This article, which came in the wake of an experiment by Ars, blocking content from those who run ad blocking software, essentially said “If you’re blocking our ads, whitelist us, subscribe, or don’t come here”.

The anti-user stance continued in the comments, which at this time number more than 1700. Some users did in fact whitelist Ars. Some attempted to explain why they block ads, and were summarily dismissed by Ars staff, regardless of their reasons.

Techdirt posted a rebuttal Monday, entitled “Don’t Blame Your Community. Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites“. Their take is that if your community is blocking your ads, and you can’t handle it, find another business model that isn’t based on annoying your users.

I generally have to take Techdirt’s side on this one.

Ars isn’t unique in its news offerings. There are plenty of sites out there more that cover the same topics. If Ars disappeared tomorrow, the news would still be covered, and opinions would still be shared.

Ars needs to find another way, if they want to succeed. Blocking users who value their privacy and security, and aren’t willing to sell out for Ars’ benefit is going to cost them dearly. Without users, after all, there’s noone to sell out to advertisers (and that’s essentially what ad-supported sites do, after all). Being confrontational with their users isn’t going to get them anywhere. They need to listen to the concerns of their users and address them – with more than just a snide dismissal.

As far as OSX goes, everything works great.

The new annoyance came when attempting to setup dual-booting. For some reason I don’t entirely understand, my iMac refuses to boot from any Windows installation disc. The initial Bootcamp setup works fine – resizing the HFS+ partition, creating the partition for WIndows to be installed to, and rebooting. No problems.

Insert the WIndows disc, the machine boots, and I’m left at a black text-mode screen, with a flashing cursor in the upper left. I’ve let it sit for several hours here with no change, so it’s not just “going slow” through the installer.

I’ve tried several Windows CDs, XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista32, Vista64, Win7 RC, Win7 32, Win7 64 – all produce exactly the same behavior.

Over on the Apple discussion boards, other folks have run into this problem as well. Some had success after zapping PRAM several times at various stages of the process. Others reported success after thoroughly wiping the drive, or removing all hardware except a keyboard and mouse. None of these things have worked for me.

So, I’ve pretty much given up for the moment, and just run my iMac in OSX. It means a bit less gaming on the iMac – and thus a bit more on the 360/PS3. Fine by me for now since WoW runs great on OSX, and there’s several good games out currently for the consoles that I’ve been itching to play.

Regardless, it’s a problem I’d *really* like to get fixed soon. Apple of course provides no support for Bootcamp beyond providing the partitioner and Windows drivers, so it’s not something I can drop in their hands. It feels like some sort of BIOS/firmware issue – but of course there’s no downloadable firmware available for my particular model of iMac.

Still searching…

As it stands, if the internal disk in an iMac goes (and it will…), and you’re under Applecare, there’s a good chance you’ll be without the machine for at least a week.

I’ve read the disassembly guides, and I’ve done complex teardowns before. This one honestly isn’t too bad. I have a compatible (identical, actually) drive I’m currently booting in an external enclosure. I have the tools necessary to get it open. , The entire process would probably take me a half hour. A little longer if I’m *really* being careful.

However, Apple Support can’t give me a straight answer as to whether doing so (as it involves opening the machine) would void the remaining two years of Applecare on the entire machine. The new drive I could understand not being covered – that’s perfectly reasonable – but to lose coverage on the LCD, PSU, or motherboard?

The only “safe” option to preserve the warranty is to hand the machine off to Apple for however long they feel necessary to perform the drive replacement. Logic board replacement was a week. If they want that long for a HDD, it would seem fairly excessive to me.

This entire scenario would be unnecessary had Apple recognized that replacing the HDD is something that’s bound to be required, and somehting the end-user should be able to do easily. Just put it under an access panel, and be done with it.

They’ve always done something…weird…to scrolling. I’m not really sure how to describe it – it’s almost like you’re scrolling in jello – like there’s a bit of lag between when you move the wheel and when the page actually scrolls. And when it does scroll, it either scrolls a little further than you expected, or a little less.

The movement of the mouse feels similar, although the effect is much less pronounced.

Neither of these issues affects the mouse until you install Logitech’s drivers. Under the stock drivers, the mouse “feels” just fine. You just can’t map all of the buttons, and can’t configure the “microgear” scroll wheel to do anything but switch back and forth from free-wheel mode.

It’s been a pain, but I’ve been managing. Until now.

I was alerted to a third party driver called “SteerMouse“. I believe the language that was used was:

“It makes the MX Revolution work like it should – this is what Logitech’s Control Center should be.”

That’s high praise. I decided to check it out.

Holy crap. They’re right. It works perfectly. There’s no lag. Scrolling feels right. The scrollwheel not only functions as the middle mouse button (a big deal for us former linux geeks), but auto-switches to free-wheel mode when you give it a hard flick.

That little tiny button just over the scroll wheel? It’s mappable. As are all of the buttons. Every single one.

It’s like using a completely different mouse. One that’s worth the price I paid. One that works the way it said it would on the box.

The UI is a little rough, but certainly usable. To see which logical button a physical button maps to, you hover over the big mouse graphic and press it. The entry for the button gets highlighted, and you choose what you want it to do.

The other tabs allow you to customize how the scroll wheel works (“Acceleration scroll” seems to be the one to use with the MX to make the free-wheel-on-demand work), how tilt-scrolling works, and whether you want the cursor to auto-move to the default button in dialog boxes (I find this annoying, so I turned it off).

I’m so impressed, I’m going to add my own quotable soundbyte:

SteerMouse makes the MX Revolution work as advertised under Mac OSX.

Logitech needs to hire these people.

Yesterday, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS – essentially a hardware speed-boost to last year’s iPhone 3G. More memory, faster processor, better battery life, better camera, video, digital compass, etc… Overall a damn nice looking piece of kit, and a decent, if incremental, upgrade to the existing iPhone 3G.

Also announced was iPhone OS 3.0 – with such features as tethering (IE: using your phone’s ‘net connection to give your computer ‘net access via USB or bluetooth), MMS messaging (multimedia), and more.

AT&T won’t be supporting MMS at launch. Why not? Because they need to manually remove a *block* they put in place to prevent folks who got early copies of 3.0 from using it. That’s right – they intentionally crippled MMS for beta users, and now *all* users have to wait until they get around to re-enabling it.

AT&T was also not amongst the list of carriers supporting tethering (a feature I would get a bit of use out of). It’s been rumored that they will eventually support tethering, but may charge $70/month for it. That’s of course on top of the normal data plan, and the SMS plan, and nearly doubles the monthly price for folks who want to use it. Can you say “gouge”? I knew you could.

Additionally, unlike last year’s iPhone 3G launch, owners of last year’s model won’t be getting the announced price. Instead, an “early upgrade” (which includes a 2-year contract extension) will cost iPhone 3G users $399 for the 16GB model – double the price for new subscribers. If you’re unlucky enough not to qualify for an “early upgrade”, AT&T will charge you $599 for the same phone.

All of this is due to subsidies. The original iPhone wasn’t subsidized at all. The 3G was. So, AT&T’s subsidized phone policy comes into play, which only allows the full discount after 18 months. For example, based on my AT&T account’s page, they will declare me “eligible” for full upgrade pricing ($199) in December. That’s 6 months into the 3GS’ release – or in terms of a yearly hardware cycle, half it’s lifespan. And, were I to upgrade then, I would need to completely miss next year’s hardware upgrade, as I wouldn’t “qualify” for another full year.

What’s even more telling is that cancelling your account and eating the early termination fee ($130), then purchasing an iPhone 3GS as a now-new-customer is *cheaper* by about $70 for existing iPhone 3G owners.

This. Is. Stupid.

AT&T’s 18-month “upgrade” eligibility terms simply don’t mesh with Apple’s yearly hardware refreshes. It’s the flagship phone in AT&T’s fleet, and they’re treating customers like dirt. They’re costing Apple money, in the form of folks like me, who would have considered an upgrade, but now won’t due to AT&T’s terms.

It’s also been rumored that AT&T is right now in negotiations to extend its exclusivity agreement on the iPhone, which ends next year. I can’t imagine that making their existing customers upset is helping their position much.

Apple’s put out the goods. AT&T is failing them. It’s time for Apple to jump ship and find a new partner. In all actuality, finding 2-3 partners would be better. Competition tends to keep companies honest, and puts providing *service* to *customers* at the forefront. That’s likely what needs to happen to pull AT&Ts head out of its behind.

In short – why I won’t be upgrading:

• AT&T won’t support tethering, and may charge outrageous fees for it once they do get around to it
• AT&T won’t support MMS (until they get around to it)
• AT&T treats existing customers like dirt, makes it more affordable to stop being a customer, eat an early termination fee, then re-sign than to simply re-sign.
• Current experience with AT&T’s coverage, particularly 3G, is spotty at best, fails at worst.
• AT&T still charges me double to text my wife, who is on the same family plan. Calling her is free, texting costs 2 texts per message – one for me sending, the other for her receiving.

You’ll note nothing in there deals with Apple’s hardware. While there are things I’d like to have seen (forward-facing camera for video-calling, 4MP or better camera, etc…), it’s a solid upgrade all around, and one I’d likely have been willing to pay for, had AT&T not killed my interest by choosing not to support features I’d use, crippling others, and punishing me because I chose to buy their upgrade last year.

At this point, I’ll wait out this next year (as well as my contract), and perhaps jump ship to a competitor when the exclusivity runs out. I hear Verizon’s coverage around here is pretty good, and their 3G works well. I bet they’ll be willing to cut me a deal too.

They’ve added an Opera/Chrome-alike “top sites” page, which replaces the default “home” page. I like the concept, but there’s things I’d like to be able to do – ought to be able to do.

Right now the only way to add a site to the page is to go into Edit mode (click the “Edit” button on the lower left), and keep clicking the “X” on an entry, allowing a new one to show up. Then you have to keep clicking an “X” until the one you want shows up.

I should be able to drag links onto this page – either from their tabs or from hyperlinks on another page – and have them placed.

Update: Opening Bookmarks in a separate window, then dragging from that window *does* work, however, so there’s at least that much.

In Edit mode, you can drag pages around the grid. This is good, but I should also, outside of Edit mode, be able to drag a page off the grid and have it come into a new window.

It would be nice to be able to hold Option and get the “X”/”Pin” control buttons outside of Edit mode, in a similar manner to Dashboard widgets.

As for the new “Top tabs”, I’m not sure I like it. It’s yet another diversion from UI standards. The only way to drag a tab around is by something that looks like a resize handle in the upper right – which doesn’t actually resize anything, it just gives you the same drag options you used to get anywhere on the tab itself. I understand they did this because otherwise how’d you drag the whole window about? Still, it’s annoying.

The un-removable “New Tab” button, which now occupies the upper-right hand corner of the window is another annoyance. This is the location that *should* contain the “Hide Toolbar” button. Cmd-T for new tab is ingrained in me, and very natural. I don’t need an omnipresent button for this function. Cmd-| (which hides/unhides the toolbar) is *not* automatic or ingrained. Admittedly it’s not something I use often, but the button to do it is on nearly every other window in OSX. Safari should be no different.

The biggest upshot of this for me is only haveing to find room for one contact list on my screen.