Windows 7’s Disingenuous “Advantage”

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Last week, Microsoft announced some details of anti-piracy measures in Windows 7. It sounds like they’re going to be slightly less intrusive than those in Vista, and probably roughly as effective.

I don’t exactly resent all this product validation stuff. I’d prefer it if Microsoft didn’t feel the need to do it; but I accept that the company has a legitimate interest in dissuading casual copying, and to me a one-time online authorisation doesn’t seem an unreasonable way of going about that.

But I do resent all the weasel words and spin that surround the process. (more…)

Stretching the truth by snipping the figures

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Here’s something that winds me up. This is a graph that was published to accompany a high-profile hardware launch last year. I won’t name names, but you can probably guess who produced it and what they were trying to show:

As you can see, across various tests the red bar is three, four, even six times as tall as the green one. But hold on — because that’s not an accurate reflection of relative performance. (more…)

Font smoothing: a not-so-sharp distinction

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

I’m just road-testing Safari 4, and I’ve come across this interesting claim on the What’s New in Safari page:

“Safari now uses Windows standard fonts, but you can choose to use Apple’s crisp anti-aliased fonts if you prefer.”

Now, if you didn’t know any better, wouldn’t you take that to mean that Windows’ fonts aren’t anti-aliased? And that this was a special way in which only Safari could improve your life? Of course, you and I do know better, but… well, the libel laws of this country restrain me from further comment. (more…)