Jason Lancaster

The net has been abuzz with talk about the ARDAgent ’setuid root’ problem on Mac OS X. While I think I’m a pretty good judge of character when it comes to an application I’m installing, I think I’ll opt for the safe solution for now and disable the remote application. I’ve never used it, so being safe is an easy win for me. If you use a Mac and are worried, simply execute the following in terminal:

sudo chmod -R u-s /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app

I’m a huge fan of YouTube and Google, but I have to say that part of the whole web 2.0 phenomenon that I (and others) get excited about comes from a beautiful looking interface. I watched a video on Vimeo the other day and my initial impression was that Vimeo was cool. But then it happened, I clicked the sign up link. Woah!

That screen is out-of-this-world cool! And they use it for both their sign in and sign up screens.

All too often applications will take the quick route and drop an ugly sign in box inline with what you’re viewing. That works, but creating something beautiful sometimes works better. I like Vimeo’s philosophy here.

UPDATE: Netflix has decided to keep personal profiles!

Netflix emailed me last night:

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Netflix has chosen to delete any “sub-users” (or profiles) that you created. This was one of the many outstanding features that made Netflix so innovative. If the idea of having two profiles seems foreign to you, think about it like this:

1. You could have multiple queues that movies were delivered from and the ability to spread the total number of movies for your account among these queues.
2. With an additional profile, you could have a separate ratings system for a family member. This makes sense especially when your ratings might not coincide with someone else renting from Netflix.

And now, not only are they removing the feature but they trashing each of those profile’s data sets. All that time and energy spent maintaining those sub-profiles will be wasted when Netflix decides to delete them. The worst part of all of this is that they’re not offering any solutions other than to “print out your queue” and that “your rental history will be merged with the primary account holder’s history.” This is simply unacceptable.

I’ve been a long time supporter of Netflix. The service they provide and the innovation into the way we think about video rentals was simply incredible. Their website has probably the best recommendation system, review system and rating system out there. It was the first usable and true web 2.0 website I can think of.

Not anymore.

Their reasoning for this change is given in the message but it is important to note: this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers. Seriously? This will improve the website for the greater good of all customers? I don’t believe it and I’m not willing to sacrifice my data. I am not the only person who feels this way.

Great customer service would be to retain the profiles and improve support for profiles, offering an even better system for those that use the feature.

Satisfactory customer service would be to offer a migration solution to a new, full-fledged account if there was no way to retain an additional profile on your account.

Netflix’s decision is the worst case scenario. As of September 1st, my data will be deleted.

I’ve already downgraded my plan and begun to phase out my additional profiles. Lucky for me, I’m the primary account holder — I get to keep my data. But what about everyone else?

If you’re like me and looking for alternatives, here is a list of online rental services I’ve found:

• Blockbuster
• CafeDVD
• DVD Overnight
• Intelliflix