A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted

In a wonderful twist of irony, Michael Dell is finding himself in the same position that Steve Jobs found himself a few years ago. Dell, once the darling of the PC-compatible market, now finds itself playing catchup to HP, and wondering why the market never responded to its music player offerings.

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In an surprising turn of events, the Vista version of Microsoft’s own antivirus solution, “Live OneCare,” has failed to meet Virus Bulletin’s VB100 certification. This follows closely on the heels of Apple recommending that iTunes users not upgrade to Vista due to incompatibilities.

Strangely, neither Apple nor Microsoft officials could be reached for comment. (This is most likely because it was nearly midnight when I wrote this, but also had to do with me not trying to reach anyone at those companies for a comment.) Reportedly though, laughter could be heard from near Cupertino. (more…)

Large corporations tend to copy each other. They copy management styles and productivity themes. If you lived in corporate American in the 90’s and early 00’s, you saw your cheese move, learned to catch falling co-workers in woodland settings, and learned quality control the “six sigma” way.

In an apparent attempt to match the stupidity of the National Football League, Microsoft is taking a… well, proactive approach to learning more about the Asian markets where the xBox is apparently not doing well.

One of the top stories today on WordPress is “Will Vista Be the Reason You Switch to a Mac?” Ignoring all the questions about the poll the article references, there is an interesting market dynamic approaching as existing PC owners consider changing their computing experience.

I think it’s interesting that there are assumptions about Vista from the “I already know Windows” perspective. By all accounts, Vista dramatically changes the way you use Windows (as it should, if it’s going to fix some of the many fundamentally broken things about the preceding versions). (more…)

Recently, I did a bit of a feature comparison between the recently announced iPhone (from Apple) and the PPC-6700 (my version from Sprint, but manufactured by Audiovox). The iPhone runs a version of OS-X and the 6700 runs Windows Mobile 5.0, so they are both running variations of the most popular desktop operating systems. They both have touch screens.

However, that’s where the similarities end. Here, I’m going to recap some of the complaints that I’ve seen related to the iPhone, point out some things that are seriously wrong with the 6700, and then compare the lists. (more…)

Oddly enough, those of us who are highly technology centered frequently forget that most of the rest of the world is not. As a result, the truly geeky among us probably don’t use HTML e-mail, use plain text instead of a fancy font when building a to-do list, and probably don’t worry a bit about how our PC looks. The rest of the world, however, seems to want technology to be visually appealing and esthetically pleasing.

Mercedes is famous for describing its cars with the slogan: “Form follows function.” However, anyone who’s looked at any Mercedes for more than a moment would realize that these cars embody a certain style as well. Does this minimalist approach extend elsewhere? Is it ridiculous to expect style and substance to co-exist, or does the very presence of style suggest that there is no substance? (more…)

Yes, I know the iPhone is six months away from shipping. Even so, Steve Jobs’ keynote address at Macworld yesterday has already shaken up the phone industry (the three largest manufacturers of “smart phones” all saw stock drops of 2-8% yesterday, while Apple went up 8%).

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Until June, few outside of Apple, Cingular, and the FCC will have any “real world” experience with the iPhone, but in watching the presentation yesterday, I noted several ways that this product addresses serious shortcomings in the PPC-6700, my current phone. Since much of the “so what… big deal” talk that’s coming out in response to the iPhone surrounds some of the touch-screen features, and since many of the “oohhhh… ahhhh” features of the iPhone were prime selling points for the PPC-6700, it seems reasonable to compare these two devices directly, far more than any other “smart phone” that I’ve seen on the market.

Lastly, since the price-points are very close ($499-599), the iPhone is clearly aiming at the same market. Instead of posting in the usual way, where I’ll work on an article for several days (a few minutes at a time, I’m writing and editing this as I go. I’ll break this apart using the feature sets that Jobs used yesterday during the keynote, and then close out with what I feel truly sets the iPhone apart. (more…)

I have several close friends and co-workers who are fighting an apparently hopeless battle against unwanted e-mail, typically referred to as “spam.” In sharp contrast, I get virtually no spam at all.

Why the huge difference? Why are my co-workers and friends swimming in the stuff, and I go through the day relatively spam-free? Here are the three things that I do. What differentiates me from my co-workers and friends, is that they do only one or two of these things. The key is to do all three. (more…)

During the height of the Cold War, President Reagan formalized a policy for dealing with the former Soviet Union. In retrospect, I think his approach seems beneficial in both the realm of IT Security and in Parenting teenagers.
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Recently, I followed a couple of links and found myself reading a reprinted essay: On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs. Notwithstanding the sweeping generalizations that suggest that all liberals are bad or all conservatives are good, it was a thought-provoking article. Am I a sheep, or a sheepdog?

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