Archive for August, 2008
WNBC doesn’t get technology
So WNBC ran a story tonight about domain name squatters, which was basically a story complaining about how all the “good” domain names have been taken. It’s really not news in my eyes, since it’s a practice that (as the story itself said) has its roots in the cyberbubble of the 90′s. But I guess since more people are getting Internet savvy(?) it’s becoming more obvious to more people, and thus is now considered “newsworthy”.
The problem is they simply misrepresented things. In talking about domain name squatters, they said that the largest owner of domain names is Go Daddy, the domain name registrar. Registrars don’t own the domains they register, they simply handle the registration process on behalf of people who would like to purchase domains. The domain is owned by the person who buys it through the registrar. However, the story made it seem as if Go Daddy itself was a domain name squatter, and the quote they used from Go Daddy didn’t help clarify things:
We consider domain names the real estate of the 21st century.
Makes sense if you understand that Go Daddy is trying to convince you to buy your own domain name, but if you’re already under the impression that Go Daddy owns 30 million domains of its own and is just trying to auction them off to the highest bidder, it sure won’t dissuade you of that opinion either.
Their website doesn’t really make things any clearer. They offer a link to Go Daddy’s complete email in response to their questions (which, again, doesn’t necessarily clear anything up if you’re already misinformed) and a link that simply reads Who Owns The Most Domain Names? (Again, this is a list of registrars, and nothing about the page they linked to implies otherwise.)
Then again, the page in question also currently links to file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/501452663/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/OLK1639/product_detail.htm, so, uh, you’ll excuse me for not taking them too seriously.
iPod Touches still ship with old firmware
In case you were wondering, an iPod Touch purchased since the 2.0 firmware was released will not, in fact, come with version 2.0 installed. It won’t be an oversight, either, because it will come installed with version 1.1.5 instead, which was released after 2.0.
And, needless to say, Apple will still be willing to charge you $9.99 for the upgrade, finally putting a nail into the coffin of that silly old “we only charge for the upgrade because we have to for accounting purposes” excuse that they’ve been touting.
My annoyance with Apple in this regard (no, I don’t own a Touch) is only outweighed by my disappointment with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform, which has been thoroughly put to shame by the iPhone OS. As much as I dislike Apple’s resistance to removable batteries and external storage cards, the lack of Bluetooth/speaker/microphone on the Touch, and Steve Jobs’ draconian control over what applications can be marketed and installed to devices that Apple sells, the usability of an iPhone or iPod Touch vs. a technically superior (with regard to hardware) Windows Mobile device is just so much better that my qualms more or less become irrelevant.
There are a lot of things Apple does wrong, and many things that they do worse than their competitors, but their final package is often simply unmatched in the end. In a way, it’s kind of disappointing.
