Learn one weird old trick to reducing your disappointment in life
Stop buying more stuff, believing that buying more stuff will make you happy. Happy Earth Day.
Windows 8 and OS X Mountain Lion – separated at birth?
Alright – shake out the giggles from the title, and let me show you why I said that. Until recently I had been using Windows 8 every day – and recently switched to a Mac (running 10.8 Mountain Lion) as my primary computing device. The more I have used Mountain Lion – especially with apps in full-screen mode – the more certain things felt subtly similar to Windows 8. I believe that Mountain Lion is yet another step in Apple’s gradual…
The PadFone is not the future
I’ve been pondering the existence of devices like the Asus PadFone and PadFone 2 recently. Not really convertible devices, not really hybrid devices, they’re an electronic centaur. Like an Amphicar or a Taylor Aerocar, the PadFone devices compromise their ability to be one good device by instead being two less than great devices. I haven’t found a good description of devices like the PadFone – I refer to them as “form integrated”. One device is a dumb terminal and relies…
Windows XP – Hitting the Wall
Just under one year from now, on April 8, 2014, Windows XP leaves Extended Support. There are three key questions I’ve been asked a lot during the past week, related to this milestone: What even happens when Windows XP leaves Extended Support? Will Microsoft balk, and continue to support Windows XP after that date? What will happen to systems running Windows XP after that date? All important questions. The first question can be exceedingly complex to answer. But for all…
A few of my favorite movies (or: Hollywood – death by 1,000 paper cuts)
Over a year ago, I wrote a missive about how idiotic Hollywood’s “Rental Window” was. Luckily, things have changed, and now you can easily stream a movie from almost any streaming service the same day it comes out on Blu-ray and DVD. I kid. You know that’s never going to happen. I recall as a kid when we wanted to rent a movie on VHS, we had to go to the video store and see if they a) stocked it…
The mythology of MinWin, MinKernel, and BaseFS
Beginning with Windows NT Embedded, an effort was started to refactor the Windows operating system in such a way that embedded device manufacturers could tweak the operating system to only include the parts that they needed to run their application or workload. Though it wasn’t completely decomposed/recomposable, it was a huge step in the right direction. By removing components not necessary to run a certain workload (say a point of sale terminal or a control system for manufacturing), the security…
Theology… theology… theology…
Feedback on yesterday’s post, both here and on Twitter, seemed to generally be relatively uniform. Not so much divisive, but more along the lines of, “You think you’ve got it bad? Try bringing a Windows PC to a Mac environment.” You all bring up a fair point. Personally, I find it amusing that I know of not one, but two technology journalists who at one time or another covered the religion beat on a local newspaper. Why is that amusing? Because…
The Stigma of Mac Shaming
I recall hearing a story of a co-worker at Microsoft, who was a technical assistant to an executive, who had a Mac. It wouldn’t normally be a big deal, except he worked directly for an executive. As a result, this Mac was seen in many meetings across campus – it’s distinct aluminum body and fruity ghost shining through the lid a constant reminder that this was one less PC sold (even if it ran Windows through Boot Camp or virtualization software….
The care and feeding of software
App hoarding. The dark, unspoken secret. We’ve all done it. I logged on to a Windows 8 tablet I hadn’t used for quite some time, and I was so ashamed of myself. So much junk, so many free apps I downloaded, tried, and abandoned. Only recently have I begun steadfastly maintaining a “two screen” limit on iOS to try and keep the applications on my devices solely to those that I use regularly. This isn’t new, mind you. Enterprises have…
One release away from irrelevance
A few weeks ago on Twitter, I said something about Apple, and someone replied back something akin to, “Apple is only one release away from irrelevance.” Ah, but you see… we all are. In terms of sustainability, if you believe “we get this version released, and we win”, you lose. Whether you have competitors today, or you have a market that is principally yours, if there is enough opportunity for you, there’s enough appeal for someone else to enter it…