Which, mind you, still means it plays (if not for sure, then at least for prolly) – and it will sync with a computer running Windows Vista, too. But Zune, absurdly (yet deliberately) enough, was never part of Microsoft’s “playsforsure” platform – which is now getting renamed “Certified for Windows Vista”. For sure.

Says John Gruber:

It’s hard to imagine how Microsoft’s consumer branding could be any worse. Even harder to imagine: what companies like Nokia are thinking releasing new PlaysForSure devices now.

Indeed. Microsoft screwed its “partners” over by making the Zune incompatible. But now, it seems, they don’t even want their own product to succeed either.

Just how is a consumer supposed to understand that a Zune works just fine with Widnows Vista, yet isn’t “certified”, yet they’re supposed to buy it over a product that is? Who at Microsoft created this lovely graphic and didn’t think “wait, that doesn’t make any sense at all!” And when will Nokia, Yahoo! and all finally realize they’re not just sleeping with the devil, but also with an incompetent one?

I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

I was moderately interested in the EeePC, as a low-cost take-it-anywhere kind of laptop I don’t have to be as careful with as my MacBook Pro, since it wouldn’t have much value to begin with.

As it is right now, though, it’s a no-go.

Via reddit comes a blog post on first impressions, and even if you’re okay with the way Asus has been violating the GPL and BSDL, you sure shouldn’t be with this nugget:

The last annoyance about the eee PC is the bright yellow “Warranty void if seal is broken or removed” sticker over the RAM upgrade slot.

No RAM upgrades (or replacements, should a stick ever go faulty), and no use of the PCI Express Mini Card slot (what a mouthful). If at all, only the dealer would handle such upgrades or replacements, and that can get costly fast.

Maybe in the second, third or fourth revision, then. Asus should realize that they’re needlessly tarnishing their reputation here, and whatever they were trying to accomplish is easily outweighed by their behavior.

John Gruber, in a Linked List item:

But if you prefer anti-aliasing even for coding fonts — and in our coming-someday-soon resolution-indepenedent future, we all will — there are a bunch of good options.

Emphasis mine. Isn’t the opposite the case? When was the last time (or the first time, for that matter) that you saw anti-aliasing applied on a printer? Never, probably. And the reason is simple: their resolution (in terms of dot density) is far higher than that of a screen. Text (and line art, for that matter) is rendered at such high detail that aliasing would never be perceivable to the human eye to begin with.

Anti-aliasing as well as subpixel rendering were created primarily as a workaround for relatively low pixel density, not because they were particularly good solutions. And the resolution-independent UI that has been worked towards by Apple as well as other OS vendors is intended primarily to account for a future where screens’ densities finally – after many years of near-stagnancy – will start increasing to 200 pixels per inch and beyond.

Yet, the way I read Gruber’s assertion, he is implying that this will make anti-aliasing more relevant and more useful. It’ll make it more pleasant, but only so because it’ll actually have far less of an effect. So, at the same time, it’ll become less relevant and less useful.

I believe (or hope) that we’ll one day be at the point where anti-aliasing is superseded by having pixels whose aliasing is so subtle and tiny that you can’t make it out, try as you may.

Shaun McCance on Planet GNOME: “Two Mice Are Better Than One”

In an attempt to mitigate the RSI in my right wrist, I’m teaching myself to mouse left-handed.

Yes, and in an attempt to mitigate foot pain, I’ve been walking around the house using my hands.

Say what now? You’re experiencing RSI because you’re using your body parts in uncomfortable manners. If you’re noticing they’re uncomfortable, that’s actually unusually good; the worst kind of RSI is when you’ve gotten so used to the pain you don’t notice it any more.

But how exactly does using the other hand help this problem in any way? You’re not decreasing your unergonomic overuse of input devices at all, nor are you improving how you interact with those devices. All you’re doing is shifting the issue to the other hand, which is even less used to this unhealthy strainful (noticeably or otherwise) experience.

Please. Either RSI is a concern to you (good!), in which case you should decide on one or more of the numerous forms of treatment, even if it’s just a little piece of software that reminds you to take frequent breaks and do brief exercises in between. But a sentence like the above only makes you sound as if you don’t take this disorder’s potential consequences seriously enough. Because, if anything, making your other hand suffer as well is only going to make matters worse.

John Gruber has some thoughts on the second-generation Zunes. In particular:

I wonder what Microsoft’s expectations are. If they’re proud, and if they expect these new Zunes to make a big splash, why not introduce them at a live Apple-style event? If you want to compete with the iPod, you’ve got to compete on all fronts, including press coverage.

Indeed, it’s not looking like they’re eating their own dogfood with these. Last time, they had this big live media event with Gates on it and some celebs (IIRC). They had astroturfing months in advance. They spread out their ads. This time, a press release with a several-hour embargo on it, and that’s it.

I haven’t been able to confirm either of these, but they bear noting:

• Just like the 2G Zune, none of the 2G ones (neither the “80″ nor the “4″ and “8″ nano-competing variants) allow for disk mode, i.e. use as USB mass storage devices. Meaning, you can only access these devices through the Zune Marketplace app, and only to put songs, videos, etc. on – not files. This makes them significantly more “closed” than a typical iPod.
• Some aspects of the UI (such as video playback, I assume) are in landscape format, i.e. rotated 90 degrees. That is, you have to turn your Zune around accordingly based on the part of the UI you’re in in order to view it properly. Which is to say: unlike on the iPhone and iPod touch, there’s no accelerometer, and the UI therefore doesn’t adjust to how you are holding the device, but rather the other way around. Ye-ouch.

Wireless syncing sounds nifty until you realize that:

• since it’s done through WiFi, it’ll cut hugely into battery life
• with wired syncing, you’d be charging the battery, which may in the end occur to you as a little cleverer

And while the restrictions on the “squirting” have apparently been weakened (still three playbacks only, but no longer over a time of three days only), they still apply to non-DRM songs, meaning the Zune still appears to break the Creative Commons license.

I still don’t get what Microsoft is thinking with regard to colors, but their black and darkish red are at least tolerable. Their sandy taupe / olive and their lavender pink, however?

Price-wise, they compete just fine with iPods, but the Zune doesn’t need “fine”; it needs aggressive pricing, which the iPods currently don’t have, as they don’t need to.