you want to start something?

Apple killed the PPC G4-based Mac mini today and replaced it with an Intel Core Solo (single core) or Core Duo (dual core) model. This gives a theoretical performance in create of 400%. They upgraded the graphics from the woeful Radeon 9200 (which is included inside breakfast cereal packets these days to something that would support Core Image.

Finally, they’re popularising the HDMI connectivity and they’ve not only included Front Row (and an upgraded, actually useful version as well) but it has analog and digital audio meaning you can finally do something with the Dolby 5.1 on those DVDs you’ve been playing. They’ve positioned this in the living room and when you consider the price of LCD TVs with built in Freeview digital decoders, at half decent resolutions for a change, things become very compelling.

They also put in 4 USB ports rather than two and I can see why having experienced the Mac mini with 2 ports, both taken up by a MS mouse and PC keyboard and wondering where to put any other peripherals. Having to unplug the keyboard in order to print made me glad of hot-swap and resentful of the mini. They’ve fixed my biggest gripe.

They also added in Gigabit ethernet. This was obviously a chipset freebie.

The rest? iPod cases made of dead cow? Bleh. A big speaker-cum- iPod-holder? Mleh.

And no “one more thing”?

I’m pumped about the Mac mini and even the RDF can’t get me enthused about the iPod HiFi.

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http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm

A colleague of mine was checking out an online bank. They had a few links around security, one of which was “Scan your PC for security problems“. Clicking on the “Scan PC” button brings up a wonderful message:

You must be running IE5 or greater to scan your PC for security problems.

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Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble have some fun reading about whether or not your company is about to descend into mediocrity (about to suffer a bozo explosion) or even if you can plainly see that it has already gone.

My last big employer, a telecoms dot-commer, had a lot of bozos. We partnered with anything, moving or not. We had administrative assistant’s assistants. There was an entire row of BMWs out the back in the choice parking spots. We didn’t hire anyone unless they had a degree and it didn’t matter what the degree was (we had a lot of arts graduates sitting learning how to write code for weeks on end during the boom). We spent more on the cafeteria than we did on the datacentre. We spent a lot of time telling employees how bad our competitors were. We had lots of MBAs with good hair and no ability to lead. We brought in consultants for everything to second-guess our IT department and provide the same conclusions in prettier presentations. We had VPs who neither commanded anyone nor reported to anyone and they didn’t appear on any of the org charts. I learned to use the terms “win-win”, “five nines”, “task force”, offsite retreat”, “core values” and in normal conversation. We had heaps of marketing items like fleece jackets, pins and mugs, but employees were not permitted to have them unless they had a friend on the inside of the marketing department. We had more project managers than workers. Meetings would commonly last 4 hours. The IT managers promised new multimedia capabilities with a Windows migration and then neglected to configure sound cards nor install anything other than on-board graphics. We had good employees leave and we had excellent prospects refuse to join when they met some of the development teams.

Pretty depressing.

And it was nothing I could do. Eventually, I left. Sometimes the bozo quotient just gets too high and recent news shows that they’re still climbing out of their self-made downfall and they still need to make more layoffs.

Interestingly Guy includes some ways to avoid the situation, but it’s important for us to note that these are options open to management! These are not open to the rank and file – the people most likely to notice the bozo mushroom-cloud as it arrives.

Currently in my day job (not infurious):

• I hire people who can do stuff I can’t do.
• We love our customers and we welcome our competition (more on this latter point later)
• We need more staff, but we’re coping
• We’re not marketing heavily because we need to grow slowly
• I’ve never made a hire based on a resumé. We hire people.
• much like the first point – I hire people who do what I can’t do
• We spent the period of Summer 2004 to Summer 2005 culling the chaff.

If you can see the bozo explosion happening and you are in a position to do something about it (other than leave) then you’re negligent if you don’t do something about it. Think about it.

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A couple of weeks ago I shared some wine and cheese (well, cheese anyway) with some pub mates. We talked about technology, the number of bones in the human body, the length of human DNA and all sorts of things. I shared my vision of a internet-cafe-sum-business-incubator.

BOOM.

It’s everywhere. The term is “Going Bedouin” coined by Greg Olsen and Om Malik thinks that the New Office Space for startup companies will be the coffee shop and not the garage and you know it’s reached Deepest Darkest Peru when there are Irish Bloggers talking about it too.

I’d hoped for a bit of a head start. Too late! I’m going to have to get my finger out and do something about this which means moving things a bit faster. I don’t have to implement the full scale plan, but I do need to do something.

It’s nice when people agree with you as well.

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Daniel Steinberg is the editor of ONJava and java.net. He’s been working with Java on the Mac since it first appeared but also enjoys coding in ObjC and other languages. He is a longtime technical writer, trainer, and developer with Dim Sum Thinking, Inc.

He’s a humble family man and his recent blog, Dear Elena, where he is working through the grief of losing his daughter, just broke my heart. I have no words.

Tags: Commentary, infurious by mj
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