384 Posted Topics
 | I have to say that I really hate the term "fan boy." It's usually used as a dismissive term to put down someone who speaks favorably of a product. It suggests that if you like a particular brand, it must mean that you blindly support everything that company does, and …  |
| | Windows 7 is coming next month. That's hardly news to any of you, I'm sure, but have you considered that this major OS release could be the catalyst to end the recession? I'm guessing not many of you have come to that conclusion, but consider this: Many, many companies steered … |
| | On the face of it, you would think eBook Readers would be perfect for an academic setting, but according to a [URL="http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/28/kindle-dx-called-poor-excuse-of-an-academic-tool-in-princeton/"]post on Engadget[/URL] this week, Princeton students participating in a pilot program were unhappy with the Kindle DX's feature set, particularly ones essential to students such as annotation and … |
| | In [URL="http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/live-from-new-york-google-cofounder-sergey-brin-meets-the-press/"]wide ranging interview[/URL] with Peter Kafka of the [URL="http://allthingsd.com/"]Digital Memo Blog,[/URL] Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brinn did their best to give people the impression that Google was run by a couple of arrogant SoBs. Whether it was purchasing Android or suggesting that Google could never be … |
| | In a strange part of what was otherwise and interesting and insightful [URL="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/24/microsoft-ballmer-interview-exclusive-techcrunch-bing-mobile-azur/"]interview with TechCrunch[/URL] this week, [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/steve/"]Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer[/URL] went out of his way to avoid naming Google, instead referring to them repeatedly as "the incumbent." This seemed to be a deliberate strategy and left me shaking my … |
| | I'm not a web developer by trade, but I visit web sites all the time, and as journalist I'm looking for a couple of key things. First of all, I want to find your press page and a press contact. Short of that I want to find an email address. … |
| | [I]I have watched you on the shore Standing by the ocean's roar Do you love me, do you surfer girl ~Beach Boys, Surfer Girl [/I] [URL="http://wave.google.com/help/wave/closed.html"]Google Wave[/URL] invitations went out last week to 100,000 lucky people and I didn't get one. I'm stuck on the shore line while the fortunate … |
| | [ATTACH=right]11664[/ATTACH]I confess I'm not always kind to Microsoft. They stumble and bumble and often make bad decisions, and as such make a great target for a blogger like me, but looking back at the announcements they've made over the last couple of weeks, when you add it all up, they … |
| | It seems that Microsoft is now so threatened by Google that they have allegedly hired a high powered Washington lobbying firm to smear Google to government regulators. What's so interesting isn't that this approach is so petty and childish--although it is that--it's that Microsoft, rather than relying on the quality …  |
| | Yesterday Microsoft launched the long-awaited [URL="http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/zunehd/default.htm"]Zune HD[/URL]. By all reports, this is a pretty nice device with a large 3.3 inch OLED screen with HD video and HD radio playback. As a media player, it offers access to a limited App Store and a very nice $15 all-you-can-eat monthly music … |
| | Microsoft announced a new organization this week called [URL="http://www.codeplex.org/index.aspx"]CodePlex[/URL], which according to its web site, is "a non-profit foundation formed with the mission of enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities." Now, you don't normally see Microsoft and Open Source in the same … |
| | When interface guru Jakob Nieslen reported on the [URL="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/kindle-usability-review.html"]Kindle 2 [/URL]usability last March, he pointed out it was great for books, but not much other content. Why is this significant? Two recent reports suggest that the eBook Reader could move beyond a simple device for reading books, and could become … |
| | With the[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qquCcT6O8cs&feature=player_embedded"] September 9th Keynote[/URL] in our rear view mirror, we can begin to look back at it with a more unbiased eye, and explore some of the new features more clearly. It's obvious by now that this wasn't in any way a major announcement. This was exacerbated by the … |
| | [I]I'm special, so special. I got to have some of your attention, give it to me! ~Pretenders, Brass in Pocket [/I] Ah the games companies play trying so hard to get our attention. For the last 6 weeks or so Microsoft has done a fine job of turning the media … |
| | Apple introduced a new feature today that lets you buy an album from iTunes complete with extra material like bonus recordings, video footage, lyrics and more. This is the kind of package I was suggesting the record companies need to bring to CDs a couple of weeks ago in my … |
| | Yesterday was [URL="http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/09/09/apple-rock-roll-keynote-podcast-itunes/"]Apple's Keynote[/URL], and you would think we would have learned by now that Apple rumors are meaningless. As the buzz grows louder before each of these events, there are rumors so convincing we think they must be a fait accompli. I mean how many of you thought you … |
| | [URL="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/31/apple_expected_to_offer_iphone_on_new_u_s_carriers_within_a_year.html"]Apple Insider[/URL] reports this morning that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting that Apple will end its exclusive agreement with AT&T by next summer. This rumor has been out there for some time (as I wrote back in June in [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4428.html"]Is Apple Getting Ready to Dump AT&T?[/URL]). The exclusivity … |
| | Years ago [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message"]Marshall McLuhan[/URL] uttered the famous phrase, "The medium is the message." He said this long before the World Wide Web. If he were alive today, he might have said something else: "He who controls the distribution method, controls the money." When you look at the Web's influence on … |
| | It certainly has been a roller coast ride of a month for Apple, and it continued this week with news they had allowed an iTunes competitor, [URL="http://spotify.com/"]Spotify[/URL], to place an app in the App Store surprising many industry pundits who believed they would reject it. Meanwhile, earlier this week Apple … |
| | You have to give Sony credit, they are really trying new strategies to wrestle eBook marketshare from the Amazon Kindle. This month [URL="http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/computer_peripheral/e_book/release/41492.html"]they announced several new editions [/URL]of the Sony Reader, including the brand new Reader Daily Edition, which should be in stores in time for the holiday shopping season. … |
| | In a wide-ranging [URL="http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,644229,00.html"]interview with the German Magazine Der Spiegel [/URL]recently, the Head of Google Europe, Philipp Schindler, defended his company against the latest round of attacks from publishers who claim that Google is siphoning profits without creating content. Truth be told, this argument is getting old and it suggests … |
| | For years now, Apple has been on a heck of a ride creating pleasing products with a loyal customer base, but suddenly this month the tide seems to have turned, at least in the press. As my [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4636.html"]DaniWeb colleague, Davey Winder[/URL] pointed out last week, the press jumped on numbers … |
| | In a move that could only be characterized as surprising, Sony announced last week that it was going to be using the open [URL="http://www.idpf.org/"]ePub eBook standard[/URL], which in theory should enable [URL="http://ebookstore.sony.com/reader/"]Sony Reader[/URL] users to access and use any books created around the standard. Sony Readers will also be able … |
| | Today Dynamite Records, a fixture in Northampton, MA for more than 27 years shut its doors. Probably doesn't matter to most of my readers, but consider this news against the backdrop of [URL="http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090818.html"]figures released this week by the NPD Group[/URL] indicating that iTunes controls 25 percent of all US music … |
| | You have to give Steve Ballmer and Microsoft credit. After years of sitting on the sidelines playing defense and catch-up, this year they have definitely been on offense. Whether it's the ad wars, releasing Bing, the deal with Yahoo!, the retail strategy or its latest move, a deal with Nokia … |
| | Yesterday was the major league baseball trade deadline and lots of teams made [URL="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4369463"]big deals[/URL] and took huge gambles for short-term gain, while possibly risking the future in the form of younger, cheaper, but unproven talent. [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/31/EDQR191T6C.DTL"]Microsoft and Yahoo![/URL] also made a trade of sorts when they signed an historic … |
| | Word came out yesterday that [URL="http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/23/news/companies/ATT_earns.reut/"]AT&T didn't have a great quarter[/URL] (which ironically sent the stock price soaring because it wasn't as bad as expected). This loss seemed perplexing to me given that Apple reported its numbers earlier this week (as I wrote in [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4560.html"]Lauren's Wrong: People Definitely Want Macs[/URL]), … |
| | Apple released its [URL="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21results.html"]third quarter numbers[/URL] yesterday and by any benchmark they were impressive. Consider these numbers as [URL="http://www.macworld.com/article/141829/2009/07/appleq309.html?lsrc=top_1"]reported by Macworld[/URL]: * $8.34 billion in sales and a net profit of $1.23 billion * 5.2 million iPhones * 10. 2 million iPods * 2.6 million Macs (of which1.75 million were … |
| | [URL="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10291462-93.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1"]Today Yahoo! is releasing[/URL] a new version of its search tool with many changes. This is significant for a number of reasons: [LIST] [*]Yahoo! has been in the news lately mostly as Microsoft's take-over target. The make-over provides the company with a news opportunity that's actually about an upgrade to … |
| | Last week Amazon [URL="http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/amazon-kindle-1984/"]did something despicable[/URL]. They violated the privacy of every Kindle user when without warning they remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle Readers. It seems that Amazon had determined these books had been purchased "illegally." (The irony of choosing these particular books … |
| | [I]It's not always easy, And sometimes life can be deceiving, I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together ~Jack Johnson, Better Together[/I] News leaked out this morning on the [URL="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090716/yahoo-search-ad-deal-with-microsoft-down-to-the-short-strokes-but-caution-also-advised/"]All Things Digital Blog[/URL] (and subsequently widely carried by the New York Times, PC Mag Online, Wired and … |
| | It was revealed yesterday that [URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071600811.html"]Apple began blocking Palm Pre users [/URL]from syncing with iTunes. Apparently the latest upgrade, which I installed just this morning won't allow Pre users to sync with their phones. Seriously, Apple? Are you really going to be this petty? Do you really feel this threatened … |
| | When Microsoft first announced their retail strategy back in February I wrote a post called [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4030.html"]Microsoft Retail Strategy Doomed to Fail[/URL] and I haven't changed my view. Today,[URL="http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3358"] it became clear[/URL] that in the face of all common sense they are continuing to push forward with this wrong-headed idea. Remember, … |
| | I've[URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4290.html"] speculated in the past[/URL] that nothing could keep Google from moving Android from a phone to a computer. After all a phone is just a hand-held computer, so it should come as no surprise that [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html"]Google officially announced[/URL] yesterday that it was getting in the computer operating system business … |
| | My colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols waxed nostalgically on Monday in his [URL="http://blogs.computerworld.com/so_long_compuserve_nice_to_have_known_you"]Computerworld Cyber Cynic[/URL] blog about CompuServe, the long-time service that shut down recently, and which Vaughan-Nichols says he's going to miss. As much as I like [URL="http://twitter.com/sjvn"]SJVN[/URL], I have to say good riddance to old technology. It long outlived … |
| | Over the last year, Microsoft ads have been simply bad on one end of the spectrum and horrible on the other. It's really time for the company to reconsider their ad agency choices and their overall strategy because right now they are throwing good money after bad. I had one … |
| | In the final days of a failing model, old media made one last futile attempt to save its fading way of life by trying to expand copyright law to exclude fair use and linking. Just this morning, my DaniWeb colleague, Sharon Fisher wrote a post called [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4479.html"]This Blog Post Could … |
| | [I]How come I can't let go? I'm between two worlds ~Tom Petty, Between Two Worlds[/I] As I watched vendors navigate the changing software world last week at [URL="http://www.e2conf.com/"]Enterprise 2.0 in Boston[/URL], it struck me that the old companies are trying desperately to hold onto to the markets they have dominated … |
| | On June 15th, less than two weeks ago, the [URL="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/15/apples_mac_sales_held_up_in_may_while_ipod_shipments_fell.html"]Apple Insider blog reported[/URL] that Apple sales continued slipping in May. Mac sales were down, perhaps not as much as expected but still down, and more surprising, the previously recession-proof iPod sales were falling. Could it be that the economy was … |
| | Speaking about consumer search [URL="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/06/18/ballmer-we-should-have-built-search-sooner/"]last week[/URL], Steve Ballmer said he now regrets that Microsoft quote "didn't start earlier" unquote. But it seems to me that Microsoft has been all in for a long time and they just haven't been very successful at consumer search. It wasn't so much they gave … |
| | One of the big rules of online advertising as I understand it is that you count success to a great extent based on how many people click through to your site. It's really the basis of how people get paid by Google for [URL="https://adwords.google.com/select/AdSenseLoginToAdWords"]Google AdSense[/URL]. If you get click-throughs you … |
| | I've seen a lot of love for Microsoft's newly branded search engine, [URL="http://www.bing.com/"]Bing[/URL] lately and frankly I just don't get it. Bing landed a couple of weeks ago with a huge ad budget (as I wrote in [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4372.html"]Microsoft Ad Wars Turn to Google[/URL]) and a big splash, but I've used …  |
| | [URL="http://blogs.forrester.com/information_management/2009/05/microsoft-office-still-owns-the-desktop.html"]Sherri McLeish from Forrester[/URL] reports that 80 percent of enterprise customers still use Microsoft Office. While this is down significantly from the 95 percent reported in this [URL="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991412.htm"]2006 BusinessWeek article[/URL], it still makes me wonder why so many companies would continue to use Microsoft Office given the current economy and … |
| | Apple kicked off its annual [URL="http://developer.apple.com/WWDC/"]World Wide Developer's Conference[/URL] on Monday, and it proved something very important; it could generate plenty of excitement without [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs"]Steve Jobs[/URL] on stage. I know that I along with many others watch with anticipation as live bloggers on the scene gave us the blow by … |
| | As usual Apple put on quite a show at the [URL="http://developer.apple.com/WWDC/"]WWDC 09 Keynote[/URL] on Monday, but what struck me was the undercurrent of derision for its exclusive carrier AT&T. Tucked in among the [URL="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217800153"]big announcements[/URL] of faster, cheaper Mac Books, $29 Snow Leopard upgrades, the long rumored $99 iPhone and … |
| | Ah, Microsoft, that crazy company from Redmond, WA is at again. This time they want to rename the Netbook unilaterally to the...drum roll please..."low cost small notebook PC." As first reported in the [URL="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090602PD221.html"]Digitimes[/URL] last week, Microsoft decided on their own that the name was not appropriate and they were … |
| | The iPhone faces a critical test this month with several factors coming together to threaten the dominance of the popular smart phone. First of all there's the Pre, a shiny new comer that threatens to overtake Apple's cool factor when it's released by Sprint this month (as I wrote about … |
| | Lots of talk about [URL="http://wave.google.com/"]Google Wave[/URL] last week, but after reading five articles that all described it in a similar fashion, I still didn't quite get what all the fuss was about. Finally, at the behest of one of my [URL="http://twitter.com/CharJTF"]online friends[/URL] I looked at the first 40 minutes of … |
| | It's never a dull moment when it comes to Google, Microsoft and Apple (which is why I write about them so much), and this week Google and Microsoft made some big announcements. For Google, it was [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html"]Google Wave[/URL], an incredibly hyped new communications interface (more on that it in a … |
| | I've been to a couple of conferences recently where I was surprised to see representatives of the U.S. military on panels discussing various uses of technology, but I was shocked to learn that the military was on the cutting edge of the technologies being discussed. To be honest, my perception … |
The End.