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About me

My posting summary

1 to 10 of 220

My comments

• Actually, it was Wayne Gretzky's coach who said that, but still, great advice. More great advice that Apple seems to follow comes from Alan Kay who said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." In reply to: "Microsoft, Intel to cede tablet market to Apple?"

  December 26, 2009

  0 replies

• "The shutdown, which requires employees to take unpaid leave or vacation days, would be the first ever in Yahoo's history"
  
  Is that true? I swear I remember them doing this either last year or in 2007 too. In reply to: "Yahoo shutting down for the holidays"

  December 22, 2009

  1 reply

• "The BlackBerry platform also now supports Gears, which is another indication of RIM's intent and direction with respect to browsing on the BlackBerry platform."
  
  Maybe someone should tell RIM that development on Gears has been discontinued. When it comes to the web and browsers, how clueless are these people at RIM? Their "intent and direction" should be in providing full HTML5 support. That's clearly the future. In reply to: "iPhone, BlackBerry Storm offer contrast in browsers"

  December 20, 2009

  0 replies

• It's amazing that anyone doing a cloud service like this can still be using a system architected with a single point of failure that takes down everyone. I doubt Google will have this problem with their Chrome OS. In reply to: "RIM confirms BlackBerry e-mail outage"

  December 17, 2009

  0 replies

• The subtlety here is that the Droid's competition is not the iPhone. It's Windows Mobile. People who would buy an iPhone would never buy a Droid, so these commercials will not convince anyone. What these commercials are doing is appealing to the anti-iPhone crowd, which is the typical customer for Windows Mobile.
  
  And in that sense, these commercials aren't aimed at the iPhone at all. They are aimed at Windows Mobile which Android is in the process of completely wiping off the face of the planet. In reply to: "New Droid ad: iPhone is 'digitally clueless'"

  December 3, 2009

  2 replies

• Not sure why Nintendo would object because the app is essentially a free advertisement for the new Super Mario Wii game. But I believe that a company must defend all known violations of copyright or otherwise risk losing the ability to do so in the future, and now that CNet has put the spotlight on this app, Nintendo probably has no other option than to defend their copyright and force Apple to remove the app. In reply to: "Apple OKs Super Mario app; expect removal"

  December 2, 2009

  4 replies

• I bought the Acer netbook running a dual-boot configuration of Android and Windows XP. I really like the instant-on of Android and the 8-hour battery life and use it basically to run Firefox. I use it to browse the web and read email. That's it. I don't use it for Photoshop or music/iTunes management. I have a much more expensive and more powerful computer for that.
  
  If all you want is an inexpensive device to browse the web, this is perfect. And it takes the wear-and-tear off of my more expensive computer. I typically run Firefox under the Android boot. It's great to have a laptop that boots up and launches Firefox in under a dozen seconds.
  
  My only complaint is that Flash video within Firefox on Android does not play back as smoothly as it does when I am running Firefox under Windows XP on the same machine. That would be a concern with Chrome OS. I know the focus is on HTML5, but we're still in a world of Flash, QuickTime, and Silverlight plug-ins and those need to be optimized to run on the hardware under the Chrome OS. And on Android, some Flash sites don't display because they put up a message saying that they require the latest version of the Flash plug-in which I cannot download because there doesn't seem to be an Android/Linux version on the Adobe site that I can download and launch from within Firefox (remember, with the basic Android OS, you don't have access to the file system, so if the browser can't launch it, you are SOL -- apps that require you to unzip or execute from the OS's command line won't work).
  
  Chrome OS needs to address these issues. In reply to: "Acer: We'll have the first Chrome OS Netbook"

  December 2, 2009

  1 reply

• Maybe Microsoft will surprise us with WinMo 7. But they're most likely in copy mode again, trying to copy the best of the iPhone and Android. The last time they were in copy mode in the mobile space, they were copying the Palm OS, and it took them a number of releases before they got things right. I could be proven wrong, but my expectation is that the first release of WinMo7 will be very rough around the edges. When Microsoft tries to copy, they often miss the essence of what they are copying and initially come out with something that just doesn't measure up. They'll get feedback about what's wrong and the next release will be better, and with more feedback from that, their third release will be very good. But, my guess is that it'll be 2012 before that happens, and the world will have already passed Microsoft by in mobile. In reply to: "Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share"

  November 15, 2009

  0 replies

• If Windows Mobile was such a vital product for them, there would be no need to spend very expensive development resources to come out with Android-based products. The fact they HTC has come out with Android phones is very telling. I suspect that they've seen a significant drop in demand for their WinMo phones and are trying to make it up with Android (which is the right strategy). But of course HTC cannot abandon WinMo just yet because they are still selling some phones (probably to IT managers still stuck in 2003 and still think Palm Pilots are cool - after all, if your computing experience still revolves around WinXP, you probably think WinMo is pretty nifty) and HTC can't just jettison that business yet. But they see the writing on the wall for WinMo. In reply to: "HTC expects rough fourth quarter"

  November 13, 2009

  1 reply

• Having *programmed* both Windows 1.0 and the Original Mac, I can tell you that Windows at the application programming interface (API) layer was a blatant copy of the Mac. Look at other windowing systems, say X Windows, and they are completely different than the Mac architecture. Nothing similar at all! But you can tell Microsoft just ripped off most of the API set of the early Mac... GDI, fonts, dialog manager... these were all poor copies of the Mac. From the design of the early Windows API, it really looks like people at Microsoft had access to the Mac source code and just about copied their entire internal architecture.
  
  Some people claim that Apple ripped off Xerox. But Apple just looked at the ideas and then figured out on their how to implement them on a much slower CPU with no hard drive and limited memory. In contrast, Microsoft just ripped off the entire Mac internal design. It's the difference in trying to re-create a building by just looking at the exterior vs. having detailed blueprints. And, by the way, Xerox was an early investor in Apple (which is why they showed Apple their technology) and made a huge profit on their investment when Apple went public. Imagine how much that would be worth now if they still held onto those shares. Anyway, Microsoft has done lots of shady stuff like this... like the time they actually stole the source code from Apple's QuickTime and put it into their own product. Say what you will about Apple's attitude, but they don't outright steal like Microsoft has done. In reply to: "Microsoft denies Windows 7 is based on Mac OS"

  November 12, 2009

  0 replies