Steve Jobs Forbes CEO Poll Attacked By Lemmings

Article on macobserver.com

.Net is a no show, XP is stuttering, and the Department of Justice suspects the Gates Gang of not living up to the terms of the infamous lawsuit settlement. So what do some PC users with too much time on their hands wind up doing? How about attempting to soil Steve Jobs' good standing in Forbes' CEO Approval Rating Poll.

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/07/09.4.shtml

Strictly speaking, these polls are useless...but I voted anyway!

The Forbes CEO poll is here...

http://www.forbes.com/2003/01/21/cx_ceotech.html

Auto vote

More evidence for the futility of these polls but for those interested...


http://www.macobserver.com/comments/commentindivdisplay.shtml?id=30215


The Wintel crowd is bot-voting (using an application to auto-vote again and again) against Steve Jobs and for Steve Ballmer (approx. 30000 votes per day). The only way to compete is to auto-vote, too. This is possible through AppleScript:

1. set Safari's homepage to http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/vie...1&vote=1&submit=%A0%A0Vote+Now%A0%3E%3E%A0%A0 (the 'vote for steve' link) and set Safari to open new windows with homepage in Safari's prefs.

2. install the System Events Beta and Script Editor from the 'pre-release software' folder on the Jaguar Developer Tools CD (needed for UI element scripting)

3. 'enable access for assistive devices' in Sys Prefs>Universal Access to enable UI element scripting.

4. run the following AppleScript:

on run
tell application "System Events"
set ResetCounter to 0
repeat
try
open application "Safari"
end try
set frontmost of process "Safari" to true
tell process "Safari"
click menu item "Reset Safari..." of menu "Safari" of menu bar 1
try
click button "Reset" of window 1
end try
try
click button "Reset" of window 2
end try
end tell
repeat 1200000 times -- this is a wait cycle, adjust as needed
set x to 1
end repeat
set ResetCounter to ResetCounter + 1
if ResetCounter > 100 then -- here we restart Safari to avoid stack overflow
tell application "Safari"
quit
end tell
repeat 2400000 times -- this is a wait cycle, adjust as needed
set x to 1
end repeat
set ResetCounter to 0
end if
end repeat
end tell
end run

The wait cycles may need to be adjusted to your computer's speed and the speed of your internet connection. The script can only be quit through 'Force Quit'. Sorry, but it's been a while since my last scripting.

PS: Alternatively, to vote against Ballmer, set http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/vie...1&vote=2&submit=%A0%A0Vote+Now%A0%3E%3E%A0%A0 as Safari's default homepage.

Like I said, I think these polls are useless. It is slightly interesting as a cultural phenomenon that people get excited about such things as if they actually make a difference. Having said that, I still found it irresistable to vote.

No sympathy at all for Forbes though. They probably anticipate this sort of thing.

As for the auto voting - I don't know if it works or not - it's not my idea and a link to the original post is included. It looks to me that voting is limited to IP.