iPhone 4

Yesterday Steve Jobs got up on stage and announced the new iPhone, iPhone 4.  It has a list of slick features, I'll write a couple, then an opinion or two about each.

1. FaceTime

Facetime is a new feature to the iPhone family.  It's basically, Video Calling.  Using the front or the back camera of the iPhone you can make a Video call with one another.  Right now FaceTime is limited to Wifi only, and Apple is going to work with the cell carriers to get their networks up to speed to allow FaceTime on 3G calling.

Opinion:  I think is a really neat innovation.  I can see a lot of use for this, however...  I have a feeling that no one will use it, it will be a pain in the ass for it to work, and it'll get bad press.  I am sure there will be ports to open on the firewall for it to work, and it won't work for $REASON.  I guess we'll find out, but overall I think this is really neat and I'd love to use it with my family, especially after my new baby is born.  It's also going to be an "Open Standard", so hopefully lots of people build this into their phones/apps.  iChat probably won't get it until 1o.7, and the iPad won't get a camera until Round 2.

2. Retina Display

The Retina Display is a higher resolution screen 960x640 at 326 dpi.  It seals the front glass to the LCD by lamination (I believe that's how it works) so it eliminates the "Depth" in between the front glass and the icons.

Opinion:  Cool.  Love me some higher resolution.  Not much bad you can say about that.

3. Multitasking

The iPhone 4 has Multitasking through the use of services (instead of full apps running in the background).

Opinion:  Cool.  About time.  I've been really, really content with using one app at a time, EXCEPT when I am using something like Instant Messenger, or where I need to go back and forth really quickly between apps, and the app I need to switch back and forth to doesn't remember where I was at the last time I used the app.  Really annoying.  So glad this is getting fixed.  I've occasionally wanted multitasking on the iPhone, but I've wanted it more on my iPad.

4. HD Video Recording

You can now record HD (720p) video on the iPhone with it's new 5 Megapixel camera, put it into iMovie (a new app for the iPhone) make your own home movies and send them out on the internet.

Opinion:  Good.  I've been very content with the camera that is in my iPhone 3GS, so a better camera is always welcome, however, I know once you record video on the 3GS and try and MMS it to someone, it can be annoying as shit waiting for the upload to take place.  I know uploading a video from the iPhone 4 to Youtube, unless some magic happens, especially on the processor side..  sending a 720p video somewhere is going to be awful and take forever.

5. Mail

Unified inbox, email threading, and multiple Exchange accounts

Opinion:  About time.  I've been just fine the way it has been, however, I'm glad they are making it better.  The unified inbox especially.

6. Folders

The ability to group your apps together in a single button.

Opinion:  Useful.  I'll definitely use it to group things like games and Productivity apps together.  I've tried not to put too many apps on my phone.  But I've met some people that have pages upon pages of apps and this will be good for them.

7. iBooks

The ability to read your iBooks that you've purchased for your iPad up until now, on your iPhone.  Also includes a PDF reader (also coming to the iPad).

Opinion:  Okay.  I think reading a book on that small of a screen will be difficult, but we'll see.  I really like reading on my iPad, but it's big.  I also like the fact that PDFs can now be in a native app.

8. Stainless Steel case design

It doubles as the antenna for the phone and it gives it rigid stability.

Opinion:  Great.  Especially if it reduces the amount of calls I drop.  Looking at you AT&T.

9. Glass front and back

It has black (or white) Glass on the front and back of the phone as faces.

Opinion:  Am I going to scratch the shit out of this thing?  My iPhone glass hasn't scratched yet, so I feel okay I guess.  Whereas the plastic black of my iPhone 3GS is scratch city.

10. Extra Microphone for Noise Cancellation

There is now a Microphone on the top of the phone to listen to ambient noise and cancel it out.

Opinion:  If it's as good as the Jawbone, AWESOME.

Things that are missing still:

• The ability to open a .ics file (Calendar invite) in Mail and add it to your calendar.  I mean, seriously?  It's not clear if iOS 4 will allow this, but we'll see.


• Note syncing OTA.  Really?  I still have to plug in my iPhone to my laptop to sync notes?  No thanks, I'll use Evernote.


• The ability for the "place" in a movie or song to auto-sync back to your actual library, through MobileMe, and down to other devices.  That way when I put down my laptop and pick up my iPad to watch the same movie, it's at the same place.

Educating our fellow Humans

I wrote this post in conjunction with my last "Top 10 hints" post, but somehow it disappeared.  So I thought I'd try and write it again, trying to remember the key points I hit.

Many of the people that read this blog are security professionals like me, my peers.  We learned about our profession, mostly on our own.  Self-taught individuals with a penchant for curiosity and the likeness to break things.  There are very few schools and certifications to be "professional" at what we do for a living, and it's because of that, that our community is so small.

Take a look at something like Defcon or Blackhat.  You can throw a stone at one of those conferences and usually hit about 4 people you know on a first name basis, and 10 people that you know by their online name.  Think about it.

Along the growth of our careers we've probably had a few mentors, four or five people during our professional growth that have pushed us in the correct direction.  Gave us hints, wrote blog posts, wrote books, wrote articles, and while you mostly taught yourself how to do this job, there probably are some people that you can point at in your career and say "he helped me by handing me my first copy of 2600".  I clearly remember the first person in my life who handed me my first copy of "2600" and "Blacklisted!411" magazines.  He was and remains to be my best friend and was the best man at my wedding, even though his job has nothing at all to do with computers (ironic, IMO).

As I was saying, the vast majority of the people that read this blog are either Apple people (who read because of my rantings on Apple), Google people (because of the same), or security people.  (God knows why you read my drivel?!  Thanks though.)

However, there is a group of you, especially the friends that I have on Facebook that I've pointed over here to get my content, that are not security people.  There are a group of you that are barely computer people.  You may think that getting on the "Internet" means clicking on the big blue "E" on the desktop.

Those are the people I'd like to make aware with those top 10 articles that I post.  With the Facebook article that I wrote on Saturday while my wife was napping on the couch.  Those are the people that I want to reach out to and help and say "yes, you do need antivirus on your Windows computer", and "Do you know what a firewall is on your computer?  Do you have it on?", and "No!  Don't click on that attachment! Are you crazy!?"

Be aware of what you are doing online.  Don't let one of your security questions be "What is your mother's maiden name?"

To my fellow security professionals:  Help out your fellow Humans.  They may take time, they may take patience, but they need our help.  The bad guys won't stop, the code won't get more secure.  There will always be holes, the bad guys have money, they are most likely, in some way-shape-or form already in your network, and they want what you have.  Help your fellow Humans, they need it.

Hey Microsoft, Don't F*ck Up Windows Phone 7

Hey Microsoft, Don't F*ck Up Windows Phone 7 - Windows phone 7 - Gizmodo.

A funny post over on Gizmodo detailing how, apparently, Microsoft has put out a couple changes to Windows Phone Mobile 7. (What is it with Microsoft and the number 7 all of the sudden?  Unified messaging?)

Apparently Microsoft is going to do two things wrong..

1. No multitasking


2. No Copy and Paste

As for Multitasking, the iPhone doesn't have it "ish".  (Mail and various other "Apple only" apps can run in the background).   However, the rumor is that iPhone 4.0 will have multitasking.  So Microsoft, instead of trying to get ahead of the curve, you are going to be at least 3 years behind in copying Apple?  Seriously?  Way to step up the innovation there guys.

Copy and Paste..  Well, the iPhone didn't have it until iPhone 3.0, and a shitton of people bought iPhones too.  Not that many will buy Windows Mobile 7 devices, but still...

How can you not put copy and paste in it, when (as the author of the Gizmodo article says) the phone you are trying to compete with (the iPhone) already has it!?

Steller Microsoft, way to win.  Whatever, I wouldn't buy it anyway.

VRT: The New Disclosure Debate and the Evil Mr. Moore

VRT: The New Disclosure Debate and the Evil Mr. Moore.

I am not trying to get into the business of reblogging Sourcefire VRT's blog entries, but I blog things that I think are interesting, or that I think my readers will find interesting and hopefully debate.  I think this is yet, ANOTHER insanely great article by Mr. Matt Olney.  Please click the link above and read it!

Flash, time for you to die

I've been reading a lot of hubbub about the new Apple iPad not having the capability of displaying Flash.  Of course!  It stands to reason that it can't, it has the same OS as the iPhone, which, also can't display Flash.  Which leads me to think, why do we need flash?

Answer is, we don't.  Not anymore.  90% of Flash usage is for audio or video on the Internet and HTML5 can handle <audio> and <video> tags.  It can do Canvas. (Oh and a TON more, I'm just illustrating a point.)  Some of the major browsers have adapted most of these technologies.  Webkit (Invented by Apple, powers Safari, Webkit, and Google Chrome [amongst others], and Presto (The rendering engine that powers Opera) have supported more than the other two majors (Gecko -- The engine that powers Firefox and all of it's kin), and Trident (The engine that powers Internet Explorer).  The last being the worst adopter.  Surprisingly.

I read somewhere (I can't find it now), about most browser crashes come from plugins.  Flash, Java, etc.  Why can't we eliminate these plugins and go with the native protocols?  That's what HTML5 is attempting to do for the most part, and I, for one, am glad for it.

Apple has always been about killing off technologies and moving onto what is on the horizon (killing off serial, going for USB, killing of Diskettes, going to CD, Killing off CD's (Macbook Air), moving more wireless (Airport), Killing off displayport, hdmi, dvi, vga, going with Mini Displayport).  They have never been afraid to just "move on" to the new thing.

I believe they said to Flash, die, HTML5 is here.  Then they turned to web developers and said "fix your stuff".  How did they do that?  Rolled out the iPhone, which has become the largest mobile browsing platform on the planet now.  Slowly and surely, what's happening?  Websites are changing away from Flash.

Unless, you know, of course, you are a band or a restaurant.  (Seriously?  What is with bands and restaurants and your use of Flash?)

I don't even need to get into the security issues of Adobe's Flash.  Look, there is one small part of Adobe working on Flash.  The entire internet is working on HTML5.

Flash (and Silverlight) is dead.  Get over it.

--

100% of the statistics in this post are made up.  ;)

Verizon Wireless's Fail

Several months ago I ditched my AT&T 3G Card that I was using for mobile Internet and bought a Mifi from Verizon.

A) Verizon has better connectivity in New York (I was spending a lot of time in New York)

B) Verizon has better connectivity on trains than AT&T.  (Not faster, just a more persistant connection.)

Well, in order to manage your account, you have to sign-up for a website called myverizon.com, which, in order to complete the sign-up, asks to text message you your pin/password to verify your identity.  So, I laugh to myself, as the Mifi doesn't have a screen or any way to receive a text.  So, I get a hold of Verizon, and they tell me that their VZwireless software allows you to see the txt's send to the Mifi, okay, fine..

I fire up the software, no "txt".  It's not in the Mac Software, it's only on the Windows VZWireless software.  Hilariously irritating, so the alternative is, they mail you a pin number.  Physically mail you, using snail mail, a pin number.  What a waste of trees.  Anyway..  I arrive today at getting my pin number via the mailbox, I sit down, type in the temporary password (pin number) on my login page, and finally, I get to reset the password.

So, there's 3 blanks on this page, and a drop down.  First -- New password, second -- as you guessed it -- verify new password.

Now, here's where it gets good.  Drop down "Select the phrase to remind you of your password".   Your typical "Challenge/Response" thing right?

Here's the drop down:



Yup, seriously.  No questions for the "Secret Question" -- I mean, if the questions are secret...

Last drop down was the answer to the "Secret Question".

Okay, so, what have we learned here?  Verizon.  You are making life extremely painful to me.  FIX YOUR SIGNUP METHOD.

Oh, and your webpage.  You are DOING IT WRONG.

Bottom Posting

Recently was chastised for Bottom posting on a Mailing list, so I thought I'd write a few words about it.

I bottom (or inline post) mostly because I like the email to be a message. You read a message or a letter from top to bottom, from left to right. It wasn't until email clients started top posting (looking at you Outlook/Lotus Notes) that email was written in the top-posting format, forcing you to read an email backwards.

So I looked it up, basically looking at two different information stores.

Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
RFC1855 -- http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

These two places will define how to write email and how email should be written, on mailing lists, use groups, or any other email transaction.

The particular part to pay attention to is in RFC1855 --

"- If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make
sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context
helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!"

Summarize the email at the top, and post below it. In other words, bottom-posting is the correct way to write email, as per RFC.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

10 things I hate about Outlook, and you should too

Okay, so, it should be strikingly obvious that I probably hate Outlook. I stopped using Outlook in 2001, had to use it for a customer for awhile, and my love for it hasn’t gotten any fonder.

1. Non-Standards compliant. Really Microsoft? You didn’t like how all the other email programs that have been around for years have been doing it? You had to go create that MIME format crap that not only isn’t standards compliant, but that every other email program has issues with.
2. Calendar invites. Seriously? Why are Outlook’s Calendar invites so screwed up when sending them to people not on the same Exchange server as you? CALDAV anyone?
3. Exchange? Didn’t like the standards based email servers that were out there? Had to go create one? “But there wasn’t one that did all these “X” features on one server” Wa. Cry me a river. Apple did it. Yeah so what they had to invent a couple open standards and submit them.
4. Top-Posting by default?! Seriously? Lotus Notes you are guilty too, don’t think I am letting you off the hook. Although I will give you credit, Microsoft, for finally building in bottom posting into “Windows Mail”. How many years did it take you? And then, it’s only in Windows Mail!? Why not Outlook! Oh and Google, Gmail top posting? You should be ashamed. Going totally against an RFC! Mail.app for OSX. GUILTY.
5. Tasks. Really? I can drag an email to the bottom left and make a task, I can even drag an email over to the right and make it a task. I can FLAG an email and it will make it a task, but if I move the email out of the Inbox, the task goes away. Awesome job there.
6. PST -- Yet another “our own special standard” email thing from Microsoft. Good job! How about you store things in mbox? How about it? Did you know you can define a PST size up to 33TB? Are you serious? I’d love for the IT department to try and backup someone’s 33TB PST. That’s awesome!
7. Inline Picture attachments. God forbid you should actually display these inline like I told you to. Oh, and I can’t drag the picture to where it should be in the email? I have to go to Insert and do 3 menu calls? Seriously? If I drag it into the email, it places a picture as an attachment? What if I am trying to explain to someone which screen to click on, and you don’t format my email correctly.
8. No real-time Spellcheck? Seriously? You do it in Word! That means I have to select Word as my email editor? I have to launch a separate application to write an email!?
9. Contact suggestion. There is a whole painful hurt of explanation I can do about this section here... not suggesting a contact if it’s in my address book? Not knowing which people I email the most? Which email address am I sending to if my contact has multiple email addresses?
10. Spam Filter. Does one even exist? Does it work? Thunderbird’s Spam filtering kicks ASS compared to Outlooks.

Basically, if you are using Outlook, and you aren’t on an Exchange server, why are you using Outlook? Use something else. God I hate Outlook.

10 things I hate about Outlook, and you should too

Okay, so, it should be strikingly obvious that I probably hate Outlook. I stopped using Outlook in 2001, had to use it for a customer for awhile, and my love for it hasn’t gotten any fonder.

1. Non-Standards compliant. Really Microsoft? You didn’t like how all the other email programs that have been around for years have been doing it? You had to go create that MIME format crap that not only isn’t standards compliant, but that every other email program has issues with.
2. Calendar invites. Seriously? Why are Outlook’s Calendar invites so screwed up when sending them to people not on the same Exchange server as you? CALDAV anyone?
3. Exchange? Didn’t like the standards based email servers that were out there? Had to go create one? “But there wasn’t one that did all these “X” features on one server” Wa. Cry me a river. Apple did it. Yeah so what they had to invent a couple open standards and submit them.
4. Top-Posting by default?! Seriously? Lotus Notes you are guilty too, don’t think I am letting you off the hook. Although I will give you credit, Microsoft, for finally building in bottom posting into “Windows Mail”. How many years did it take you? And then, it’s only in Windows Mail!? Why not Outlook! Oh and Google, Gmail top posting? You should be ashamed. Going totally against an RFC! Mail.app for OSX. GUILTY.
5. Tasks. Really? I can drag an email to the bottom left and make a task, I can even drag an email over to the right and make it a task. I can FLAG an email and it will make it a task, but if I move the email out of the Inbox, the task goes away. Awesome job there.
6. PST -- Yet another “our own special standard” email thing from Microsoft. Good job! How about you store things in mbox? How about it? Did you know you can define a PST size up to 33TB? Are you serious? I’d love for the IT department to try and backup someone’s 33TB PST. That’s awesome!
7. Inline Picture attachments. God forbid you should actually display these inline like I told you to. Oh, and I can’t drag the picture to where it should be in the email? I have to go to Insert and do 3 menu calls? Seriously? If I drag it into the email, it places a picture as an attachment? What if I am trying to explain to someone which screen to click on, and you don’t format my email correctly.
8. No real-time Spellcheck? Seriously? You do it in Word! That means I have to select Word as my email editor? I have to launch a separate application to write an email!?
9. Contact suggestion. There is a whole painful hurt of explanation I can do about this section here... not suggesting a contact if it’s in my address book? Not knowing which people I email the most? Which email address am I sending to if my contact has multiple email addresses?
10. Spam Filter. Does one even exist? Does it work? Thunderbird’s Spam filtering kicks ASS compared to Outlooks.

Basically, if you are using Outlook, and you aren’t on an Exchange server, why are you using Outlook? Use something else. God I hate Outlook.