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Sometimes it’s not the software that’s crappy. Rather, it’s the humans that attack that software that are filled with crap.

Three weeks ago, crappy humans attacked screensite.org, the site we put together to assist film/TV students and teachers. They used a vulnerability in PHP-Nuke (on which ScreenSite was built) to hack in and then defaced the entire site with drivel. I had known PHP-Nuke was open to attacks, but I had not had time to patch it.

And yesterday, some crappy human attacked the guest book on Blog Ian, which is built on J.A.G. (Just Another Guestbook). This jerk (actually probably a robot employed by jerks) posted links to Cialis and Viagra sites. When I locked the guest book and ostensibly made it read-only, the crappy human still found a way to hack in and post his/her crap. So, evidently there’s a security hole in J.A.G. that permits spamming. I guess this is not surprising since J.A.G. has not been updated in three years, but, still, it’s disappointing that crappy humans would take advantage of its vulnerabilities.

These hacks of PHP-Nuke and J.A.G. raise a larger issue: are PHP and MySQL — on which both of them are based — inherently insecure platforms for Web-application development?

It seems like every LAMP application I’ve used has required security-based patching — often quite urgently. Most recently, I read that Coppermine had a big hole in it that needed filling. It is discouraging me from developing applications on my own in PHP/MySQL. If major applications, with large programming teams, fall prey to such hacks, what chance do I have to make a secure application?

It’s a sobering thought.

Anyone who’s bought a new computer recently knows that it comes preloaded with all manner of crap you do not need or want: ISP software from AOL/Earthlink, MSN/Hotmail solicitations, “support” software that pitches useless extended warranties, anti-virus software that stops updating after six months, buggy DVD players, “trial” or “lite” applications that are crippled and/or expire in 30 days, and on and on.

This was on my mind because I recently bought a new Dell desktop. In general, I’m pleased with it (for one thing, it’s phenomenally quiet), but it did come with typical preloaded crap and I’ve been removing crappy apps one at a time. I could have saved myself the trouble, however, if I’d earlier discovered Jason York’s “Dell De-Crapifier”:

http://www.yorkspace.com/2006/04/38

Its sole purpose is to remove preloaded crap from Dell machines.

Great idea!

This is a story about two crappy pieces of software: Microsoft Internet Explorer and PHP/SWF Slideshow.

In the spring of 2006, MS IE changed the way it handles so-called “Active Content” such as embedded QuickTime movies and Flash animations. Ostensibly it was “forced” to do so after losing a patent lawsuit. How convenient that it screwed up the movies/animations of its competitors, but not its own stuff.

Now, the interactive aspects (links, navigation buttons, etc.) of such content do not initially work and the user is presented with the prompt to:

“Click to activate and use this control.”

This problem is explained in gory detail by Adobe/Macromedia, one of the companies greatly affected by the change. And Microsoft has published a workaround for it, but it’s very awkward.

Okay, so this is pretty annoying, but the situation gets crappier.

I searched the Web recently for a little slideshow application that I could insert into the TCF Website in order to display new stuff entered into the archives. I found what I thought was the perfect solution: PHP/SWF Slideshow. It hooks right into PHP/MySQL and displays images in cool ways–with dissolves and wipes and even one animation that appears to be dropping into the frame. Nice.

But not free. Generally, I prefer open-source software for things like this, but this app seems so perfect that I asked my department chair for the $45 to buy it. Only after purchasing it did I discover it was bitten by this IE bug. I emailed them to ask when they were going to update their software to deal with it.

Their reply, in entirety:

Sorry, we’re not implementing the workaround at this time. This is currently left up to individual users.

We’re joining companies like google to recommend the switch to other browsers.

Oh. I see. So, this application will only work with Web browsers used by 13% of Web users. The remaining 87% will not be able to use it.

And that is some pretty crappy software.

P.S. Nowhere on their site do they explain that their app only works for 13% of Web users.

(It’s not always software that’s crappy, sometimes hardware ranks high on the craposity scale, too.)

It didn’t seem right to me that the audio of a $700 camcorder would be superior to that of one that cost over twice as much. So, I went search for help.

I asked all my video/film-maker friends and they could give me no definitive answer. I finally broke down and shipped the camera to a certified Panasonic repair house, K&M Electronics in Atlanta.

I must say they were very prompt in responding, even thought they were less than helpful. They called me a few days later to say that they could not replicate my problem. They input audio at -10dB and it recorded perfectly at -10dB. They also dismissed my homegrown tests as meaning nothing.

Thus, according to Panasonic’s official repair dudes, this camera is operating perfectly.

Talk about aggravating!

I took my issue to the forums at creativecow.net. An individual there responded with the following:

Unfortunately, your particular camera is simply a right royal pain in the neck to operate.

One of this camera’s known weakesses is that there are no audio knobs, just a stinkin’ menu. You need audio knobs and a meter to set levels properly. I don’t know about the meter, but I do know this particular camera has no knobs.

If you plan to do any serious shooting — and you plan to use the audio — and you don’t want spend all day setting levels, you might want to think about a different camera. This thing’s gonna drag you down.

If you have any acquaintances who have oohed and aahed over it, see if you can sell it to them, bite the bullet, and get what you need. Don’t sell it to a friend, because they know where you live.

Great. I’m stuck with an expensive camera with crappy sound that I should unload on a complete stranger and then leave town.

About a year ago I applied some of my textbook royalty money toward an expensive mini-DV camcorder, the Panasonic AG-DVC30. The image is great, but the sound level has been very low and it’s been this way since the first day I used it.

Recently, I made a more “scientific” study of the sound levels. I set up a standard color bars & tone in Premiere, positioned the camera about 10 feet from the speakers and then tried various mic settings. I imported them into Premiere and looked at them with an audio meter. ‘Course, this does not relate to any objective scale, but the relative levels are perhaps significant. And I did set the loudness of the tone so that it was roughly equivalent to humans talking.

When I use the built-in mic and the default settings, I get a reading of

-30 dB

Which seems very low to my ear. When I attach an external (shotgun) mic and connect the cable to the “mic” input, I get the same thing:

-30dB

However, when I attach the external mic to the “AV in/out” setting (which, I know, is not supposed to be used for mic recordings, but I’ve been forced to use it in order to get audible levels), the level jumps up to:

-6dB

But if I shoot the same thing using a modest, consumer-grade Canon camcorder in exactly the same location, I get:

-12 dB

Which sounds “normal” to my ear.

When I first got the camera, I tried all sorts of shenangans to raise the audio level and posted pleas for help on various support boards. Nothing ever came of it. Now the warranty is running out (has already run out?) and the issue is bugging me again.

Okay, so I just acquired my FIRST iPod ep of The Office.

I was prepared for its itty-bitty image, but what I didn’t expect is that it’s presented in the wrong aspect ratio!

Ipods default to a display of 320×240, I’ve come to realize, which is our old pal 4×3. Since The Office is TV-widescreen, it should be letterboxed–even on the iPod–to a height of 180, because 320×180 = 1.78×1. But it’s not! It’s 320×192, or 1.67×1.

I guess Apple figured it needed to fill as much of the height of the itty-bitty screen as possible, but the result is that everyone is just a little squeezed:

when they should look like this:

I suppose the actors don’t mind looking a little thinner… but sheesh!

Okay, I’ve dealt with a lot of crappy software, but, to my knowledge, nothing I’ve used has killed anyone. The same cannot be said about “History’s Worst Software Bugs,” as compiled by Wired.

The article begins with a reminder of where the term “software bug” comes from:

…in 1947 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark 1 system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer’s logbook with the words: “first actual case of a bug being found.”

And it goes on to discuss the following incidents:

1. July 28, 1962 — Mariner I space probe.
2. 1982 — Soviet gas pipeline.
3. 1985-1987 — Therac-25 medical accelerator.
4. 1988 — Buffer overflow in Berkeley Unix finger daemon.
5. 1988-1996 — Kerberos Random Number Generator.
6. January 15, 1990 — AT&T Network Outage.
7. 1993 — Intel Pentium floating point divide.
8. 1995/1996 — The Ping of Death.
9. June 4, 1996 — Ariane 5 Flight 501.
10. November 2000 — National Cancer Institute, Panama City. In

Yeesh, that’s some crappy software!

I will allow this much:

Networking Windows computers has gotten much easier. Anyone who tried to network Windows 3 computers together will testify that it was a complete nightmare. The batch files! The weird drivers! The frequent re-boots. Yuk.

So, Windows XP is a freakin’ cakewalk in comparison. But it’s still crap.

One aspect of it that annoys and mystifies me is the “Error Copying File or Folder” error message that I frequently get when trying to transfer files across a LAN. It goes like this:

“Cannot copy [filename here]: Access is denied.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.”

Often this occurs on a network that has previously been quite happy to transfer files. Then it suddenly decides not to.

Of course, this error message is wholly useless as (1) the disk is not full or write-protected and (2) the file is not currently in use. And if you Google this error message or go to Microsoft’s so-called “Knowledge” Base you’ll find that numerous users have this problem and that there is no one, reliable solution.

Or wait, there is one solution:

Acknowledge that Windows networking is still crap, get a flash drive, put the files on it and carry it from one computer to the next.

I had long detested Adobe’s PDF files and the Acrobat reader. It was, and largely remains, a big, bloated, cumbersome program that tied up your Web browser and took too long to load.

But it’s a necessary evil if you want to present material, especially print material, in a very specific format — as one must for things like consistent pagination. And Adobe has significantly improved it over the years. The way one navigates through the pages, in particular, is much more intuitive than it used to be.

But it still ties up your Web browser and is slow to load. However, one can speed up its load times if you eliminate a lot of its plug-ins. I found instructions on how to do so in an Inquirer article:

1. From the Start->Run windows menu, Open the “x:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Reader” folder, where x is the right drive letter.
2. Find the plug_ins folder and rename it plug_ins_disabled
3. Create a new folder named plug_ins
4. Copy the following files from “plug_ins_disabled” to “plug_ins”: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

These directions are specifically for Adobe Reader 6, but I’ve just applied them to version 5 and they appear to work. So far. One difference is that 5 does not appear to have the printme.api file. And the plug_ins folder is (on Windows XP):

C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 5.0AcrobatPlug_ins

The reason I’m still using version 5 is because Adobe “in order to serve you better” (which may be the title of my next blog) removed the OCR function from version 6. (Or was it initially removed in version 5 and then restored later? Something like that.) That is, in the pro, commercial version of Acrobat 5 one was able to take a PDF and run OCR over it to convert it to a text document. The OCR wasn’t the greatest, most accurate in the world, but it worked. Then Adobe disabled that and forced you to use their crappy online system for OCR.

Ugh.

So even though Acrobat Reader is up to version 7 now, I’m still chugging along with 5 because it is less crappy software.

I recently made the mistake of subscribing to AOL. There was a good reason for it. Honest! I needed free dial-up service for a couple of weeks while on vacation in New York and my cable-based home ISP (Comcast) does not provide a dial-up option.

‘Course, I knew that I was risking having AOL insert software so deeply into my system that I’d never get it out, but it was that or go without Internet service for a week. (Unthinkable!) And, yes, AOL did bulk up my system with tons of its crappy software, but later I was able to crowbar most of it out. What I did not expect is that they would pull some very sneaky shit when I canceled the service.

Short version: I called to cancel. The operator said she would and then she continued my subscription. I sent them a sharply worded letter of complaint, which I append below.

So, I was particularly interested when, today, an article appeared in Slashdot titled, “AOL Fined for Making it Hard to Cancel Service.” It refers to ZDnet coverage of a recent court decision: “AOL agrees to customer service reform.” Indeed! Well, about time, I say.

I noted, in particular, this part of the article:

In addition to paying New York state $1.25 million in penalties and costs, AOL will also reimburse eligible New York consumers with a cash refund worth up to four months of service. Those consumers will have 120 days from Wednesday to fill out and submit a claim form necessary to collect their reimbursement.

Hey! I used AOL while in NY! Maybe I qualify! I think I’ll file the form for a refund. Even if I don’t get it, it’ll still make AOL go through some extra paperwork.

The slimy bastids.

—- my letter to AOL —-

I am very angry with how you have handled the cancellation of my AOL subscription.

I phoned on 16 July with the sole intent of canceling my subscription. I was annoyed to start with that I had to go through your phone system in order to cancel instead of simply filling in a form online. Then I was further annoyed by the AOL operator badgering me with sales pitches trying to convince me to stay with AOL.

I was fed up with your crummy service and just wanted to cancel. Finally, after spending 10 or 15 minutes on something that should have taken 2, the operator accepted my cancellation.

Then, today, I was astonished to receive mail from you that told me I had not canceled my account, that instead this note “confirmed” my continued service. And, it told me, if I wanted to cancel my account I’d have to take the trouble to fill out a form and mail or fax it to you! So now the onus is on me to take action to escape being billed for the substandard service that I already canceled.

Since I was so explicit with the AOL operator in my wishes to cancel, I can’t help but think that this letter is a deceptive ploy you use. I would not be surprised if everyone calling to cancel was sent a letter denying their cancellation. How many people would read the confirmation note carefully enough to see that it confirmed the opposite of what they wished to do? And what if they don’’t return the Cancel Request Form quickly enough to avoid being billed for AOL service they thought they had canceled? It’’s outrageous.

Once I figure out which Better Business Bureau oversees where AOL is based, I will be filing a complaint about your deceptive practices. And I will be advising my family and friends, and anyone else I know who suffers from using your service, to cancel their AOL accounts as soon as possible.

23 June 2006 Update:

AOL is still slime. And they were recently caught on tape sliming a customer who wanted to cancel his account. CNBC did a story on it and included video of the phone call.

Oh, and AOL informed me recently that I did not qualify for their settlement.

—- http://www.nbc10.com/news/9406462/detail.html —-

“On Tape: Rep Won’t Let Customer Quit AOL”

POSTED: 4:11 pm EDT June 21, 2006
UPDATED: 11:29 am EDT June 22, 2006

An incredible video from CNBC shows an AOL customer trying to cancel his account, but a phone rep won’t let him do it. What customer Vincent Ferrari got when he tried to cancel his account was a lot of frustration.

It took him 15 minutes waiting on the phone just to reach a real, live person.

And, what happened next was recorded by Ferrari on audio and lasted about four minutes:

CLOCK READOUT – 00:00

AOL REPRESENTATIVE: Hi this is John at AOL… how may I help you today?

VINCENT FERRARI: I wanted to cancel my account.

AOL: : Sorry to hear that. Let’s pull your account up here real quick. Can I have your name please?

VINCENT: Vincent Ferrari.

CLOCK READOUT – 00:30

AOL: : You’ve had this account for a long time.

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: : Use this quite a bit. What was the cause of wanting to turn this off today?

VINCENT: I just don’t use it anymore.

AOL: : Do you have a high speed connection, like the DSL or cable?

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: : How long have you had that…

VINCENT: Years…

AOL: : …the high speed?

VINCENT: …years.

AOL: : Well, actually I’m showing a lot of usage on this account.

VINCENT: Yeah, a long time, a long time ago, not recently…

CLOCK READOUT – 01:47

AOL: : Okay, I mean is there a problem with the software itself?

VINCENT: No. I just don’t use it, I don’t need it, I don’t want it. I just don’t need it anymore.

AOL: : Okay. So when you use this… I mean, use the computer, I’m saying, is that for business or for… for school?

VINCENT: Dude, what difference does it make. I don’t want the AOL account anymore. Can we please cancel it?

CLOCK READOUT – 02:21

AOL: : Last year was 545, last month was 545 hours of usage…

VINCENT: I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so I’m just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: : Well explain to me what’s, why…

VINCENT: I’m not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, what’s the matter man? We’re just, I’m just trying to help here.

VINCENT: You’re not helping me. You’re helping me…

AOL: I am trying to help.

VINCENT: Helping… listen, I called to cancel the account. Helping me would be canceling the account. Please help me and cancel the account.

AOL: No, it wouldn’t actually…

VINCENT: Cancel my account…

AOL: : Turning off your account…

VINCENT: …cancel the account…

AOL: : …would be the worst thing that…

VINCENT: …cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:02

AOL: Okay, cause I’m just trying to figure out…

VINCENT: Cancel the account. I don’t know how to make this any clearer for you. Cancel the account. When I say cancel the account, I don’t mean help me figure out how to keep it, I mean cancel the account.

AOL: : Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what anybody’s done to you Vincent because all I’m…

VINCENT: Will you please cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:32

AOL: : Alright, some day when you calmed down you’re gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you… and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.

VINCENT: Wonderful, Okay.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:39

“I’ve never ever experienced anything like that,” Ferrari told CNBC.

He recounts how the AOL representative – as a last resort even asked if his dad was home.

“I think I could’ve put up with everything, but at the point when he asked to speak to my father, I came very close to losing it at that point,” said the 30-year-old Ferrari.

Ferrari then posted the call online, and the response was tremendous.

AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company.