Ruby and Snow Leopard? Really? This book will be completely useless in 5 years when technologies change. She should have wrote about basic CS principles instead. But I guess most of the women just cannot think logically. And that's probably why there are so few women in tech...
So, I suggest a more constructive response for you if you think she's wrong and don't like her style: have a look around: what can you do to make things better?
I DO agree with the cringe-factor, though. I really didn't like watching her adjust her purple knit slippers, giggle and fluff her hair, etc.. It was like watching any other advertisement involving models which I don't like either and is one of the reasons I don't watch television.
I also didn't like her trying to increase the aura for her work by saying, "My country is also where Linux and IRC, etc." came from. There's probably a logical fallacy for that :)
Just like all bad art though, there is almost always information to be gained in the layer of meta-communication. Obviously, many people respond to this kind of stimulus. Perhaps it is because there isn't enough "cute" out there in the world already? It is my belief that cuteness and happy feelings should be more widely distributed, not just reserved for celebrities.
But even this morning on NPR (don't usually listen, was in a rush), I heard them announce the birthday of a celebrity.
We are in a celebrity culture that believes in foregoing our own happiness in exchange for concentrating wealth and happiness on certain other people. We are schizophrenic in that we pay money for impressions of the happiness that others experience. Is it made worse by the fact that we don't even care if celebrity's happiness is authentic or not, we still pay for the illusion.
Exactly the opposite. There's plenty of "cute" and that's also the reason why: people buy it.
A lot of what we learn today in technology specifics changes frequently - it's the thought process behind our execution and methodologies to build that is the most valuable.