Paris Hilton, a celebrity because she is a celebrity, has now found the darker side of the fame she so longs for. You see, the more visible you are the more the public will be watching, and because they are watching you will not be afforded any leniency in the actions and responsibilities you have.

For whatever the reason Judge Sauer in the Paris Hilton case specifically wrote “No Home Detention”, “No Electronic Monitoring” and a host of other restrictions on Paris’s sentencing. He was specific and to the point. When Sheriff Lee Boca decide that Paris had had enough jail time and let her go (against specific orders of the Judge) everyone found out that you do not mess with a Judge’s rulings. Upshot, Paris is once again in la Bastille. In this case fame and the public eye have been cast upon this case and no quarter can be cut for the rich, whiny heiress.

The funny thing is if she were less famous she would be out by now because of the ludicrous 10% program the sheriff has. (And people wonder why crime is up, it’s because jail is no longer a deterrent.) But there she is and I do not feel any sympathy for her now. In fact I have to laugh when she whines for her Mommy or cries as she realizes she has done this to herself and has no one to blame but herself. Her public identity has become her worst enemy to the sheer delight of most of the public.

I have to admit I am glad to see she is back in jail, it goes a long way in assuring me and maybe even the public at large that the rich and famous can’t openly flaunt their celebrity by getting away with everything. It is an equalizer that says we can go to jail just like Paris Hilton and there is comfort in that. OK, it is a cold comfort, but at least we are all in this world together.

Then there is the reason to let Paris out… turns out she is in the medical ward of the jail because her “serious medical conditions” (read parishatesjailidous) means she would not do well to being general population. Thus it is costing 10 times as much to house her than the average inmate. But seriously so what? The point is she is in jail and that is her sentence. This is what the Judge wanted and let’s all be honest, what most of the public wanted too.

Finally there are the desperate calls she makes from jail. She calls friends, she calls Barbra Walters, she probably tries to call for delivery. In any case the news get hold of these stories and we hear now that she has found god. Sure it is true that many inmates find god in prison, but do you really think after a few days Paris is so beaten down that the only place she can look is up to god? I find it hard to believe and again chuckle at the desperate nature of the stories. She is trying so hard to put a “nice” spin on it imprisonment that she is playing the god card… what a laugh.

So for now we watch the saga that is “Whiny Rich Girl Goes to Prison” and enjoy the comedy of it all because before long she will be out and of course there will be a party upon her release. Then she can get on and charge $100k per club opening and go back to being the rich little bitch we all know she is.

Someone sit on her dog, will you?

Does anyone feel that the marketing coming out of Apple is highly “Anti Windows User” lately? I think Apple’s marketing department has gone to the dark side and instead of targeting Microsoft and the Windows Operating Systems they are instead ridiculing Windows users, laughing at 95% of the market.

I think Apple is saying, if you want to be hip, in the in crowd and not scoffed at because you use “Windows anything” you have to uses our products. So what Apple is saying is if you use Windows or “Microsoft anything” you are a fat nerd and don’t know what you are doing. They are saying only your Mac using associates are cool, and you are certainly not.

These Mac/PC commercials are about as pejorative as I seen against any one group. Oddly, they are slamming the group they are hoping to attract. Has the campaign really seen favorable sales for Apple? It is not really showing in the stock, but then again the market is fickle and I would assume any upward trend at this point is due to the iPod market lock.

Also Apple is playing off of old fears about Windows platforms. In one commercial they mention the “blue screen of death” the old fatal error. Don’t know about you, but I have not seen a BSOD for about 6 years. Or another double slam at MS, a wmp.dll error. PC does not seem to know what it refers to (implying MS does not know what is wrong with itself while everyone cool does) and Mac has his chuckle. If you know Windows at all you know that they are referring to Windows Media Player and are laughing because Mac has iTunes (like iTunes is not a bigger pain in the butt) and thus give an implied nod to the iPod that it manages. Oh yeah, Zune can be called an MS failure by now, so more jabs at Microsoft.

Yet for as good as Macs are, why are they not the pervasive computers on the planet? Think about this for a moment… simple… they are not as good as PC’s and Apple is too greedy to spite it face.

The browser wars are over. The CPU speed races are over and for all intents and purposes the interface race has come to an end as well. In the intervening time if all things are equal and Apple really is a better platform it would have taken over the market by now simply because it was better. It hasn’t because it isn’t. In fact the one market where Mac’s used to dominate, the professional graphics field, they are loosing share daily because PC’s can do the same thing as Mac but faster and cheaper. There are not usability issues like there were 10 years ago, at this point the only differences are merely mechanical and name. For most people the name of the computer is not an issue in favor or against going with a particular machine, it’s can that computer get the job done better, faster and for less money. Well, PC’s win, Macs loose, it was ever thus.

Several other things to remember… Macs lock up just like PC’s, but when they lock up they do not give a reason (is that good?) where as PC’s inform the user where the potential problem may be. Ever try to fix a Mac? I hope you never do, it is not a fun job. For that matter fixing a PC is not fun either but the ability to fix it is more readily available to the user if you want to take the time and fix it yourself. Sounds good to me, and hey, that handy error message is right there to tell me where to start. Hey Mac, can you fix yourself? Think not.

One other area Mac likes to claim superiority in the area of virus protection. I have to laugh at this every time I hear it because there are Mac viruses, you just don’t hear about them as often. Why, because Apple is protected by the shear dumb luck of NOT being the most pervasive operating system in the world. Let me ask you, if you were going to write a world changing virus would you target it towards a Mac? No way, there are not enough of them, so why waste time. If, on the other hand, Apple did become the #1 operating system don’t you think there would be more Apple viruses, exploits, and Trojans? You can bet there would be and if that happened today the computer using world would be turned on its head as all the exploits happen rapidly. The internet would be mayhem for several years and Macs would be crashing left and right. PC will then have the last laugh as they have been attacked for years and know how to deal with it. So much so that Microsoft’s update system is so all encompassing that MS can update everyone in a few days if they have to, and have. You think that Apple could handle that if the roles were reversed today? Not a chance.

So here we are, a nation of nerdy PC users, feeling ridiculed and slapped every time we see one of those Mac/PC commercials. And every time we see one it instills an attitude of “Why would I want to be associated with a stuck up, arrogant, hallow, emotionless, boring, smartass company like Apple?”

Personally I think that Apple should really ramp it up and just come out and say it; if you are a PC user you are a nerdy, stupid, twerp and will never be as good as Apple users. Just come right out and say it won’t yah? Then as all your sales to new Apple users’ drops to zero you will be gone in two years as all your investors pull funding and sell shares because you insulted 95% of the market. On the day Apple files chapter 13 and Microsoft comes in and eats you up, spitting little Apples seeds like the iPod division as a subsidiary of MS, and tosses the Apple core operating system away, I will laugh all day long because you did it to yourself and were too arrogant to see it.

Nerds like modesty and accurate facts, but I guess ego blinded Apple’s marketing department. Bye bye.

It must be my imagination. This can’t possible be what I think it is. Could the columnist actually mentioned it? Is an Apple Safari Browser port to Windows actually something to consider or has Apple and the media gone off the deep end and actually declared “Browser Wars II”?

If so I have bad news for Apple and the Safari Browser on Windows… you lose. Not by a little but by a WHOLE LOT.

So let us see… Apple claims that Safari handles the images better… well if click to finish is the standard, no, this is not true because by my stop watch it fell in behind Firefox by about 10%. Yes, I cleared all caches first, I know how to run this simple tests.

Next claim is that it is faster because it is simpler. This is true, but I don’t want simpler, I want better and simpler in this case is not better. In terms of size it is a modest 8MB and you would think that alone would be enough to speed it up impressively, but when you factor in the windows libraries it has to use, it is not all that much better is at all.

On the other hand it could be said that it is faster because it does away with the 3D interface that all the other browsers use. But when you think about it this does not hold up either because it still has to use the same graphics engine, they just turned off the 3D effects which in this case does not speed up the interface.

Access to the internet is the same. Hey it all has to come through the same port and there is no new technology that is speeding your broadband connection along. Unless you consider the HUGE cache it makes for itself, but then again, all the other browsers do this too and that is nothing new.

Now to flip it a bit. There are things I certainly can’t do without.

You know those borders and 3D borders on windows programs? They are not just for looks you know. They let the user resize the window easily and quickly. Guess what happens when you turn them off? Right, you can’t use the borders to resize. I find this very inconvenient. Mac users are used to the pain in the butt resizing I guess. As a pampered Windows user I like my windows more easily resizable.

Are Macs really easier to use than Windows based computers? Huh, I wonder. Has anyone other than a partial research group actually done a comparison? I mean recently. Seriously.

Then there is the thing that is going to get Safari into a big heap of trouble… Font handling. From cursory comparisons I would say that Safari likes to replace its own font for fonts such as Ariel and TNR (that Times New Roman for the uninitiated). The replacements are both heavier and more compact. (This is not a contradiction, read it as the lines of the letters are wider and the letter squished and squished together.) The combined effect of the font handling is to make them less legible in smaller sizes and awkward in larger sizes. This is the only browser that has this obvious flaw (if Apple considers it a flaw). I compared it to the latest versions of MSIE, NS, FF, and Opera and if I were offering suggestions, it would be NOT to go changing the styles of fonts. If they do not correct this the development community will never endorse Safari. Again, I wonder is Apple would even care.

I am sure there are more things about Safari I would not like if I were to keep using it, but like in all business you got mere seconds to impress me and you, Safari, failed that test miserably. Safari on Windows? It will go the way of the Apple Lisa, just watch.

For the record I use Firefox for my development. Why? Simple, it does what I want it to. As a browser it is simple with enough features to keep me happy. I do not use Netscape because it went the way of the IE and has too much and a cluttered interface. Firefox provides a happy medium for me and thus won my allegiance.