Now that I'm becoming more familiar with AppleScript, I realize that it has as great a potential for viruses and worms as in Microsoft OSes. With AppleScript you can do exactly what all those Word and VBS viruses (really worms since they don't infect other files, usually) do. You can write a script that will go through the Address Book and use Mail to email everyone, including the attached script (compiled as an applet). If people are stupid enough to run VBS and EXE email attachments, they're stupid enough to run applets. Microsoft is a little less secure because it has auto-run settings and it hides file extensions by default, although Mac OS X 10.1 will also have the "feature" of hiding file extensions.

It's just a matter of "there's nobody learning AppleScript". It only runs on the Mac OS and it's quite different than other scripting languages. Consider this though, it's the only Apple "development" environment included in Mac OS 8.x and onwards. Sure, there was HyperCard (which has been dead for a few years) or you can download Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (which is also old and no longer supported) or for Mac OS X you have Project Builder. None of them work natively in Mac OS 8 to Mac OS X. AppleScript does by virtue of being an interpretive language. Now, AppleScript is not all that great of a language (you know me, I wouldn't call it a programming language), but it does have control statements and a little bit of built in GUI commands.

Speaking of which, there are two AppleScript IDEs with GUI builders. A GUI builder for AppleScript; it's just a weird idea to me. The first is Facespan, which is more of a GUI builder than an IDE. It looks like it can make nice professional GUI's. But it's $200 which is a fair amount, so I haven't really looked at it. Not that I've looked at Smile that much either. But it's free, it's a relatively good editor (better than ScriptEditor), and it's GUI builder is functional if not great. And it now works on Mac OS X.

Anyways, AppleScript looks pretty good and now that I've finished reading AppleScript in a Nutshell I can start thinking about writing that backup script. Well, maybe I should learn how to use Smile first, now that I know that it has a GUI builder...

I got a letter from some law company about a class action lawsuit against Pacbell Internet. It deals with missed appointments of Pacbell technicians, missing their 4 hour window or just not showing up at all. Now, I suppose that's quite annoying, but the couple of times that I've had Pacbell appointments they've always showed up on time. Or maybe my memory is faulty. In any case, like any other class action lawsuit, it'll probably net the plaintiffs like $20 each and the lawyers a few million. When you talk about numbers like that it's no wonder that there are so many such lawsuits.

But what can you do about it? You can't let big companies push people around and you can't have the government step in all the time. Better communication will probably help. Something like the Better Business Bureau, which keeps track of customer complaints against a company. And you can even look up companies online on the BBB web site. If companies are held responsible and you can look up complaints and user ratings, and if everyone actually uses that information, then you give leverage to the consumers without resorting to the courts or government oversight. And I think that's a good thing...

I finally got to watch the last 10 minutes of "An Affair to Remember". Great ending and a good movie overall...

I installed the Stylus RIP on Jennifer. It is a Postscript print server that converts Postscript to Epson code and sends it to the printer. I haven't figured out how to change the PPD file assigned to a printer so right now it just prints using the base LaserWriter driver. Heck, I don't even know if the Epson PPD file will work in Mac OS X. Still, it's not a bad solution, the only problem I've encountered is that it doesn't print the last page -- I can work around that though. Otherwise it prints the page correctly. It's very slow, like 3 to 5 minutes a page. But at least I can print from Mac OS X.