Yesterday, news broke that Microsoft comms people in Poland had PhotoShopped a white guy’s head onto a black guy in a promotional photo. The racial editing was fairly noticeable as the hopefully-now-unemployed would-be photo editor had failed to change the guy’s hands over, too.

White face, black hands — sure, that looks natural.

The incident showed Microsoft’s Polish comms staff up as possibly racist, likely stupid, and definitely incompetent at PhotoShop.

Bookies Paddy Power have managed to follow that exceptionally bad PR move with a rather brilliant one of their own, by publishing the odds on the racial mix of the promotional pics for the Office 2010 launch. Will the cover shots be a bunch of white folks, or another hands and face racial mix?

Paddy Power actually expect that Microsoft’s learned its lesson, and think there will be a variety of races on display — but they do see it as pretty unlikely we’ll get ads with just Black and Asian or just White and Asian people. If you disagree, hey, there may be money to be made, if you’re the gambling type.

From Paddy Power, here’re the odds for the race of those who appear in Office 2010 global print advertising launch campaign:
11/10 White, Afro-American and Asian
9/4 White and Afro-American
4/1 White only
6/1 Afro-American only
8/1 Asian only
10/1 Afro-American and Asian
12/1 White and Asian

Maybe when they’re done taking bets on the racial sensitivity of Microsoft’s advertising, they’ll open the books for some other bets: Will Office 2010 arrive on time? Will Windows Mobile 6.5 ever arrive? Who could win in a fight, Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer?

I like to laugh at iPhone lovers. I get that it’s the world’s most fantastic phone ever in the history of super fantastic phones - really - but it’s hard to mock when Apple fanboys are always whipping it out in the pub to check sports scores or to decide arguments with that smug look on their faces.

My lovely handset (Nokia E71) may not be able to do all that the iPhone can do, but at least it stays in my handbag where it belongs.

I consider that one hell of a feature, and have so far happily resisted upgrading to an iPhone, Android phone or something else similarly app focused.

But all it takes is one. The one.

In my case, it’s Spotify. The idea of having streaming music everywhere I go is enough to make me start looking at G1s and G3Ss, or whatever the things are called these days. I would buy one so I don’t have to buy music. (I’m like that.)

But this is where Apple is being a bit daft. It has yet to approve an app from Spotify - that lovely streaming music service that I would actually die without. (And by die, I mean have slightly less money for beer.)

Meanwhile, phones running Google’s Android can now stream free music everywhere they go.

I get that Spotify could possibly be seen as a competitor to Apple’s iTunes, but unless they approve that app or get their own streaming music, they’re going to lose me to Android… assuming I can be bothered to upgrade, that is.

Reading Lifehacker at lunch today, I came across a blind search test. Basically, you type a search term into the box here, and it runs that across Bing, Yahoo and Google.

It the displays the results without any of the branding or formatting — you just get the results, and that’s it. And then it makes you pick which you prefer.

Searching for rather generic words — “ponies” was my first try, because I’m weird like that — brings up pretty generic results, suggesting some similarities across the big three. Intriguingly, for that I chose Yahoo as my favourite, despite never really ever using that search engine. Google came up with a commerical toy site, while both Bing and Yahoo produced Wikipedia results as their top choices.

For my second try, I searched for a more specific result — my own name (which is pretty uncommon.) This time, Bing and Yahoo came up the Facebook page of an American Nicole Kobie, as well as a student paper I haven’t worked at for about six years, and a CV site I haven’t updated in about three. Google, on the other hand, actually managed to find me, where I am now.

So that really very unscientific comparison suggests Google has a broader focus and handles time a bit better, but that said, the site uses the American versions of Yahoo and Bing — so you could say they offer a better localised service.

Either way, while the site may or may not change your mind about your current search favourite, it is a pretty useful tool for searching as it gathers all the results onto one page. Why pick a favourite when you can use all three at once?

Microsoft has apparently “cracked down” on 11 UK firms, reaching out of court settlements with the firms for selling illegal copies of its software.

Basically the 11 firms were accused of hard disk loading — installing illegal copies of Windows or other software on PCs before selling them. Microsoft doesn’t like this for obvious reasons, but also noted that it hurts other small resellers who install legal software — those doing it illegally can drop their prices that much more, undercutting the legal folks.

No argument there.

In fact, there’s no argument from one of the 11 firms busted by Microsoft this time around, either.

According to a press release from Microsoft, Christine Throup from PC Support in Worcester said:

“We recognise that we weren’t installing Microsoft software correctly, and that’s something we take seriously. We’ll be working with Microsoft over the next few weeks to make sure what we do falls within their software rules from now on. It’s good to see Microsoft working with small computer traders like us to ensure we’re up to speed on the right way to use and sell their software. Getting it right is important to us and to our customers – the lifeblood of a business like ours.”

It’s astonishing that installing illegal software can be called “incorrect”, — whoops, I didn’t pay for something — but that’s not the most striking thing about this quote.

In April, Microsoft released the results of a similar crackdown, catching out 12 UK resellers for doing just what Throup was doing at her shop.

One of those firms was 1HR Computers from Manchester. A Mr Murphy from that firm was quoted in a press release at the time as saying:

“We recognise that we weren’t installing Microsoft software correctly, and that’s something we take seriously. We’ll be working with Microsoft over the next few weeks to make sure what we do falls within their software rules from now on. It’s good to see Microsoft working with small computer traders like us to ensure we’re up to speed on the right way to use and sell their software. Getting it right is important to us and to our customers - the lifeblood of a business like ours.”

Now it’s entirely possible that it’s a simple mistake by public relations staff – some PR copied and pasted the wrong bit and didn’t notice.

However, it’s not the first time it’s happened.

In February of this year, in response to a similar piracy campaign, a Christopher Hunt from Lichfield Computer Centre, apparently said:

“We recognise that we weren’t installing Microsoft software correctly, and that’s something we take seriously. We’ll be working with Microsoft over the next few weeks to make sure what we do falls within their software rules from now on. It’s good to see Microsoft working with small computer shops like ours to ensure we’re up to speed on the right way to use and sell their software. Getting it right is important to us and to our customers - the lifeblood of a local business like ours.”

Three different people, all saying the same thing. Really, Microsoft?

We tried to contact Throup to find out what she actually thinks, but have been unable to get through to her. We couldn’t get hold of Hunt either. Microsoft’s PR firm is yet to respond, as well.

What happened?

We did manage to get a hold of April target Paul Murphy, however. He told us he was asked if he wanted to contribute to the press release or let Microsoft take care of it. He opted for the latter, and was promised it wouldn’t be done in “too detrimental” a manner.

He did see the quote and approve it. However, he doesn’t entirely agree that it’s true now. The triple-used comment says Microsoft will work with the firms over the “next few weeks” to help them get legal. Murphy said he has not been contacted by Microsoft since the April incident. He was told “support would be available once all the items were cleared up.” It’s been “cleared up for several months and I’ve not heard back from them,” he said.

For the record, he did admit that piracy was wrong. He admitted the “possibility [he] was misselling the product,” but stressed he wasn’t making “any money out of it.” Quite a different comment than Microsoft’s quote, then.

Canned quotes

It’s no surprise to any journalist that comments made in press releases aren’t really what the person said, but this isn’t exactly subtle.

What does this say about Microsoft? Possibly nothing more than it hires exceptionally lazy PR staff. Or maybe that it gives its marketing staff no room to move when it comes to press release wording. Or it could be a genuine mistake that, completely co-incidentally, happened three times. Microsoft wouldn’t be alone in the industry for such a blooper.

But it does highlight an increasing problem in journalism, especially business and tech journalism. If we don’t take the time to check quotes and call for confirmation, we end up looking as foolish as Microsoft, its PR and Throup, Murphy and Hunt – all parroting the same thing, without question, to the benefit of the software giant’s marketing and nothing else.

We try to make it clear here at IT PRO when a quote comes from a press release, noting that so-and-so “said” something in a statement, but we might miss it off or assume it’s clear enough to readers without pointing it out.

From here on out, we’ll make sure it is perfectly clear. Hopefully Microsoft and other tech firms do the same, and stop claiming someone’s said something when they actually haven’t said it at all.

To Throup and Hunt – and all the others targetted by Microsoft’s crackdown – we’d love to hear from you what you actually think about illegal software and piracy. Drop us a line at comments@itpro.co.uk.

Brits are starting to touch up their photos before posting them online, according to some likely rather bogus stats in the ever-accurate Sun, with a rather fantastic headline to match (”Touched up on holiday”).

While I doubt the scientific validity of the 550 per cent increase in photo editing that the Sun cites - how could you even measure such a thing? - I don’t doubt that people are giving their pics a wee bit of a look over in PhotoShop before posting them.

Indeed, the Sun even notes that HP’s photo editing software comes with an automated tool to cut a few pounds off photo subjects, so even those with no ‘Shop skills can get a leaner look.

I’ve never understood this. The people you’re friends with online, don’t they know what you look like in person? Aren’t the people you went on holiday with also your friends on Facebook? Won’t they notice that your belly seems to have miraculously flattened? Your breasts magically massive? Your face actually attractive? (I’d rather look a bit fat than incredibly vain…)

There’s nothing wrong with choosing not to post something because you inexplicably look hideous — sometimes the camera just catches the wrong angle (that’s what I tell myself, anyway.) And there’s nothing wrong with picking a more flattering pic for your profile photo — hey, sometimes the lighting just works.

But actually editing them is just silly and insecure. (Though it might spur an uptake in people’s computer skills…)

One woman let the Daily Mail touchup her photos. According to the paper, she was “delighted with the results.” She was quoted as saying: “Wow, that looks a bit weird, not like me. But yes, I like it.”

It doesn’t look like you, but you like it? Why not just fill your profile with pictures of Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox or whoever else, if you want someone hot and don’t mind if it looks like you?

People of Facebook (and MySpace and whatever else), please keep in mind: You’re not celebrities and you don’t need to look like them.

Yes, your photos are online. But that doesn’t mean you’re famous. No one cares what you look like. Your friends already know — and they like you anyway, it would seem — and no one else gives a crap.

Twitter was knocked offline yesterday, in a denial of service attack apparently targetted at just one user, a Georgian blogger.

But he wasn’t the only victim of the heinous attack. Millions of Twitterers were left without the ability to share 140-character bits and pieces of themselves with the world for hours at a time.

To help get over the trauma, Twitterers have been sharing their experiences over the still struggling site, under the “whentwitterwasdown” tag.

Here’re a few of the best.

Some chose to pick up on the 140 character limit:

@Irrelevantcrap : #whentwitterwasdown I picked up a book, read the first 140 characters and then lost interest.

@caitiejayne #whentwitterwasdown I read 46 books. But only got 140 charcters in. My attention span may be ruined forev…….look a pony

Others took digs at other social networking sites, like Facebook:

@lkswim2 this one time, #whentwitterwasdown i almost liked facebook again

@jtm289 #whentwitterwasdown I used facebook to update my status for the first time in months…

Some Twitterers didn’t know what to do with the thoughts bouncing around in their heads… how to share them?

@biancazed #whentwitterwasdown i said my thoughts out loud so that atleast i knew what i was thinking

@charlottexoxo: #whentwitterwasdown I wanted to tell my twitter friends that it was down… but I couldn’t. Strange stuff.

@MattJSour #whentwitterwasdown I was forced to have a conversation with another human…in person!

Some have us worried:

@BillCorbett #whentwitterwasdown I went right into survivalist mode, got my rifle, & stole my neighbor’s stash of energy drinks at gunpoint. (Sorry Bob.)

@Irrelevantcrap #whentwitterwasdown Chuck Norris was standing above it daring it to get back up.

A few tried to re-engage with the real world:

@JonDBishop #whentwitterwasdown I got so much work done … just wasn’t as much fun

@classybird_x #whentwitterwasdown i stepped outside and realised there was a real world out there. i didn’t like it because it was too hot.

And others were just smug:

@kostas22 #whentwitterwasdown I had no idea it was, because my life does not depend on it.

Who goes on Twitter to tweet about how much they don’t like to tweet? Maybe it’s just the shock getting to them…

See any funny #whentwitterwasdown messages? Drop us a line in the comments…

And, don’t forget, you can follow IT PRO on Twitter.

The Archbishop of Westminster has declared social networking and email and other electronic communication as bad for the soul, saying it hurts communities.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Vincent Nichols said:

“I think there’s a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we’re losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together and building a community.”

The Catholic leader added:

“We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point… Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.”

He’s right… that would be bad. Exclusive use of what he calls “electronic information” would be problematic, no doubt. That would indeed destroy communities. We’d all go weird and be confused when someone smiles — why are they making that face??!

Except, he’s wrong, because no one conducts all their communication through gadgets or the web. We just don’t live like that. (Okay, some crazy dude living in a dark, dank but well-connected basement might, but he’s probably a nutter anyway.)

I might use texts, Facebook, Twitter (well, I still don’t get it, so not so much), email and other tools to communicate, but it’s almost entirely with people I actually see in person, and frequently too. Those teenagers sitting on IM or Facebook or whatever it is the kids use these days, many are probably talking to friends from school, people they see every day.

Yeah, there are some sad cases where kids can’t make friends, and end up depending on web-only communities. Or others where kids are bullied. But the problem isn’t the internet, it’s that the kid can’t make friends or are picked on — don’t blame the IT for that. Blame society, evil teenagers or whatever. There were troubled, lonely kids long before the web, and many probably find help and support in online communities, too.

Disturbingly, the Archbishop even blamed such communities for teen suicide:

“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships… They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

Has teen suicide increased in the past ten years? Well, yes. Is it the internet’s fault? No — not according to the internet, anyway. Wikipedia tells me the American Journal of Psychiatry blames a decrease in treatment rates — I couldn’t tell you whether that’s true or not, as I’m no expert in the subject (not that that stops the Archbishop from speaking up, mind you.)

The simple fact is, how can the church be relevant to teenagers and useful to the (’real’, offline) community when its leaders clearly don’t understand how people live today?

Of course, maybe he should have squared his opinions with his boss first, as the Pope’s on Facebook. Does that make it okay to poke away, then?