A fix for the Procrastinatr damage

Let's look at who is responsible for installing and running new apps on your mac. A blog you read? The software itself? David? No, it's you. Last time I checked, upon visiting the site, it doesn't automatically install the app without your consent. When you click the install button, you're holding your hands up and saying "I've decided to run this, I take full responsibility for the consequences." You're passing the buck by blaming "the blog, which betrayed your trust", probably because you feel stupid for not having made a decent backup in the first place. The only person you can blame is yourself. Anybody who has made a backup and thus recovered quickly, can perhaps see the amusing side of the app, and the valuable lessons learned about system recovery.

This has escalated beyond belief. You guys should switch over to PCs for awhile and deal with some actual malware...Maybe that would put things in perspective. If silly crap like this gets you upset, how the hell are you gonna react when something really bad happens in your life (i.e. cancer, death of loved one, etc.). Face it, if iCal or any other app is so vital to your life/business, you would back the bitch up. Truth is, however, that we blog commentors/bomb throwers don't actually need any calendar. We only use these programs to feel better about our complete lack of a social life. Are saving dates/times for "watching Seinfeld" or "playing WoW" really necessary?

The italics didn't show up when I quoted #42. I apologize that it is hard to follow.

42. #37 - With due respect, it is you who are missing the point. Yes, Mr. Chartier did mess up - he committed a mistake that is fairly common. The only difference is that he committed it on a public forum.


Which should mean he pays more attention given the potential to cause greater harm! When I email a client I vet the message closely to make sure it contains no mistakes, much less malware that will damage their computers! On an advertising-supported blog your readers are (if indirectly) your clients; one would expect a higher level of professionalism.

Here's the thing though - he's one man, and he can't spend time testing each bit of software he recommends under all the conceivable conditions that TUAW readers may have.

What a bizarre statement -- why would he be "recommending" software that he hasn't thoroughly tested? What does that tell us about his recommendations? And the problem wasn't that some readers had unusual set-ups that he didn't anticipate, but that the program itself was malware!

He admitted he tested it - it didn't harm his machine because of a fluke. How much testing can he be expected to do on a piece of software before passing it on to the blog?

His calendars were read-only so he should have realized he hadn't actually tested what it would do, because his set-up ensured it couldn't do anything. Also, he could read the friggin' readme.

I grant that users are ultimately responsible for what they run on their own systems (I certainly didn't run this piece of crapware), and I grant that we should be willing to forgive a mistake.

Nevertheless, the incident illustrates how TUAW is too focused on quantity over quality (compare to Daring Fireball, Fatbits or even MacOSXHints). The writing is sloppy and there seems to be little investigation or research into what is posted. It's not at all surprising that something like this happened.

#37 - With due respect, it is you who are missing the point. Yes, Mr. Chartier did mess up - he committed a mistake that is fairly common. The only difference is that he committed it on a public forum.

Here's the thing though - he's one man, and he can't spend time testing each bit of software he recommends under all the conceivable conditions that TUAW readers may have. He admitted he tested it - it didn't harm his machine because of a fluke. How much testing can he be expected to do on a piece of software before passing it on to the blog?

Back in the "good ole days" of the web, the basic instinct was to not trust ANYTHING off of the internet unless you could verify its authenticity. Unfortunately, people have forgotten this most basic of rules when dealing with the digital realm.

As I said before - the ultimate problem here exists between the keyboard and the chair - that is, those who ran the application without engaging their minds first. Maybe Mac users have become too complacent in their position in the digital realm. That doesn't excuse failing to be the first line of defense for your computer's security.

Oh, stupid comment system...

What I meant to say before my last comment:

People, you need to get over this. David made a mistake, yes, but you don't need to be dragging him out to serve the justice of the mob.

You should all know better than to install strange applications from fishy webpages onto your machines. If the website doesn't tell you exactly what the app does, beyond a nebulous claim of improved productivity, read the documentation. Better yet, Google it and see what other users of the program have to say. If they've had problems, stay away.

Furthermore, you should have backups! If it's important to you, back it up; it's that simple. If your machine is set up properly, it should be impossible to damage anything with an app like this.

Yes, David should have read the docs. No, he doesn't need to be fired. He made an honest mistake, and he fixed it very quickly.

Oh, and good luck with the wedding, David.

Come on, people, lay off him! This is not that big a deal, and I don't think he deserves to be punished for an honest mistake - which, as has been mentioned, he realized and corrected extremely quickly.

You all should know better than to install mysterious programs without a clear description of exactly what it is they do. In other words, if the website doesn't make it clear what the app's purpose is (beyond a nebulous claim of improved productivity), you should read the documentation before installing it. I often go further than that, actually - since I use a PC, it's fairly easy for me to Google suspicious apps to see if other users have problems with them. I doubt it's much harder for Mac users to do the same, and even if you don't for some reason, you should have backups. If you know what you're doing, you should have your system set up so that it is effectively impossible to screw anything up with a program like this.

Yes, David should have read the readme. No, he doesn't deserve to be hauled out and handed to the mob like a soccer player after a bad match in Europe.

#37: Honestly, again I sincerely apologize for this incident, but I didn't post this software blindly without testing it. I did download and run it myself. I'll post about a Microsoft Office update because it's news, and it's Microsoft - a company I bet most people might have heard of by now. While we could possibly debate whether their software is legitimate to begin with (just kidding - mostly), I wouldn't have posted an app like this without trying it on myself.

This horrible circumstance came out of the fact that I have what you might call a fairly non-standard iCal setup; all my calendars are Google Calendar subscriptions, so this app didn't and couldn't DO anything to me. iCal wasn't running, so when I started Procrstinatr up, it started iCal itself, at which point I thought it was nothing more than some kind of gag app; a cute joke to help people to get thinking about being more organized, just like the hundreds of similar joke apps that have been passed around the web and in email forwards.

Again, I can't apologize enough for what happened, but please accept my deepest apologies. However, I can't be accused of not testing the app, because I DID test it. While it doesn't help with being able to point a finger and find some definitive source of fault here, we were basically all victims of my strange iCal setup.

Am I guilty of being a weird calendar nerd? Sure. Should I have checked into this app and looked over the ReadMe file? I'll agree to that, given my position at TUAW as a blogger of software, amongst other things.

Should I be a lot more cautious of gag stuff like this in the future? No lesson is ringing truer in my ear right now, just as loud as it has been since Wednesday afternoon, when I saw the email over our team list about this debacle's explosion.

As you might have gleaned from yesterday's posts, I've taken an indeterminate break from blogging here. I'm going through some other horribly timed personal issues right now, and I'm getting married on July 1st, so I don't have much time in the near future to write here anyway.

Please, please know though that I never meant any harm. I tested out the software myself - honestly - and just couldn't catch the issue. I love you guys, and I absolutely love doing what I do at TUAW, and you can be assured I'm spending a lot of time thinking about what happened while dealing with the rest of my life over the next couple of weeks.

People seem to be missing the point here.

Yes: people who actually downloaded and ran this blindly were acting in a stupid manner and, at least in a Darwinian sense, deserve the result. However, those people aren't contributing 'official' posts and recommendations to the readers of TUAW.

The responsibility of Mr. Chartier's position on TUAW is to not act recklessly, nor in a stupid manner; the most egregious aspect of his behaviour (and perhaps this is true for all TUAW recommended software), is that it was not correctly tested - it was simply streamed out as yet another post in his chart topping post count.

Mr. Chartier has his own blog through which he can be irresponsible; for TUAW I believe this is too much.