It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict how new or updated programs will run on users’ computers. Third-party software, particularly security software, is making profound changes to the operating system, creating a constantly-changing digital environment. As a result, manufacturer accountability and due diligence are much less meaningful concepts than they used to be.

Releasing new software updates is a scary process nowadays. Even if you’ve tested everything on all the hardware, operating system and software configurations you can think of, you just know what’s going to happen: Within an hour of the release, six users on hotmail and gmail accounts with names like kilroywzhr779 are going to write you urgent and angry messages saying that your program, Windows or both are doing something radically weird. File output is taking two hours, bizarre error messages are jumping off the screen like popcorn, the program and/or Windows are crashing, and so on.

Looking at the messages, your initial response is always to think you’re in the wrong movie. You tested it, just know that there’s no way your program could be doing this…
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Paul Potts is a Welsh cellphone salesman who has always dreamed of being an opera singer. Apart from a few private lessons and amateur appearances he had never performed publicly before appearing on a TV talent show in England. Judge for yourself — this man is a living miracle. I’ve not heard anything like this since Callas…

Clip no. 1

Clip no. 2

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The iPhone’s version of Safari will probably not support Flash. Pundits trying to explain this are coming up with many complex conspiracy theories, but the real reason is probably much simpler: Battery Life. Flash is a processor-intensive technology (just watch the processor load on your computer jump when you open a Flash site!) and supporting Flash could significantly cut battery life if users spend a lot of time viewing Flash sites and Flash videos. After all their travails with iPod batteries, reports about short battery life on the iPhone are definitely not something Apple wants in the first months after the launch.

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There’s a lot of speculation going on regarding why Apple has introduced Safari for Windows — for example to get more Google ad revenue, as a platform for Windows developers who want to build iPhone apps and so on. One interesting point is that WinSafari doesn’t appear to be using normal Windows technology; in many ways it looks, feels and behaves like an OS X program, much more so than iTunes for Windows. If it’s built with a new class library created by Apple specifically to emulate the Apple look and feel on Windows this could have some interesting ramifications.

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