One of the things that I really liked when I first go into the whole Mac thing was the kind of rebellious aspect that the whole PC thing had about it. Most of the guys who later become multi-millionaires and billionaires were geeks with hobbies. The personal computer was so different from corporate networks and the Mac in particular was the bane of PC support departments everywhere because of the ways users would tweak their machines.

The last few iterations of software are moving away from that. Especially now that the move to OS X is in full force which enables corporations to set privileges on each users machine. It seems like the antithesis of everything that the Mac was all about.

One of Apple’s partners in their success was Adobe which started making their software send mash notes to the Adobe mother ship surreptitiously so Adobe could discretely put a stop on piracy. So, this announcement is just another step down the road to the Orwellian fantasy:

Adobe Systems Inc. acknowledged Friday it quietly added technology to the world's best-known graphics software at the request of government regulators and international bankers to prevent consumers from making copies of the world's major currencies.

Adobe, the world's leading vendor for graphics software, said the secretive technology "would have minimal impact on honest customers." It generates a warning message when someone tries to make digital copies of some currencies.