Archive for January, 2008

Bob Cringely seems deflated about CES

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

CES, the Consumer Electronic Show, is a geek respite in the deserts of Nevada among the neon of Las Vegas. It represents, for the non-Mac crowd, the last, best hope for geekdom. It's in early January which often puts it at odds with MacWorld in San Francisco so if you're ...

BT Vision now especially for XBox weenies.

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

The BBC writes: BT is teaming up with Microsoft to offer its television service via the software giant's Xbox 360 console. Sales of BT Vision have been somewhat sluggish according to critics, with BT signing up around 100,000 subscribers since launching in November 2006. The fact that it cannot offer the Freeview ...

The Principles of Underachievement

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Steve sent me this link to 43folders listing of Bennet’s Principles of Underachievement: Life’s too short. Control is an illusion. Expectations lead to misery. Great expectations lead to great misery. Achievement creates expectations. The law of diminishing returns applies everywhere. Perfect is the enemy of good. The tallest blade of grass is the surest to be cut. Accomplishment ...

US Recession hits.

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

According to a report on the BBC News site, the US is now in the grips of a recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months". It bases its assessment on final ...

Keep away from those who belittle ambitions

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Mark Twain - Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. This is something that concerns me. It was certainly something that I experienced from my ex-wife in the embryonic Mac-Sys. ...

Twice Shy?

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about the twice-shy entrepreneur. In the article he writes more about the difference between entrepreneurs from Bubble 1.0 who watched everything disappear down the pan... The intense pressure entrepreneurs were under to get revenue at any cost led them to make decisions that, with hindsight, were blatantly ...

Apple upgrades Board of Directors

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Apple announced yesterday that Andrea Jung, chairman and chief executive officer of Avon Products, was elected to Apple’s board of directors. This is good for a number of reasons. For one thing, Apple needs more women at the top levels. It's only by accident and not design that the world's best ...

Free ain’t free no more

Monday, January 7th, 2008

"If you don’t like what they did to you within the terms of your license, choose a different one next time. Thanks, I will. If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, then a GPL advocate is a BSD advocate who has had their code used against them. ...

Gates defines new language of interaction

Monday, January 7th, 2008

From the BBC, Bill Gates tells us how it is. "This whole idea of what I call natural user interface is really redefining the experience," he said. It's fortunate we have visionaries such as Bill to tell us about these things. He calls it "natural user interface". You heard it here. "We're adding ...

companies lose their best people routinely, almost as a matter of policy

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Nick Corcodilos writes for Infoworld: Companies are madly trying to hire skills, not talent. They want to harvest fruit overnight. Give a smart IT worker some manuals, a workstation, an objective, and a little time, and they'll come up to speed every time. That requires strong leadership. But if you leave it ...