Most of us beyond the age of 38 are fully aware of our place in the grand scheme of current “history”.  Actually, I should qualify that as “social order”.  We know we’re not “kids” anymore, not even “young adults”.  Yet, we’re not “aged” or “elderly” either.  We’re sort of in a purgatory realm.  The significance of this varies, I’m sure, with respect to (a) geography, (b) income status, (c) racial/ethnic demographic and equally significant: (d) career status.  Ok, (e) All of the above, is allowed also.

Those of us in the above-mentioned demographic (econographic?) who happen to earn a living in the world of software technology know this all too well.  We can see and experience (sometimes painfully) tangible examples of the gradual age shifting of the labor pool.  That has a direct, yet often overlooked, subtle impact on the gradual shift of technology and technology application in the real world.

Some are obvious: programming languages, programming techniques, tools, changes in how old pieces are combined in new ways to do new things.  Some of this is apparent towards the end of this eWeek interview with Google’s Adam Bosworth.  The (lack of) show of hands for those in the audience that knew what “Lotus” was, clearly delineates the emerging segment of younger talent.  The frightening realization we (my econographic) group is facing now is: holy shit! we’re not the “in” crowd of technology anymore!  We’re just hanging on as long as we can until we have to let go and hopefully fall onto a soft Social Security or retirement safety net.   Like that will really happen to most of us (oops, did I just say that out loud?)

Let’s face it: we need to say out loud, to ourselves… “someday, maybe sooner than we’d like, apps won’t be written in C++, C#, Java, VB.NET, Perl, Python, PHP or even Ruby”. There will be a time when those things are looked upon the same way we look upon a 1953 Mercury sedan: It’s a classic, but thank GOD I don’t have to taxi my kids around to school in it.  Sci-Fi movies have predicted far-fetched things for years, but this is not Sci-Fi, this is speculative predictive probability at its best.  Like our grandfathers pontificated to us (as we moaned for salvation), we too shall bestow painful reminiscent stories upon our grandchildren.

“We used to *write* programs in my day.  None of this talking or hand gesture crap.  None of this brainwave transmission crap you kids have now.  No sir.  We had to *work* and we *earned* our income back then…”  “Oh yeah, I had to write code for ten miles to school, EACH WAY, and code UPHILL both ways!”

zzzzzzzzzzzz…

Microsoft spends several million $USD ramping up to “launch” Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 yesterday. They bought EVERY marquee in Times Square (8 I believe), airtime on several channels, live music acts, NFL players on site at CompUSA and BestBuy affiliates, radio ads, TV ads, internet ads. Bill Gates goes on The Daily Show (a real snoozer I would say), and so on. The whole event was oafish and clumsy. Misques and mistakes abound, but the software finally doesn’t crash during a live demo (for once!).  Ballmer should not be allowed to MC any live events.  It was embarrassing to watch.  John Madden would have been much better.

I’m getting really tired of half-assed software products. It seems to be the norm nowadays. The more pressure from shareholders to get and keep marketshare, the more emphasis is put on cranking unfinished shiny boxes out the door.  I own and use each of these rough-cut gems so I can step up to the plate and voice my dissatisfaction.
Cases in Point:

FireFox 2.0 - Yes, while still my favorite browser, and miles ahead of IE7 (and crashes a hell of a lot less even on Vista), there are some irritating issues with 2.0.0.1 that I hope they resolve in 3.0. Having to restart the browser twice for most theme add-ons is one. On Vista it often flakes out with the mouse behavior. In many cases, scroll wheel movement is translated to text-scaling (aka “zoom”) regardless of settings.

IE7 - Do I really need to say why? Sheesh. Nice try (for Microsoft), but woefully inept attempt to match Firefox (or Opera). Of the current modern browsers, I place it near the bottom with Konqueror. Oh yeah - Why the hell does KDE even have it’s own browser?! WTF? Do we REALLY Need yet another friggin browser??? Does anyone use it?!?!?

iTunes 7.x - Losing mappings to remote libraries if the drive becomes unavailable. You’d think it would have a single “refresh” button, but no. You have to right-click and click “Get Info” on each track to refresh the link even after the drive mapping is re-established long ago. No click-n-drag for multi-select. Limited right-click options. No control over placement of MP4 files on the iPod (Podcast vs TV show vs Movie), it decides for you (often incorrectly).

Sony PSP - Oh my God.  I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  Sure, it’s neat.  It’s nifty.  But it’s still HALF-BAKED.  The keypad entry SUCKS SH*T. It cannot play inline media from web sites (MPG, AVI, WMV, MOV, not even MP4???).  The onboard memory is embarrassing.  The 30GB iPod costs less?  Holy crap.  Download a file from a web page that contains spaces and watch how it handles renaming (manually).  Horrible.  The memory expansion to 2GB is so-so, but the 4GB is a stupid clunky BRICK that not only adds bulk to the “portable” device, it adds weight.  It turns it from a portable game pad to a non-portable anchor.   Then comes the stupid-as-hell UMD idea.  They gave up and announced moving to SD cards, which they haven’t yet delivered on (I don’t count press releases, I’m talking about Best Buy and CompUSA store shelves). Sony failed us again.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Docs don’t seem to read Office 2003 Docs very reliably, even very VERY basic docs with a few words. It often says “failed to convert”. Spreadsheets has no fill-down option, so forget making a quick array of numbers or letters to layout a grid. Until it has more of the basic, age-old Excel and Lotus 123 features I can’t even consider switching. Amazing that after more than 2 decades they can’t just START with matching Lotus 123 capabilities.

Linux Media apps - They all suck at most things and suffice for the rest. I’m tired of settling. I want more. I don’t want to roll my own in C++ or Java either. C’mon. If Amarok or Banshee is the best they have, it’s pitiful. Burning CD’s and DVD’s on Linux PALES horribly in comparison to NeroVision on Windows. Almost any Window or Mac media app makes the Linux counterparts look like kindergarten. It’s a shame.

The Apple Keyboard - It just sucks. I hate it. I hate it as bad as the stupid Microsoft keyboard. They both suck. A basic QWERTY 101 key brick from Dell or HP is just fine for me. The fancy-shmancy function keys are just stupid. They scream “keyboards for f-ing idiots!” Do we really need a button to push to sync our stupid cameras? God almighty.
I hope you can see my “theme” here. I’m picking on EVERYONE, not just one or two. Quality is slipping badly. The aging programmers are retiring and nobody bothered to mentor the next batch. We’re in for trouble.

Vista - Regressions abound with so many features I can’t name them all. Inconsistent interface changes sprinkled across the platform. What the F*** did they do to the Network settings? OMG! Completely ruined! “Fiji” (codename for SP1) is aimed at addressing many of them, and remaining bugs, but won’t be out until Q3-Q4/07. Says a lot that they’re working on an SP before the RTM ships. Sad. Again: half-baked crap.

I’m getting really tired of half-assed software products. It seems to be the norm nowadays. The more pressure from shareholders to get and keep marketshare, the more emphasis is put on cranking unfinished shiny boxes out the door.  I own and use each of these rough-cut gems so I can step up to the plate and voice my dissatisfaction.
Cases in Point:

FireFox 2.0 - Yes, while still my favorite browser, and miles ahead of IE7 (and crashes a hell of a lot less even on Vista), there are some irritating issues with 2.0.0.1 that I hope they resolve in 3.0. Having to restart the browser twice for most theme add-ons is one. On Vista it often flakes out with the mouse behavior. In many cases, scroll wheel movement is translated to text-scaling (aka “zoom”) regardless of settings.

IE7 - Do I really need to say why? Sheesh. Nice try (for Microsoft), but woefully inept attempt to match Firefox (or Opera). Of the current modern browsers, I place it near the bottom with Konqueror. Oh yeah - Why the hell does KDE even have it’s own browser?! WTF? Do we REALLY Need yet another friggin browser??? Does anyone use it?!?!?

iTunes 7.x - Losing mappings to remote libraries if the drive becomes unavailable. You’d think it would have a single “refresh” button, but no. You have to right-click and click “Get Info” on each track to refresh the link even after the drive mapping is re-established long ago. No click-n-drag for multi-select. Limited right-click options. No control over placement of MP4 files on the iPod (Podcast vs TV show vs Movie), it decides for you (often incorrectly).

Sony PSP - Oh my God.  I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  Sure, it’s neat.  It’s nifty.  But it’s still HALF-BAKED.  The keypad entry SUCKS SH*T. It cannot play inline media from web sites (MPG, AVI, WMV, MOV, not even MP4???).  The onboard memory is embarrassing.  The 30GB iPod costs less?  Holy crap.  Download a file from a web page that contains spaces and watch how it handles renaming (manually).  Horrible.  The memory expansion to 2GB is so-so, but the 4GB is a stupid clunky BRICK that not only adds bulk to the “portable” device, it adds weight.  It turns it from a portable game pad to a non-portable anchor.   Then comes the stupid-as-hell UMD idea.  They gave up and announced moving to SD cards, which they haven’t yet delivered on (I don’t count press releases, I’m talking about Best Buy and CompUSA store shelves). Sony failed us again.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Docs don’t seem to read Office 2003 Docs very reliably, even very VERY basic docs with a few words. It often says “failed to convert”. Spreadsheets has no fill-down option, so forget making a quick array of numbers or letters to layout a grid. Until it has more of the basic, age-old Excel and Lotus 123 features I can’t even consider switching. Amazing that after more than 2 decades they can’t just START with matching Lotus 123 capabilities.

Linux Media apps - They all suck at most things and suffice for the rest. I’m tired of settling. I want more. I don’t want to roll my own in C++ or Java either. C’mon. If Amarok or Banshee is the best they have, it’s pitiful. Burning CD’s and DVD’s on Linux PALES horribly in comparison to NeroVision on Windows. Almost any Window or Mac media app makes the Linux counterparts look like kindergarten. It’s a shame.

The Apple Keyboard - It just sucks. I hate it. I hate it as bad as the stupid Microsoft keyboard. They both suck. A basic QWERTY 101 key brick from Dell or HP is just fine for me. The fancy-shmancy function keys are just stupid. They scream “keyboards for f-ing idiots!” Do we really need a button to push to sync our stupid cameras? God almighty.
I hope you can see my “theme” here. I’m picking on EVERYONE, not just one or two. Quality is slipping badly. The aging programmers are retiring and nobody bothered to mentor the next batch. We’re in for trouble.

Vista - Regressions abound with so many features I can’t name them all. Inconsistent interface changes sprinkled across the platform. What the F*** did they do to the Network settings? OMG! Completely ruined! “Fiji” (codename for SP1) is aimed at addressing many of them, and remaining bugs, but won’t be out until Q3-Q4/07. Says a lot that they’re working on an SP before the RTM ships. Sad. Again: half-baked crap.

Why? Because if they REALLY wanted to hide the band-aids while big brother is bleeding, they’d have posted an iTunes client for Linux long ago. They have nothing to lose and only stand to gain. I’ve done my research, there really isn’t anything for Linux that will suffice. Sure, Amarok, Lsongs and Banshee are pretty good, but full-blown iTunes replacements they are NOT! Most of the Linux media apps fill some of the feature needs, but none do all of them. And so far, none that I’ve tried reliably sync with my 30gb iPod Video. While iTunes sucks up a HUGE amount of Windows resources, it runs much more smoothly on a Mac. No surprise there obviously. But as much as I cringe to launch it on my XP or Vista clients (while actually trying to run other apps concurrently), it does provide a nice one-stop shop for Podcasts, Movies, TV shows, Audiobooks, and of course Music. Check this link, or this one.

Why would I claim that Apple has nothing to lose by making an iTunes client for Linux? Because (a) no self-respecting Linux fan would EVER consider switching to Mac, never ever, never. and (b) if it required a full Mac client to enable the forthcoming AppleTV interface promised with Leopard, it still wouldn’t lose any Mac customers.

I’m convinced that there are Windows fans with iPods that would seriously consider jumping to Linux if it werent’ for losing access to iTunes, etc. Sure, Apple would prefer they switch to Mac OSX, but that would almost certainly require buying a new machine. After all, OSX isn’t built to run on BIOS, only EFI. While they might lose the possibility of a new Mac hardware purchase, it would at least make the idea of “leaving Windows” more plausible.

Apple knows that most iPods are used with Windows clients.  The numbers don’t lie.  Windows is the overwhelming dominant desktop operating system in the world.  No one else even comes close by any stretch of the imagination.  Given that iPod is the dominant portable media playing device (in most respects), that means the two demographics overlap.  That’s the ONLY reason Apple makes iTunes for Windows.  They simply cannot ignore that fact.  I don’t argue that.  However…
So rather than make it plausible for Windows victims to “leave” the shackles behind, they’d prefer you keep your Windows or simply jump straight to OSX. Not providing a possible in-between option shows me that they really don’t “hate” Microsoft (after all, MS did bestow a sizeable contribution to them when they were cash strapped some years ago). After all, if Microsoft vanished, Apple wouldn’t have anyone to tease in their commercials.  I don’t propose they stop supporting Windows, only that they consider greasing the skids with a Linux client, with the disclaimer that it would “work better on OSX”.  Nothing illegal or immoral about that.