journals

Musings on Malcor

By Nick, November 27, 2007

Note: Earlier this evening, the guys over at MacHeist admitted that Malcor was their doing. This article was written before MacHeist made their admission. While there was some speculation that MacHeist was behind it, I didn’t feel like dragging them into it when I wrote this piece since there was no confirmation that they were indeed behind Malcor at that time. As such, this article assumes that the malcor “hacks” were a PR stunt carried out without MacHeist’s involvement. My opinion has changed since then, but I’m not writing any more about this mess until I’m ready to do so. Please keep this in mind as you read this article. --Ed.

It’s hard to run a tech news site or blog. It’s hard to keep writers motivated, and it’s hard maintaining and growing a readership base. For this reason, I can understand why some Mac sites participated in the Malcor hoax, which Hadley Stern of Apple Matters admitted was a bad PR stunt. I can understand why these sites would take part in an out-of-the-box way to gain publicity. No publicity is bad publicity, as the old saying goes.

That doesn’t mean it’s right, though.

Readers expect those who operate sites—especially ones like Apple Matters—to hold some standard of ethics. When the site operators don’t, well, readers are disappointed and may stop reading the site. So in that case, when you get caught, there is such thing as bad publicity.

Me? I love a good prank as much as anyone, and…
(Continue)

	0	2394
Nick	comments	views

Updated x2: Malcor nothing but a PR stunt??

By Nick, November 27, 2007

Not long after the Malcor hacking controversy became news last week, there have been some rumblings if whether or not these were legitimate hacks or an elaborate PR stunt.

Today we have our answer.

Hadley Stern posted a short article on AppleMatters entitled A Bad PR Stunt where he seemingly admits that Malcor is (surprise!) nothing more than a PR stunt (and I say “Seemingly” because he never actually mentions Malcor in his post).

An excerpt:

I am very sorry to post this publicly but at this point this has gone to far. Apple Matters is a big site, and it runs on Expression Engine, one of the best platforms out there. At this point this joke is begginning to impact other businesses and I cannot let that happen.

Well, so much for that.

UPDATE: According to posts in this thread, Some of the executives for EllisLab, the parent company of ExpressionEngine (the content management system used by Apple Matters, as well as here on Deep Thought) and EngineHosting (Apple Matters’ web host) are not happy. As EllisLab Vice President Leslie Camacho bluntly put it, “EllisLab is not amused. The people responsible for this stunt have been temporarily banned from ExpressionEngine.com until this is worked out. You want to seriously piss us off? Lie about the security of EE and EH in a very public manner.” Later in the thread, Camacho notes that Hadley Stern apologized.

UPDATE 2: EllisLab has posted an official response to the “hacks”.

	1	2419
Nick	comment	views

You’ve Come A Long Way, WordPress

By Jay, November 27, 2007

After using the latest version of WordPress in the last 24 hours I have found it to be something as simple and easy as Apple's OS X.

Anyone who has ever tried to create their own blog knows that there are nearly one hundred different blogging platforms, Content Management Systems (CMS’s), or blog hosts to choose from. This group is comprised of software ranging from commercially licensed programs to open source piles of flaming fecal matter. About a year ago when I set up my first website I chose the open source program WordPress to be the man behind the curtain. About a year ago WordPress should have just given up. The open source blogging platform hosted a million different vulnerabilities to viruses, hackers, and itself. It was so muddled and confusing to install and maintain that Microsoft was probably calling it “son.”

Yesterday I decided to start up my personal blog again, and with this choice I needed to choose the platform to run it on. Browsing through the options that my hosting service offered, I spied WordPress. Now, I am not one to hold grudges, especially with technology. I recognize that software in the CMS world is indefinitely hard to write and program. This is only doubly troubling those open source dev’s who are writing for no profit. Meaning they have smaller amounts of money to pour into the project. After using the latest version of WordPress in the last 24 hours I have found it to be something as simple and easy as Apple’s OS X.

Either WordPress developers are amongst the small group of people who still listen to the consumer, or they all…
(Continue)

	0	1740
	comments	views

Wrong URL…

By Nick, November 25, 2007

If you ended up on this page after clicking a link on this page, you probably want to go here.

	0	2809
Nick	comments	views

It’s our birthday but you can get the gifts

By Nick, November 23, 2007

Deep Thought is celebrating its third birthday! That’s right, it’s been three years ago since a handful of geeks got together and started Deep Thought. Instead of accepting gifts, we’re giving them to three lucky winners!

That’s right, we’re giving away three Mac software bundles to three lucky readers. This year’s giveaway bundles include software from The Omni Group, NewsGator, Flying Meat, and more.

What do you have to do to win? Well, nothing really. Simply visit the entry page, fill out the entry form, and cross your fingers!

Good luck, and thank you for three years of your support!