We are toolmakers, humankind. To resist this tendency to solve riddles, to complete tasks faster, with more efficiency, with less risk or human cost, is to resist our gift of ingenuity. Humans are not born to be cogs. We are not born to be tools. We are born to be toolmakers – to make the world better than we found it. Making tools is not without risk or obligation, however. Efficiency often comes with financial benefit to the toolmaker, but…
I never would have imagined myself in an arm-wrestling match with the floppy disk drive. But sitting where I did in Windows setup, that’s exactly what happened. A few times. When I had started at Microsoft, a boot floppy was critical to setting up a new machine. Not by the time I was in setup. Since Remote Installation Services (RIS) could start with a completely blank machine, and you could now boot a system to WinPE using a CD, there…
I’m tired of filtering out spam from the comments. As a result, if you want to comment on a post, find me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.
The college I went to had very small cells… I mean dorm rooms. Two people to a small concrete walled-room, with a closet, bed, and desk that mounted to the walls. The RA on my floor (we’ll call him “Roy”) was a real stickler about making us obey the rules – no televisions or refrigerators unless they were rented from the overpriced facility in our dorm. After all, he didn’t want anybody creating a fire hazard. But in his room? A large…
This is a response to Steven Sinofsky’s blog post, “Why Sony’s Breach Matters”. While I agree with parts of his thesis – the parts about layers of complexity leaving us where we are, and secured, legacy-free mobile OS’s helping alleviate this on the client side, I’m not sure I agree with his points about the cloud being a path forward – at least in any near term, or to the degree of precision he alludes to. The bad news is that…
I’m curious about the identity of the group that broke in to Sony, apparently caused massive damage, and compromised a considerable amount of information that belongs to the company. For some reason, journalists aren’t focusing on this, however. Probably because it doesn’t generate the clicks and ad views that publishing embarrassing emails, salary disclosures, and documented poor security practices do. Instead, they’re primarily focusing on revealing Sony’s confidential information, conveniently provided in multiple, semi-regular doc dumps by the party behind…
Recently, Michael Dell wrote about the after-effects of taking his company private. I think his words are quite telling: “I’d say we got it right. Privatization has unleashed the passion of our team members who have the freedom to focus first on innovating for customers in a way that was not always possible when striving to meet the quarterly demands of Wall Street.”, and “The single most important thing a company can do is invest and innovate to help customers succeed…” Early…
As soon as I saw today’s news, I thought that there would be confusion about what “Office for tablets and smartphones going free” would mean. There certainly has been. Office for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets is indeed free, within certain bounds. I’m going to attempt to succinctly delinate the cases under which it is, and is not, free. Office is free for you to use on your smartphone or tablet if, and only if: You are not using…
On my flight today, I rewatched the documentary Objectified. I’ve seen it a few times before, but it has been several years. While I don’t jibe with 100% of the sentiment of the documentary, it made me think a bit about design, as I was headed to Dallas. In particular, it made me consider Apple, Microsoft, and Google, and their dramatically different approaches to design – which are in fact a reflection of the end goal of each of the…
When you go shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s, there are often tall ladders, saws, key cutters, and forklifts around the shopping floor. As a general rule, most of these tools aren’t for your use at all. You’re supposed to call over an employee if you need any of these tools to be used. Why? Because of risk and liability, of course. You aren’t trained to use these tools, and the insurance that the company holds would never cover their…