolutely disgusting coming from Gizmodo, one of the big two gadget blogs.

Gizmodo should answer for this.

Disgusting.

Adobe should burn in hell

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Photoshop sucks. Adobe sucks. Everyone gets a kick out of pirating Adobe software, just like how everyone does with each pirated copy of Microsoft software.

No 64-bit Photoshop for Mac till CS5? You know what, Adobe? You can keep your CS5 for yourself and your Microsoft bitches.

Photoshop will become irrelevant in 2 years. Die. Photoshop. Die Adobe. Die Lightroom. Die.

“Nike, can I have a free pair of shoes since I wear your logo on them?”

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This piece of “news” is a few days old but I thought I’ll publish it anyway.

ShuffleArt, a good friend of mine and a partner during the MacNUS days, forwarded the following email to me. The email was sent by, apparently, a NUS student named Hxx Xxx.


Hi XXXXX,

I’m currently a NUS student and got to know this from MacNUS Ryu. Does Shuffle-art give student discount?

Actually I’m just looking for something to protect my macbook as I bring my Macbook out everyday, and if not for Ryu, i wouldn’t have known Shuffle-arts. I was just wondering if you would consider waiving off the $59.90 for the protective shield, given that I provide a advertising space for Shuffle-arts by letting have Shuffle-arts website and logo on the shield? I’ve realised that the number of Macbook user has been increasing and many of them have yet to customise their Macbook, which I believe is because they don’t know where to look.

I hope you would consider my proposal. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Hxx Xxx

This Hui Xin fellow is apparently one of my customers during the NUS Matriculation Notebook Fair, although I am not sure if she did buy a MacBook from me or not, but it was true that ShuffleArt was offering MacNUS a special deal for their Koobniks then. However, never once did I mention ShuffleArt to her personally, and what the hell is “MacNUS Ryu” supposed to be anyway?

The thing is, this Hui Xin girl actually thought that just by having the ShuffleArt logo and the website address on her Koobnik (which are already on the product in the first place), that ShuffleArt will agree to waiving off the cost of the product? In the first place she is not someone famous, or someone that a company will pay to have their products used by her.

The things that some people will do.

I believed she was eventually asked to try her luck at Nike first.

Horrible mistake by NS Portal admins/writers

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Check out this page. Some idiot from the NS Portal actually used a picture of Steve Jobs in an article about Microsoft Powerpoint. This is totally absurb and unacceptable. So someone shot them an email. Here is the email replicated in its (almost) entirety.

“Dear in charge,

I refer to your article posted at http://……. in which Microsoft Powerpoint is being highlighted and discussed.

As representative of the No. 1 Mac-using tertiary institution in Singapore, I wish to point out that your picture of Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc, in the article, is not just inaccurate, but totally unacceptable as well. Steve Jobs never, never uses Microsoft Powerpoint in his presentations. He uses an Apple software called Keynote, which is many ways is much much better than Microsoft Powerpoint. The use of his picture in the article both reflects the inability of the article writer who obviously does not have the required knowledge to tell the difference between Keynote and Powerpoint, and makes us doubt the credibility of his article as well.

Such a mistake is totally unacceptable even if it is made in an environment, which, one can argue, is free from any knowledge of Mac software since the armed forces uses exclusively Microsoft software, instead of promoting open-source alternatives. However, usage of Apple software and hardware is now growing at an increasing pace, and Keynote was even used during PM Lee’s National Day Rally. As such, it is therefore unacceptable to have commit such a mistake, especially when you represent the Armed Forces.

I hereby request you to replace the picture as soon as possible. I believe I speak for all the Mac users in Singapore, as the following post in the Mac User Group Singapore’s forum at http://www.macusersg.org/forums/index.php?topic=42458.0 has indicated general displease with the article.

It is exactly mistakes like these that makes our Armed Forces a laughing stock in front of Singaporeans. I hope that you can quickly correct your mistake, and try to prevent something as humiliating as this from happening again.

Yours Sincerely,

XXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX”

*Edit* Apparently the guy who posted the above msg (read: ME!!) didn’t realise that OpenOffice was in use since last year. Seriously, who will know? I personally saw Microsoft Office ’97 throughout the whole of my NS days 3 years back. And I have never heard of any plans to switch to OpenOffice then. Not everyone’s in Army or NS all the time. Apologise for the mistake though.

*Edit Again* The NSPortal Editor posted this reply;

“Hi all,

The article is a contribution that talks about the value of the command of a good presentation skill and the term ‘PowerPoint’ was used by the writer as a generic reference term due rather than as a product per se and Steve Job was an admirable international figure well known for making fantastic presentation and being featured to make a point and we regret any unintended misunderstanding.

NS Portal appreciates your readership and would like thank you guys for their feedback and support. We have advised the writer to make the necessary amendment to avoid future misunderstandings.

Warm Regards,
NS Portal Editor”

Edit again, and again: Apparently someone told me using Steve Jobs’ picture in the article itself is illegal. I think it might be true, especially for a high profile site like NSportal. Then again, will I know? I’m no lawyer.

Official Disclaimer: All my comments and posts posted in this site is made in my capacity as a Mac fan (or some say fanboy), and not in my capacity as President of the Mac User Group of NUS.