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I hope that no one falls for this classic pyramid scheme, but in case you were thinking about it, please take five minutes, calm yourself down and realize that it is too good to be true. Please do not fall for this scam, nor should you let any of your friends do the same. It’s worse than falling for the $1000 Microsoft tracking email scam because you are willingly giving your address to spammers and you will receive nothing in return.

Most .Mac users may not have noticed, but mail aliases are available for use through .Mac’s webmail interface. You choose another email address ([email protected]) and all mail to that address goes to your existing account. The primary purpose for this feature is fairly obvious. It allows you to have “throw away” addresses to use in situations in which you don’t trust the entity you are giving your email to. If you begin to receive a lot of spam through that address, you simply disable it. Other services have had this for a while, but it’s a welcome addition to .Mac’s existing tools. .Mac’s web-mail also color codes incoming email according to the alias address they came in through (very nice). It’s finally being exposed by websites like MacFixit. I actually discovered this gem several weeks back and never thought to tell anyone about it. .Mac’s documentation actually makes no reference to it.

Apple versus RealNetworks: A lawyer’s perspective My interpretation of this whole situation? Apple should let Real do whatever it is planning, but use of those files will be completely unsupported by Apple. Users are on their own if they decide to use them (or Real can do the support work). Additionally, Apple doesn’t make any guarantees about future firmware working, so if the files stop playing, Apple can say “Talk to Real”.

The good new is that WordPress is a million times easier to install than MovableType. I also like its interface much better. The bad news is that its documentation, or at least the organization of the documentation is lacking. At any rate, I also moved my weblog to the root of the domain, so I’ve made a pointer from the old directory. I just hope that users that were using an RSS client to read my site will notice that the feed has moved as well (it’s linked on this page).

Following confirmation from Ranchero software that NetNewsWire does indeed work with WordPress, I’ve decided to move to it. Partly was to keep current and partly because of some of its features are compelling. I won’t be making any more entries until the migration is complete. I’ll also be making my blog the front page for my domain. Stay tuned!

Netscape fans will be thrilled to hear that reports of Netscape’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Netscape 7.2 will be making its debut very soon as reported by MacMinute. From what I had read earlier, this new version will be based on Mozilla 1.7, which is one of Mozilla’s most stable releases. In fact, I believe that was their priority issue for that milestone. This doesn’t affect me so much as I use Safari on my Macs and Firefox on my work computer. It is a good thing for those that refuse to use anything but the big two (Internet Explorer and Netscape). It also means that modern Mozilla-based executables will begin gracing corporate desktops again as well (again, because support is generally restricted to the big two).

As reported on every single Mac news site under the sun, Steve Jobs has undergone surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer. I wish him a complete and speedy recovery. You can read more about it at Maccentral.

I’ve been using MovableType to run my blog here and it’s been working great. However, MovableType 3.0 and up are no longer free. For now, the current version of MovableType I’m using is sufficient, but I’m concerned about long term viability. The guys over at Unsanity have moved to WordPress, which seems pretty nice as well. Does anyone have any recommendations for Blogging choices? Keep in mind, I’d like to continue to have the option to publish using NetNewsWire, which does limit the options a bit (WordPress may be out of the running because of this). My host does supply Blogger software as part of their package as well.

It is my firm belief that our society’s high quality of life level has resulted in two things: an entitlement complex and a lack of responsibility complex. This is particularly easy to observe in teenage kids. You don’t even have to leave your home. Log onto the net and see their poorly spelled, grammatically incorrect, incoherent ramblings about everything! This is evident in every aspect of life. “I bought a harmburger, so I’m entitled to fries. It’s my right.” It’s spread to software as well. Users are content to commit software piracy, downloading and using software with a clear conscience. To them, Microsoft Office and its thousands of features is a right. They need that software and as a human being, they deserve it. Some outright steal it, while others simply buy the academic version of Office (when neither a student or a teacher) and attempt to justify it with the fact that Microsoft Office is expensive. That is not justification, only a rationalization. Further, they have the audacity to claim that Microsoft actually wants users to abuse the fact retailers do not verify academic status when selling this software. Office is a product, a ubiquitous product yes, but a product nonetheless. Its common usage does not make it a right.

I can’t say too much about the two following links as they are fairly self-explanatory. I will say that they are worth the extremely long read. By reading these stories you can also figure out common scammer tactics on eBay. Any experienced eBayer will already know all the do’s and don’ts, but it’s still worth the read. Without further ado, they are: The Sal Wise Fraud P-P-P-Powerbook