Sorry Indeed

This morning, I was alerted to a major retailer's print-at-home coupons. As a general rule I don't use coupons because I can never remember to take them with me when I go to the store. Also, finding coupons online, then printing them out at home to take to the store with you later just seems rather crude and primitive. However, sometimes I'm something of a compulsive clicker, and what can I say? I saw the link, and I went for it. I don't know whether I'm more disappointed as a Linux user or as a person who knows a thing or two about Web development.

First, I was able to bypass the "We're sorry" message with Chrome by spoofing the user agent string for Safari 4 on OS X. That strikes me as shoddy programming, but what on Earth is the "Coupon Print Activator"? Well, apparently, the Coupon Print Activator is a Java applet specifically designed to make downloading and printing coupons more difficult than it has to be. A Java applet. To print images from a site that anyone (with the right browser) can access.

Still, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Target's internal systems are still using software based on some combination of Windows XP/2000 and IE 6.

Of Singing Penguins

I was disappointed last year when Songbird officially stopped supporting Linux. Imagine my surprise this morning when I learned that Songbird now has an app for Android in beta. That's right, the popular Google-built Linux distribution for smartphones gets Songbird, but Ubuntu is out in the cold.

So far, the app works as expected, has been stable, and, in my opinion, it far outstrips the standard Android player, the HTC Sense player, and DoubleTwist in terms of aesthetics.

The Windows vs. Linux Security Debate

I've been reading some of the coverage of Google's supposed move away from Windows in its offices. Mashable reports that the change is due, in part, to security concerns after Chinese hackers were able to compromise some of Google's systems. The initial response to the story seemed to be "Big deal, everyone knows that *nix is more secure than Windows." Microsoft got its feathers ruffled responded, though, and once again the age-old "Microsoft is the most popular OS, so it get attacked the most" argument has risen its head.

The argument goes something like this: Windows security is actually pretty good, but Windows machines are, by far, the most popular desktop computer platform, so hackers concentrate their malicious efforts on it. The argument, at first, seems pretty sound, but it got me wondering how many servers are running Linux. Certainly the number is significant among the world's total computers (according to Steve Ballmer "Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux"). I think it's possible, maybe even likely that the number of discrete desktop systems in the world is higher than the number of servers, but still, that is a huge number. Consider also that the potential payday from successfully hacking a server, which may hold millions of users' sensitive information (rather than just a single user's), and it seems to me that Linux systems probably endure their fair share of malicious attacks.