Mutually Assured Distraction

Mutually Assured Distraction

Have you recently updated an app your computer or your smartphone (or accessed your favorite Web app), and been faced with the arrival of: New features out of the blue Changed behavior for existing features A release that removes or breaks a feature you frequently use A user interface change that completely modifies the way the app works? If so, you might be a victim of mutually assured distraction (MAD). MAD can also alternatively be referred to as competitive cheese moving.  Once…

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Plan on profiting off of Windows XP holdouts? There’s no gold left in them thar hills.

Plan on profiting off of Windows XP holdouts? There’s no gold left in them thar hills.

A few times over the last year, I’ve had conversations with people about Windows XP holdouts. That is, that as Windows XP’s impending doom rapidly approaches next April, businesses and consumers holding out on Windows XP will readily flock to something new, such as – ideally for Microsoft, Windows 8.1 – or Windows 7. I’m not so sure. To start, let’s consider why a business or consumer would still be running Windows XP today. Most likely, it’s a combination of…

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Jerry Seinfeld on Collaboration

Jerry Seinfeld on Collaboration

“Let me tell you why my TV series in the ’90’s was so good. Besides an inordinate amount of just pure good fortune. In most TV series, 50% of the time is spent working on the show. 50% of the time is spent dealing with personality, political, and hierarchical issues of making something. We spent 99% of our time writing. Me and Larry. The door was closed. Somebody calls? We’re not taking the call. We’re gonna make this scene funny….

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Windows Server on ARM processors? I don’t think so.

Windows Server on ARM processors? I don’t think so.

It’s hard to believe that almost three years have passed since I wrote my first blog entry discussing Windows running on the ARM processor. Over that time, we’ve seen an increasing onslaught of client devices (tablets and phones) running on ARM, and we’ve watched Windows expand to several Windows RT-based devices, and retract back to the Surface RT and Surface 2 being the only ARM-based Windows tablets, and now with the impending Nokia 2520 being the only non-Microsoft (and the…

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How to kill your business

How to kill your business

I’ve been tidying up my media subscriptions of late. Although I’ve subscribed to many paper and online publications over the years, I’ve found that there are only a few which give me an adequate mix of content to the price they’re willing to charge and the time I have available to give to consuming them. I know it costs a lot to create a publication, but it’s astonishing to see how much some media companies value their product – more…

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Steve Jobs on optimize or compromise

Steve Jobs on optimize or compromise

“You’re always fighting things that are opposed to each other…So as an example, let’s take the PlayStation Portable, alright? Great game machine, but it’s not such a great music player, and there’s many reasons for that, but the main reason is that it doesn’t fit in your pocket, right? So your games want nice big screens, music players want to fit in your pocket. You have to pick one, and optimize for it, and the second thing you do will…

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Steve Jobs on coming up with new products

Steve Jobs on coming up with new products

“…Part of the hardest thing about coming up with new products is to figure out a really cool set of technologies you can implement it with, and make it easy, but also figuring out something that people… want to do. We’ve all seen products that’ve come out that have been interesting, but have fallen on their face because not enough people want to do them.” – Steve Jobs at D2, 2004

iOS 7 – These are a few of my favorite things

iOS 7 – These are a few of my favorite things

I’ve been testing iOS 7 from the beginning, and though the UI took a bit of getting used to (and the new icon on the Photos app still makes me do a mental reset sometimes). Overall, I love the changes in it. I’d like to take a minute to tell you about a few of my favorite enhancements in the OS. Control Center – Control Center is easily one of my favorite changes – and it’s immensely useful. A flick…

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No, that new application you’re hearing about won’t replace Microsoft Office.

No, that new application you’re hearing about won’t replace Microsoft Office.

For two weeks straight, I’ve seen prognostications that <application> from <competitor> will replace Microsoft Office. No. Nothing will ever replace Microsoft Office – at least for the time being for a huge chunk of business users. I know, I know… strong words – but let me explain. While a single user who needs to simply compose their thoughts for personal use, or sometimes share them with one or two other users might be able to do so with a third-party Office document…

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iPhone naming – it’s not that complicated

iPhone naming – it’s not that complicated

For some reason, there appears to be confusion – still (even among some Apple press) – about why this year’s phone is not called the iPhone 6, and is instead called the iPhone 5s. Outside of the original year, a very predictable pattern exists – so far. In even-numbered years, a completely new phone arrives, with a redesigned chassis. In odd-numbered years, a revised “S” (now “s”) phone arrives, which carries over most of the chassis of the previous year,…

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