fails

MacBook owner puts alleged thief's dancing on YouTube

Sometimes, when you lose something, you can gain something too. Sometimes, when you feel someone has wronged you, there might be an avenue down which you can discover a little solace--or even a touch of revenge.

This seems to be the case with Mark Bao and his stolen MacBook Air.

Bao, you see, might have not done well in leaving his laptop in a lounge at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., allowing an opportunist to swipe it earlier this year. However, he had already embedded a little wisdom inside of his machine by installing BackBlaze software.

This, the way CBS News.com tells it, allowed him to enter his laptop remotely and see what might be going on there. Or, indeed, going down.

And what a picture of humanity in the Facebook age was revealed.

The first thing the alleged thief reportedly did was photograph himself. Then he filmed himself dancing to Tyga's "Make It Rain." Bao, naturally, was impressed by the software's performance rather more than he was by the alleged thief's.… Read more

How not to use Facebook as a burglary tool

I've never been a burglar, but I imagine one of the talents you need is a modicum of discretion.

It's probably not wise to, say, tell your mom and dad, a policeman, or someone selling you a sausage at a stall that you've just burgled a house.

I sense it might not be wise to post a picture of yourself, stolen goods in hand, on the Facebook page of your victim's son.

According to NBC Washington, Rodney Knight might not agree with me. Police said Knight broke in to the home of Washington Post writer Marc … Read more

Kenneth Cole tweet: Egypt in uproar over my shoes

Clothes, even when black, need still to be classy. The same goes for humor, even when black.

So I wonder how the Incorrect Collective might feel to hear that Kenneth Cole, he who makes those shoes worn by people who don't like to get dirty, sent out a tweet about Egypt.

According to reports, it read: "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online."

Cole has a habit of putting the initials "KC" after his tweets, just so his rapt followers know that this one'… Read more

Where gadgets (and words) come to die

LAS VEGAS--Words are bullets.

They get through to people in ways that pictures, or even deeds, don't. Pictures often fade. Words stay with you and delight or rankle till your last breath. You know, words like "I do." Or "I love you." Or "I'm seeing someone else."

So I wandered into the South Hall of the convention center during the Consumer Electronics Show today to see how the makers of tomorrow's world would be telling their stories.

What words would they use? Could they offer change I could believe in? Would … Read more

Apple support company sues customer for complaining

Returning to my inbox after the New Year's break, I found it full of Greeks bearing rifts.

The national press, the tech blogosphere, even normal, ordinary human beings on Twitter are railing against Systemgraph, a support company officially approved by Apple to be its reseller and authorized service provider.

Dimitris Papadimitriadis, a physician in Greece, was apparently having a little trouble with his iMac, so he took it to Systemgraph in order to enjoy its authorized servicing skills. According to the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, Papadimitriadis discovered dark patches on the screen of his machine.

As Papadimitriadis describes the story, … Read more

Author's son: Mom slams e-book piracy but pirates songs

Hypocrisy, sadly, is not confined to politicians. It is not confined to any of those who tell us what to do, like priests, policemen, or leather-clad librarians.

Hypocrisy, you see, is one of humanity's most enduring and endearing traits.

I mention this, because of the cheery case of Norwegian author Anne B. Ragde. Ragde has written books for children. She has written crime novels. She has won awards.

And yet, like the rest of us pitiful, snarling humans, she may well speak out of several sides of her anatomy.

You see, I am indebted to Torrent Freak for telling … Read more

The decade's 30 biggest tech flops

First, an admission. We ran this same story last year with many of the same picks. At the time, several readers said we were not only wrong for running it, but were downright ignorant.

As elbrado67 so eloquently put it:

We still have another year left in the decade, I would expect more from a "tech" site to be scientifically correct. You start counting with "1," not "0." Despite popular belief on the news and everywhere else, the new "Millennium" started in 2001, not 2000. Please stop dumbing everything down.

Many others … Read more

'Fail Whale' creator aims to democratize art

SAN FRANCISCO--Since the famous "Fail Whale" is known for signifying that Twitter is down, it might surprise you to know that there are a lot of people out there who appreciate seeing it.

"People are actually looking forward to [Twitter] downtime," said Yiying Lu, the artist who created what came to be known as the Fail Whale. "I'm [always getting] tweets from people telling me it makes them happy" to see the whimsical image of a whale being hauled out of the water by a group of small birds.

Lu may be best … Read more

Man googles self, finds out he's murder suspect

If we want to find out what the world thinks about us, we google. There, we find every reference to our delicate beings. Well, every reference that we can't find on Facebook.

Please imagine, then, the mental entertainment that played itself out behind Zachary Garcia's forehead, when he googled himself and happened to notice that he was being accused of murder.

No, he was not being accused by some crazy former lover or fellow University of Florida student attempting to enter the Prankdom Hall of Fame.

It was the Polk County Sheriff's Office, which reportedly mistakenly released … Read more

Aperture 3.1 not installing properly on Macs running OS X 10.5.8

Apple's professional image-editing software, Aperture, has recently been updated to version 3.1 though some users running Mac OS X 10.5.8 may not be able to install the update.

Users may find that using Software Update to install Aperture 3.1 fails to upgrade the software. Similarly, attempting to use the manual update (found on CNET's Downloads site) also fails to install the update.

Should you experience this issue on your Mac, you may need to install the latest ProKit for Leopard update, version 5.1. ProKit addresses various interface and compatibility issues for Apple's … Read more