athom

Is that five billion individual owners? That's pretty impressive! Current estimates put the whole world population at just under 7 billion.

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html has it at about 6.8B, and a Google search on "current world population" turns up similar figures.

Just goes to show how out of the loop I am when it comes to Apple. I read the title, wondered if it was about the internet echo test command, and then wondered, how the heck would they screw THAT up??!

Which you should never do. An application package's installer might need those priveleges, but the bookkeeping application itself should not.

Speaking for myself, I make a point of not running applications with administrator priveleges, except those which have a clear reason. My preferred virus scanner is one example. Installers are another, but Intuit's behavior leaves me much more reluctant to trust a vendor-supplied installer. Fortunately, I don't think those are so necessary, these days...?

Intuit took some heat for this back around 2001~3, thereabouts. One article on the subject can be found here:

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/turbotax-installer-destroy...

I'm kind of surprised there's software still doing this, and shouldn't Windows and its new and improved security have put an end to these kinds of shenanigans on its side?

Wow, this takes me back!

Back around '05, I inherited the enviable task of getting a "linked project scheduling system" up and running. The creator of this MS-Project-based marvel had implemented an employee database in a VB module, that not only avoided the hassles of ADO and SQL, but almost managed to do away with arrays completely! Switch/Case statements, anyone?

By the way, if needles and haystacks are your thing, try a Google search on Microsoft Project. Hours of fun!

I was about to mention this guy myself. Kudos!

And just think, if the grinders actually made any money at it, they'd be the next economic powerhouse!

The folks coming down on Derek might do well to read Donald Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things, which speaks directly to this issue. It's important to remember that the purpose of design is not simply to dazzle the beholder, or make people think, but to make useful things usable. It's easy for designers to forget this, especially the avant-garde sort who fall in love with their own creative spirit, tend to win the accolades for their "radical" ideas. In fact, Norman's book introduced me to one of my favorite design epithets:

"It probably won an award."