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★ My Frustration with Attribution and Fanboys

On Saturday, I tweeted a link to Apple’s new iPad advertisement. I linked to the YouTube Page where Apple itself posted that ad. I did this while everyone I follow was linking to Macrumors.com and other Apple News Sites where they simply embed the ad. I understand the argument of these sites getting page views by linking to a clip on YouTube and that these page views were acquired fairly because they spend time aggregating and discovering content for us, the reader. They weren’t doing anything wrong but, sometimes, I just wish people would direct me to the original content. The source…

Today, Gizmodo posted this. It was an image about WiFi setup instructions of Windows versus Macintosh. Whatever. Anyone that isn’t an Apple Loving Fanboy or anyone that actually read the instructions before tweeting out the image and going back to watching cute cat videos can tell you that those instructions were shit.

The Windows instructions assume that the Windows client has a custom IP configuration (manual or DHCP with manual IP Address). Anyone that is configured for DHCP on their Windows Box can just connect to the McDonalds’ network immediately just as easily as they could if on a Mac. The exact same instructions would apply if your Macintosh had a custom IP configuration.

What seems to be the actual problem here is two-fold:

  • Windows Users generally don’t understand networking or IP addresses or DHCP or DNS servers. They are generally so inept at what this is that McDonalds so a need to expand the setup instructions since people trying to connect had custom addresses setup and couldn’t get online. This has supposedly been improved in Windows 7.
  • Mac Users like feeling special in a world full of “idiots” or “Microsoft is full of idiots”. Take your pick.
In truth, Mac and Windows computers can be affected by the exact same issue if either client has a custom IP configuration. In fact, the flyer itself can be completely turned around to assume the Windows User is using DHCP and thus will connect instantly and the Mac User is not and thus requires additional steps to resolve this issue:
  • Navigate to the Apple Menu (top left hand corner of your desktop)
  • Select this and select “System Preferences”
  • Select “Network”
  •  Select Airport and select “Advanced”
  • Navigate to this tab and change the drop down from Manual or DHCP with Manual IP Address to “Use DHCP / Automatic”
  • *You may have to enter your admin password*
  • Save this selection and close System Preferences
  • Attempt to connect again, wait for an IP address to be handed out, open Safari and you’re good
This is exactly what would be shown in image form in the event that the Mac user also had a custom IP configuration. It may actually exceed the steps required by Windows users. An alternative that I would choose to resolve this wouldn’t be to change these settings. I would go to Location in the Apple Menu and create a new one so I can retain my old network settings and will delete that new profile when I get home. That’s just me but, then again, I wouldn’t be mooching off Free Wi-Fi at McDonalds.
To make matters worse, Gizmodo didn’t take this image….
@macpricesaus on Twitter appears to be the account that actually captured the image at an Australian McDonalds. Then, shit blew up.
Most of the places I’ve seen this picture (it has been viewed over 200,000 times on TwitPic alone) have linked to some other source that isn’t the original poster. I only took a few minutes for me to find the original poster of the image (5 clicks actually). The fact that a huge site like Gizmodo doesn’t link to the original is absolutely disgusting.
Some people did link to the original and the poster of the image recognized that this morning:

“@AronT @gruber @Digeratii i should of put a watermark on it haha :) Thanks for the credit @ArtonT :D”

less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyMac Prices Australia

 

Why is linking to original content so damn hard?

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