One nice thing about this feature (for Apple) is that it now allows Apple to get something it did not have before: usage statistics. Granted, Apple Software Update enabled Apple to see how many people were updating their Boot Camp drivers, but it was a poor measure for how many Boot Camp installs were actually being made.

Anyone in the industry will tell you that people often don’t update software. In addition, those downloads were homogenous; you could download a Boot Camp 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x update and deploy these across thousands of systems with a single download. The Boot Camp Assistant pulls down different bundles for each system, requiring it to be done on the computer, and having the computer pull that file down from the web.

As such, the Boot Camp Assistant is likely what Apple is using to keep track of how many people are using Windows on their Mac at any given time. And, it gives them per-model counts, so they can track how many, say, MacBook Air users are choosing to give up precious SSD storage in order to run Windows. Considering the bundles are model-specific, they could even be keeping track of how many people, for example, chose to install Windows on a 64GB MacBook Air versus a 256GB MacBook Air.

My point in conveying this information is that you should always re-download Boot Camp drivers with each Windows install. There is certainly a lot of interest in Apple (or at least, there should be) in evaluating which Mac models are going to be moved to ARM-based processors, and which will stay on more-powerful Intel CPUs. Windows support is a key factor in that, Apple does want to know if that feature is important to you (even if they have no interest in replying to your emails stating such).

However, I will say that I am disappointed at the pricing that has emerged on other web sites (here’s just one for example).

At double the pricing for Amazon’s Cloud Drive, I can’t say I’ll be using iCloud. For $120/year I get unlimited storage on CrashPlan, for up to 10 computers worth of storage in my house. Other online backup services combine online backup with mobile app access to all your files, at one low monthly price.

What about communication? Calendars? Etc? All freely supported on Google Apps. Which, I might add, is still free for up to 10 email addresses worth. At the current free Google storage rates, that translates to 75 GB per domain name… and domain names cost only a few dollars a year.

I hear the argument all the time that these cloud services are different than raw storage, they make lives easier. Granted, I don’t think iCloud should compete with the “unlimited storage” shared hosting solutions. I think that’s unrealistic.

That said, I think cloud solutions do have to compete with services like Google Apps and Windows Live. If I can store documents via email, if I can manage them in a Gmail view, and if I get 25 GB free from Windows Live SkyDrive… what am I paying for with iCloud?

Of course, there’s the freemium argument as well. People will get “hooked” on iCloud with the first 5 GB, and then want more. And they then won’t want to move. Sorry, I don’t buy it. I think people will get more tech savvy as their 5 GB get used up, and ask even more technically-inclined people for a way to keep the free file bash going.

That may work for Apple too, but it’s far from a cost-effective solution. iCloud may be the best cloud out there, but in terms of bang for your buck, I don’t think it’s there yet. Not with the pricing that has been disclosed, at least.

The navigation buttons on the right were rendering flatly. With an inspector, I had noticed that the width img tag was defined, but for some reason the height wasn’t. I have no idea how that happened.

Now, on other browsers, it just proportions the buttons and everything’s fine. Well, on IE9, it didn’t do that, and made the image flat. So, the fix was simple… I just pulled up the image and defined the height in pixels, and hit save. Presto, site operating properly.

No, the screen grab below has not been edited in any way, nor was it coaxed into fruition. It is what appeared after clicking the close button after a “successful” Office installation.

And yes, it did infinite loop. Had to force quit the setup “assistant” and relaunch Office to break the loop.

For the sake of the developers, I’ll call them Team X. Team X had a great product on the market, it was great at updating Mac software. I wanted to take that to another level, and add App Store functionality, get funding, and make a software marketplace that would transcend Mac and Windows.

I’d been watching the iPhone (now iOS) App Store, and saw its potential. Mind you, this was circa 2007-2008, when Cydia was impressive before it took a single jailbroken App Store purchase.

So, what killed the project off? I listened to Steve Jobs. No, not the way normal people do. I listened for his commentary on a Mac App Store when someone asked him about its potential. He said bluntly that there were no plans for one.

When you hear something that blunt from an Apple leader, you should know, then and there, that it’s the exact opposite of what you were just told. Just like nobody wants to watch videos on their iPod, the screen after all is just too small. When I heard that, I knew it was inevitable that Apple would leverage the iTunes Store infastructure, combine it with digital signatures (which at the time were brand new to Mac apps), and roll out their own App Store.

What’s next? I suspect Apple will continue the burn and roll out a Windows App Store. You might think this is insane. After all, Apple wants to ship Macs, not convince people to stay with Windows.

I however would argue there is a lot of merit in a Windows App Store, fueled by the largest commercial digital content distribution store ever (iTunes).

First, it’s a product that Microsoft has failed in completely. The Windows Marketplace was so much of a dud that Microsoft had to kill it off to give Windows Phone Marketplace a fighting chance… the desktop version paled in comparison.

Plus, Apple wants to show users the “Apple experience”. They want to prevent people from buying into the “Google experience”. Those two factors drive Apple to be okay with distributing Windows apps, so long as it takes place inside of Apple’s systems and Apple’s rules. It convinces more and more people to use iTunes on a daily basis, and that will fuel the additional sale of more iPhones, iPods, and iPads… all of which are successful because they are Windows-friendly.

Take Safari. Apple’s brilliant web browser was ported to Windows in order to ensure people could get a taste of the Apple browsing experience. It wasn’t needed for iTunes, despite what many think.

And, let’s not forget QuickTime for Windows. Many (too, too many) forget that QuickTime existed on Windows a good decade before Apple shipped iTunes. Some have screamed at me in postings that QuickTime only exists for iTunes, a laughable assertion. The reason QuickTime existed on Windows was the same as all the above examples; to get people to like Apple.

If people are buying, downloading, updating, and maintaining their their Windows software, the Apple way, it will be pure profit for Apple, and pure sting for Microsoft. I’m not interested in getting into a product fight with a company that has billions in the bank, hence why you can rest soundly that I won’t be building a Windows App Store right now.

Fast forward to last week. SmartView 2.28 was released, and I fired it up in hopes that the demo units finally worked.

The result? They do. Download it and finally enjoy your 4G freebie.

Here’s the long and the short of it. Take an SD card, format it on your (Snow Leopard) Mac for MS-DOS (FAT32). Now, insert it into a Windows Mobile device.

As I’ve found, Windows Mobile won’t read the card. I’m trying to figure out if it’s a Mac OS X bug or a Windows Mobile bug. Discuss.

Here’s the deal. I purchased two Windows Vista Home Premium product keys way back when Vista was shipping. They were $50/each, under their Family Upgrade Discount deal. I purchased the keys from a special Windows e-store that is since defunct.

Fast forward to 2009. I only wound up using one of the keys (which, was still a good deal, considering Home Premium ran $119 at the time). The other key went unused.

Well, now I want to use that second key. And, unfortunately, I didn’t know many Family Upgrade Discount keys were invalid. There’s no support number to call, and no department that appears to field these invalid keys.

Any better suggestions than to get pass the buck treatment at 800-MICROSOFT?

Bonus points for diagnosing the BSOD and finding the best solution.

Like other antivirus software, it now treats tracking cookies as an infection (which I hate, since it falsely tries to convince uninformed users about the importance of their antivirus software). This annoyed me, since there is no way to tell it to handle tracking cookies automatically, but ask about other issues.

The final straw was when it began declaring AutoPatcher a virus, and quarantining false positives… again, even though I specifically told it to not auto-quarantine anything.