One would argue, successfully, that google must absolutely not be evil, since these very words where immortalized in it’s IPO. However, such reasoning would have one flaw:

They have shareholders now.

Perhaps when google started out, it truly was guided by wonderful guidelines like that, many companies do. Personally, I always strive to be as honest and transparent as possible, but as a private person, I can do that. A publicly traded company like google cannot. It has shareholders. Shareholders are in it for one thing only: making a profit, and as much as possible of that profit. There is no “for the greater good of mankind” in stocks.

Now, a lot of you will grab a torch and pitchfork, (There is an app for that) and demand proof.

Okay, here are some examples that I plucked from a number of users at app.net (commonly known as ADN by it’s users):

Now, we all know google+ is google’s third or something attempt at building a social network. Personally, all I hear or see about it is messages on Facebook or ADN saying: I created a google+ account for some reason. Followed by a message a month or so later: I deleted my google+ account.

But seriously, forcing people to create an account there, and deleting their stuff on other sections of the platform if you delete the account? That is pretty evil. It is safe to say that google’s latest attempt to do something akin to a social network is failing too. Most accounts are idle, and those that are not are few and far between. All I hear is that there is zero interaction and zero community feeling. (Something that comes by the bucketload on app.net)

What is next? My google enterprise (which just got a very unexpected, inconsiderate, and hefty price increase) account will get whipped out if I don’t want to use a google+ account?

Google, even more then apple, is the most rampant example of vendor lock-in I have witnessed in the industry so far. An apple device without iCloud will function just fine. An android device? Not so much.

So, is google evil? Yes, increasingly so. They have no choice, their shareholders demand that of them. You see an almost similar thing happening at apple after Jobs, Jobs was fascinatingly good at keeping shareholders at bay, in order to build a monumentally good product ecosystem. He just about got away with everything, simply because the figures showed he was right. Now, you slowly see shareholders demands for higher profits creep in in the little things. And this is worrying. Shareholders don’t know what makes a company like that successful, and they should not get too much say in the development processes. Companies like apple and google need a Jobs who can stick to his core principles and damned the consequences. Shareholders – despite what they might say – do not have the best interest of the company, it’s products, it’s customers at heart. It’s all about how much profit they can make. And if that is by dissolving the company, they will do that in a heartbeat.

Now, as a dutch person, I am blissfully oblivious to the Super Bowl, but one thing I do know is:

Super Bowl ads do not come cheap

So, Samsung thinks people are wrong for being dedicated to a certain brand other then theirs (Apple, no surprises so far). And wants to use advertising to ‘convert’ such people to purchasing the ‘right’ choice. (their product). Nothing shocking so far.

So, they have spent millions ( from what I’ve learned, Super Bowl Ads really do not come cheap) on an ad, in which they alienate their prospective customers, by – basically – calling them idiots. Now, I am not one to complain when a big corporation pisses away it’s money. But seriously. Did you even pay attention in marketing school? Never, ever, ever, piss of people you want as your customer.

For people who buy Apple stuff, your products are probably just not interesting enough. From my own personal experience with Samsung: apple hardware is a hell of a lot better quality. If I spend money, I don’t mind spending more money, if I get a better product. Apple delivers. Every damn time.

Not that I would personally stand in line for it.

- it’s got no separation for users

Separation for users, while a common thing on computers, including OS X, is very uncommon on phones and tablets. On phones like the iPhone this is entirely justifiable because phones in general have only one intended user. It’s a PIM, or personal information device. Computers are very much the opposite, where more then one users frequently accesses the same computer both in a work or a home setting.

Enter the tablet. The tablet seems to fit right between those two groups, but one thing is for sure: a tablet is often shared amongst people in a household.

Now comes the issue of user separation: my girlfriend and I both have email accounts, Facebook and twitter accounts, etc, that we would like to access on a tablet we would share. We also both have iPhone’s and Mac’s. But neither of us has any interest or business in the other’s email or Facebook, and the mentioned apps are not build to support more then one user for the most part, anyway.

Now, one might argue that we could just choose not to use email, Facebook, twitter, and what not, on the tablet, and this is possible. However, how much sense does it make to purchase a device for about € 499, and then be utterly limited in it’s use? And no, buying two would simply be wasteful.

So, one seemingly innocent feature, would probably open up a whole new piece of the market. I know it would for us. I imagine tablet manufacturers would much rather sell everyone in the household his or her own tablet. But in cases like this it’s not about making the most money, but just doing what’s right. You’re probably not going to loose sales over it. Some households will still buy more then one tablet, simply because the demand is high enough to justify such a purchase.

Apple has used the following text on more then one occasion, and I think it sums up Steve Jobs like few other texts could:

Here’s to the crazy one. The misfit. The rebel. The troublemaker. The round peg in the square holes. The one who see things differently. He was not fond of rules. And he had no respect for the status quo. You can quote him, disagree with him, glorify or vilify him. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore him. Because he changed things. He pushed the human race forward. And while some may see him as the crazy one, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

- Apple Inc.

my friend Marjolein also sums it up quite beautifully in her blogpost.

Another reason I like OS X as much as I do, is because literally anything can be done from the command-line, something a Unix nerd like myself thoroughly loves to do. But, OS X has advanced features like Access Control Lists and all that fancy stuff, so sometimes I can be a bit of a learn to find out how exactly OS X does things compared to other members of the Unix family.

Now, I mentioned ACL’s, when you do something rather simple like ‘ls -la on /Groups’, you get this:

server:Groups username$ ls -la
total 0
drwxr-xr-x+  6 root  wheel   204 Aug  7 21:57 .
drwxr-xr-x  33 root  wheel  1190 Aug 17 09:29 ..
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     0 Jul 27 21:29 .localized
drwxrwx---+  5 root  admin   170 Aug 13 12:37 group1
drwxrwx---+  2 root  admin    68 Aug  7 21:57 group2
drwxrwx---+  2 root  admin    68 Jul 27 21:47 workgroup

which is nice enough, but what if I wanted to see the real permissions, including the ACL’s? There’s a switch for that:

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ls -lae

Wich produces the following output:

total 0
drwxr-xr-x+  6 root  wheel   204 Aug  7 21:57 .
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxr-xr-x  33 root  wheel  1190 Aug 17 09:29 ..
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     0 Jul 27 21:29 .localized
drwxrwx---+  5 root  admin   170 Aug 13 12:37 group1
 0: group:group1 allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwx---+  2 root  admin    68 Aug  7 21:57 group2
 0: group:group2 allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwx---+  2 root  admin    68 Jul 27 21:47 workgroup
 0: 839AE424-BBF3-442E-BAD6-C8B5E8B596F5 allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit

It might be a bit daunting to read through, but heck if it does’t show you exactly what you need to see. It’s really easy seeing ACL’s on Mac OS X with ls!

In case you’re wondering, the ’839AE424-BBF3-442E-BAD6-C8B5E8B596F5′ part corresponds to a UserID in OpenDirectory/LDAP.

There are a couple of things you have to pay attention to, in order to get this going on RHEL 6. (and I suppose many other Linux distro’s)

Phase 1 – get the source and compile it

get the source tarball here (note: this might not be the current version anymore!) and download it to /usr/local/src

• unpack it with tar -zvxf daemontools-0.76.tar.gz and cd into admin/daemontools-0.76.
• edit src/conf-cc and add ‘-include /usr/include/errno.h’ at the end of the line. (anywhere is fine, really)
• run package/install

this should give you the needed files in /command and an existing /service

Phase 2 – fixing startup

Daemontools requires a somewhat different approach to starting up then you might be used to. ( the most common way being /etc/init.d/<name>, and using chkconfig to influence when it starts). Daemontools should be started on boot, and init must be told to restart it when it dies. This ensures continued operation. The installer you ran in phase 1, took care of this by adding a line in /etc/inittab, but that’s an old method, and for the sake of continued operation (and working straight away) we’ll use the new method:

• Remove the added line from /etc/inittab.
• cd /etc/init
• create a new file called svscan.conf, and put the following contents in:

start on runlevel [345]
respawn
exec /command/svscanboot

now, tell init, it should re-read it’s configuration, and then start svscanboot:

• initctl reload-configuration
• initctl start svscan

if you check now, you should see a happily running svscan, and daemontools is ready to kick some:

2676 ?        Ss     0:00 /bin/sh /command/svscanboot
2678 ?        S      0:00  \_ svscan /service

Enjoy! I hope this little post was helpful.

I encourage everyone to join in.

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int getRandomNumber()
{
    return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. guaranteed to be random.
}

for people who don’t understand what this means: this is how Sony’s PS3 got hacked.

Last month, Kirsteen and I travelled to Glasgow on a family and friends visiting trip.

I absolutely loved it. Though we did find the hotel lacking. Not worth what they charge. Though the breakfast at the Park Inn ( previously: Langs ) was very nice indeed.

I look forward to going back to Glasgow soon.