Macworld Exhibitor tip: disable the IR port on your Macs
As you may or may not know there has been something of a dust up across the tech blogosphere regarding a prank that a certain tech blog performed during CES. The prank involved a little gizmo that turned off a number of televisions at once, which one could use to turn off displays during presentations (which is just what the people in question did).
This childish prank got me to thinking about the havoc that someone could cause with one of those tiny Apple remotes during Macworld. Therefore, I am hoping to help exhibitors avoid this sort of mischief by advocating they either:
- Disable their Mac's IR ports
- Pair their Mac to a specific remote
Trust me, either of these steps will take you a couple of minutes but save you lots of headaches.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Majormauser said 4:25PM on 1-13-2008
Scott you are a good man... after the Gizmondo fiasco.
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lifix said 4:42PM on 1-13-2008
@Majormauser: while a fiasco, the Gizmondo incident has nothing to do with what Scott is talking about. Scott is referring to the Gizmodo incident, although I'm not sure "childish prank" is the right description for what went down.
James Hannah said 5:39PM on 1-13-2008
You can also log on as an admin user, and hold down the menu and fast-forward buttons while pointing the remote at the mac to pair, without having to enter System Preferences.
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Ryan Worrell said 6:10PM on 1-13-2008
As far as TV's go. I would suggest a roll of electrical tape. Just a lil piece over the IR receiver and presto. No more "childish prank"
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oshawapilot said 7:25PM on 1-13-2008
Being rather judgmental with the "Childish" claim, no?
I found it rather funny, personally, and it was mostly harmless. It will make most exhibitors think hard about next year, and hell, it makes people think about securing their own systems against IR based intrusion.
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Taylor said 10:34PM on 1-13-2008
Much of it was okay, but turning off the TVs in a press conference? They made the whole thing look unprofessional, which put Motorola under a bad light. Forget about them selling any of the products they announced there, all that will go down in is "that's the press conference were Gizmodo turned off the TVs lol".
Kalessin said 10:30AM on 1-14-2008
"...it makes people think about securing their own systems..."
So does burglary. Still think it's reasonable?
Childish is a kind adjective for interfering with these businesses by sabotage. If I had been affected, I would be looking to Gizmodo for recompense, or at least disciplinary action against the blogger concerned. I would certainly not attend a future show to which they were invited.
The individual concerned certainly did not behave like a professional, and should not be allowed to attend future events.
By all means have a laugh, turning some screens off was quite funny, but interfering with a live presentation, on which several thousand dollars had been spent is extremely questionable behaviour.
steve mcfarland said 9:14PM on 1-13-2008
In my former life as a Mac Specialist in Apple Retail, a few of used to grab spare remotes from the back of house, and when closing time came, we'd stand on the other side of the store from a given bay of iMacs/Macbook Pros and invoke Front Row on all of that at once, much to the dismay of whatever stragglers were checking their email of what-have-you.
Just as they were about to give up, we'd hit 'Menu' to go back to the desktop, and as they got their bearings in Gmail again, whammo...
In retail, it's all about the little things.
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steve mcfarland said 9:16PM on 1-13-2008
CAN NOT NOT TYPE:
*all of them
*email or what...
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aricept said 12:29AM on 1-14-2008
Actually, I remember seeing video of someone doing just this thing, at least a year ago. Who, and where.... I don't remember. But the Giz CES thing reminded me of that.
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Photar said 1:20PM on 1-14-2008
I went around at MacWorld with my remote bringing up front row at booths and random people with their MacBooks. Good times.
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