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Monthly Archives: August 2009

Twitter’s 140 Seem Too Short? Try Woofer’s 1400 MINIMUM !

OK Seriously, this is getting out of hand.

I’ve been pretty clear on how I feel about Twitter, and despite using it, my assessment isn’t pretty. So let’s look at it from the opposite side:

Now open for “business”, or whatever they do there, is Woofer. It looks like Twitter, it acts like Twitter, and people are using the darned thing. But instead of forcing you to compress your thoughts, Woofer sends you away unless you have quite a bit on your mind: No entries of less than 1400 characters are accepted.

U.S. Health Care . . . Good Enough for Animals

This post owes its existence entirely to Nicholas Kristof and Michael Moore.

You probably know Mr. Moore’s work. The guy has been churning out one left-wing documentary after another for about twenty years now, and when Sicko came out a couple of years back it managed to get enough attention to finally catapult Moore into the mainstream.

Kristoff, on the other hand, is not someone with whom very many people are that familiar. A columnist for the New York Times, he spends a lot of time in the third world trying to do good. Yes, he too is pretty far left. Sorry about putting you in that box, Nick.

Macs are More Secure Than Windows PCs . . . NOT!

Let the nasty notes fly . . .

So this week Apple releases Snow Leopard. It’s the latest and greatest version of the Macintosh OS, otherwise known as OS X Version 10.6. And I have to tip my hat to them; it’s a great release for many reasons, and at just $30 it will be a great seller (And should be!), even though you might not notice the differences from what’s in Macintosh OS X version 10.5.

Volumes have been written already, and my pal David Pogue at the New York Times has covered this subject as exhaustively and accessibly as anyone. I recommend his take on the subject highly.

Jessica Biel! Malware! McAfee Antivirus! Michael Jackson!

OK, so I threw Michael Jackson in there on purpose.

Today, right now (12:14PM EDT), the Fifth-Most-Blogged-About subject on Google is that antivirus company McAfee has anointed the lovely Ms. Jessica Biel as the most dangerous celebrity on the Internet. Senator Teddy Kennedy’s death is number one. Barack Obama is in there. So is a product announcement from Sony, and the sentencing of Chris Brown for beating up his girlfriend.

Now I’ll use Chris Brown’s girlfriend’s name: Rhianna. Now I’ll mention Jessica Biel again. Oh: and here’s a mention of Jessica Biel’s boyfriend’s name: Justin Timberlake.

Facebook, Twitter, Social Networking, and Cheating

How easy do Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites make cheating? Very Easy.

Or Not.

I’ve been telling clients for years that their use of public or semi-public resources need to be controlled and careful. I’ve been telling my kids that for just as long; years ago I warned my two oldest sons (both college age) about the dangers of putting up compromising pictures of themselves on MySpace, for example, and had the sentiment echoed by the Athletic Director of a major Division I University.

Why More People Don’t Use an iPhone

Simple: Because They Don’t Get It.

I’m not about to go off on a the-iPhone-is-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread rant. In fact, let me state, right here, right now, for the record, that I am not a user, and on my last birthday was offered one as a gift and just couldn’t do it. I TRIED, by the way. I went to an AT&T Store, explained to a very nice associate that I needed to be left alone to play with one, was set up to do so, spent nearly an hour, and walked away hating the iPhone.

Change Meetings, Change Everything About Your Business

Want to change your business forever? Change the way you look at meetings.

I’ve recently noticed how much I want to change the way Outlook schedules my meetings. You’ve probably noticed, too;  it always wants your meetings to be exactly 30 minutes long, or 60 minutes, or whatever you change it to use as a default.

I understand why software needs a basepoint and I need to implement change to make it happen. So why do we all schedule our meetings like software robots, incapable of change?

Skanks, Ho(s), and Change

Wow. I don’t know which troubles me more,  this post’s title, or the time I spent trying to spell out Ho in the plural and have it still be a recognizable word. At least Skanks was easy.

Onward: this week a ruling came down in a court in New York City (Download the 3MB PDF File for the Skank and Ho Ruling) compelling Google and anyone else who has information regarding a Blogger’s rantings about a fashion model to give up that information so he can be identified. And then presumably sued for defamation, libel, or whatever else a group of lawyers can invent. This post tells you everything you need to know about the decision, by the way.

Internet Taxes: Who Should Pay for Change?

Back in February, I wrote a short piece on the subject of how Amazon.com was dealing with the State of New York’s efforts to force them to collect sales tax on products delivered to New York residents. It is, to be sure, one of the scariest prospects for small business I’ve ever seen.

Amazon’s response to New York’s overreaching taxation efforts was strong, and swift. They discontinued the accounts of all New York-based merchants. This effectively put a bunch of small businesses out of business, and while it doesn’t make me any more fond of Amazon’s business practices (see also this piece), it was the thing they needed to do under the circumstances.

Pirates, BitTorrent, and How You (Might?) Be a Thief

Have you stolen a movie today? What about music? Or maybe you’ve just exchanged some really large files with your co-workers.

The last one is legal. The first two, by simple inclusion of the word “stolen”, are not.

This is about to get heavy, my maybe-a-thieving-pirate-torrent-criminal friends, so you might like to read this before we go any further.

Ready? Here goes:

Microsoft Office: Banned and Illegal

OK, so not really. But listen to this:

Yesterday, a ruling compelling Microsoft to STOP SELLING MICROSFT OFFICE was passed down by a US District Court in Texas. Reason? Microsoft’s implementation of XML in their file format infringes on a patent held by Canadian company i41 Ltd.

I’ve spoken out for years about patents on software, and I believe now as always that while there may be some truly unique bits of code out there the very idea of patents on software is ludicrous. Why? Because you can’t patent an idea, and that’s what most software patents amount to.

When Microsoft Breaks Its Word

OK, stop laughing. The Beast of Redmond has been breaking its word on a variety of things for as long as I can remember. Not news. The next version of Windows will take too long to get here and when it finally arrives will stink (Hello, Vista). At least Windows 7 looks promising, and it took way less time to crank out!

This, though . . . I’ve never seen Microsoft do anything as blatantly ugly as this.

Sewing Machines. Still Own One?

OK, I already know the answer to that one. You might own a sewing machine, but it’s pretty likely that unless you’re one of an all-but-vanished breed, you don’t.

But there was a time not all that long ago when everyone did. My father’s wife, for example, owned a sewing machine, and it did all kinds of neat stitch things that she never used when sewing on a button or fixing a hem that had come undone. Oh, and she sure never made a dress.

Cell Phone Companies Steal From You Using Voice Mail!

OK, maybe that’s a little bit much, but here’s the story: it’s been estimated that making us listen to that ridiculous “at the tone, please record your message . . .” drivel before letting us leave a voice mail, cell phone companies are making us spend an extra $600 million every year on minutes.

And that doesn’t account for wasted time, which is probably a bigger deal than the minutes for most people with calling plans and buckets of minutes (though maybe not for pay-as-you-go users, who this costs money directly).

The REAL Reason the iPod Makes You Less Connected

Remember the last time you were in a friend’s house, looking through his CD collection or stacks of DVDs? I’ll bet you found something in there that the two of you talked about, or that led to a cool conversation. At the very least, you came away wanting to hear or see something new, or were reminded of something from when you were a kid that you reconnected with.

Now, look in my iPod.

Oh wait, you can’t.





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