A bit ago, this blog post crossed my Twitter feed. I read it, and while the schadenfreude made me smirk for a minute, it eventually made me feel bad. The blog post purports to describe how a shitty shutdown dialog became a shitty shutdown dialog. But instead, it documents something I like to call “too many puppies” syndrome. If you are working on high visibility areas of a product – like the Windows Shell – like Explorer in particular, everybody…
A few years ago, following the success of many other HDMI-connected computing devices, a new type of PC arrived – the “compute stick”. Also referred to sometimes as an HDMI PC or a stick PC, the device immediately made me scratch my head a bit. If Windows 10 still featured a Media Center edition, I guess I could sort of see the point. But Windows, outside of Surface Hub (which seemingly runs a proprietary edition of Windows), no longer features…
Last year, Christopher Mims wrote about how Apple should kill off the Mac. Just this week, Apple alumnus Michael Gartenberg wrote that the iPad Pro is the new Mac. It’s human nature to try and match things up… to simplify, organize, and categorize data points. To say a thing is like another thing, or a thing can replace another thing. But I think doing so today only confuses normal users. A few months ago, I wrote a post about how you…
Following my recent trip to Germany, I’ve spent the last month thinking about the idea of brand spaces. By brand space, I mean the use of a space – be it a single store, a building, or a multi-building space, that a business uses to establish or grow a marketing relationship with their consumers. Although I hate to fly, I love to travel. (As I like to tell people, “I like to be places”.) I took a few days this year…
Last week, as I entered the elevator of the building, another tenant turned to me and gleefully exclaimed, pointing across the garage at a new Jeep, “See that Jeep? I think I’m going to buy it.” I could tell immediately that this guy (a younger man, in his 20’s) was in trouble. He was smitten. He was a stranger, but sharing all of this, unprovoked. I had just come home from work, after a long editorial review meeting, followed by a trip to…
0.12 of a pound less in weight. 0.6 inches more in display area. That’s all that separates the iPad Pro from the Surface Pro (lightest model of each). Add in the fact that both feature the modifier “Pro” in their name, and that they look kind of similar, and it’s hard to not invite comparisons, right? (Of course, what tablets in 2016 don’t look like tablets?) Over the past few weeks, several reports have suggested that perhaps Apple’s Tablet Grande…
From the arrival of Apple’s iPhone App Store, they’ve elected to keep the platform, shall we say, “Family Friendly”. While the guidelines for developers who elect to sell their software through the App Store are always evolving, they seem much more constant and consistent versus when the store first opened. In general, it’s still about keeping it a warm fuzzy place, while allowing some evolution so the App Store can grow and thrive. Apps which which violate terms include those that offer pornography,…
This week, I’m doing something that I don’t remember ever actually doing before. I’m taking back an Apple device, for a refund. After spending less than a week with the Apple Watch, I have to say, I’m disappointed. A bit in the device. But more in Apple. The software is simply not done. Perhaps it’s my use of a 5s as the host device for it. Perhaps my expectations are too high. Perhaps I’m right, that it’s not ready for prime…
This NYTimes article about the VW diesel issue and the DMCA made me think about how, 10 years ago next month, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) almost kept Mark Russinovich from disclosing the Sony BMG Rootkit. While the DMCA provides exceptions for reporting security vulnerabilities, it does nothing to allow for reporting breaches of… integrity. I believe that we need to consider an expansion of how researchers are permitted to, without question, reverse engineer certain systems. While entities need a…
For years, companies have regularly asked me for my opinion on using cloud-based services. For the longest time, my response was one about, “You should investigate what types of services might fit best for your business,” followed by a selection of caveats reminding them about privacy, risk, and compliance, since their information will be stored off-premises. But I’ve decided to change my tune. Beginning now, I’m going to simply start telling them to use cloud where it makes sense, but…