(Or rather, on the dangers of listening to blogging)

Now, everyone has the right to be heard (with obvious exceptions). But with everyone clamouring to be heard, it makes it rather hard to know who you should be listening to.

Robert Scoble is a “Microsoft geek blogger”, and technical evangelist. His blog is consistently among the top viewed over at wordpress.com, and he publishes many posts every day. His Dual booting Windows on new Macs… post from today proves that quantity doesn’t equal quality.

First of all, the title of the article suggests that he’s going to be talking about being able to boot Windows on the new Intel-powered Macintoshes, but he only mentions this in passing. He claims that he almost plunked down $2000 for a new Intel-powered Laptop from Apple because it can “dual boot both Windows and Mac OSX” (sic). Robert then links to an article that he claims shows how to do this. I’m guessing that Robert didn’t actually read the article. Getting the current version of Windows (XP) to boot an Intel-powered Mac is no mean feat, as the Windows XP only supports machines that run BIOS, and not the EFI that the new Macs use. The author of the article knows that, and says that most of the problems this presents can be “theoretically quickly dealt”. He says theoretically, because the new Apple portables aren’t available yet, so no one can actually test this. Yet from reading Robert’s post, one could come away with the impression that it can indeed be done.

So, even though Robert apparently knows that the unreleased Apple portables will run Windows, he didn’t plunk his cash down for one because this particular laptop doesn’t support the aging PCMCIA standard for add-on cards It instead sports a new ExpressCard interface. Robert can’t do without his EVDO card (which gives him access to wireless broadband in the US), and his current EVDO card won’t work in the new ExpressCard slot. This EVDO card is apparently “NECESSARY for a travelling businessperson”. (So necessary, in fact, that Robert only got one yesterday. I’m not sure how he functioned without one for the last few years.) So the only reason that Robert tells us he can’t get a new Apple Intel-powered portable is because his current card won’t work with it. He doesn’t seem to realise that by the time the laptop is available, there will more than likely be cards available for it.

So Robert entices you to read his post be giving it an interesting title, then proceeds to tell us the that new Apple laptop is good because it will boot Windows XP (which no one can actually guarantee), but he can’t get one because his current card won’t work in it (even though he can more than likely buy a new card when the laptop actually ships).

Robert’s blog has a lot of readers. I’m guessing that at least some of those readers trust his judgement, and value his opinion (but I have no idea why). Today’s post by Robert just seems like a back-handed stab at Apple in an attempt to criticise them without overtly criticising them.

Just to make it painfully clear for the slow amongst us… Blogging can be dangerous when influential bloggers post misleading and incorrect content on their blogs. It can be dangerous for users to read these sorts of posts if they take what the blogger says as truth, instead of verifying the facts for themselves.

This entry was posted on Tuesday January 31st, 2006 at 11:32 am and is filed under An Apple a day..., Geeky Goodness, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.