Many devs I meet are going to Macs and won’t likely switch back to Windows to develop apps (at least in startups).
I can echo this as well: the company I work for just acquired another company. The CTO of the newly-acquired company, as well as some sales support staff, all use Macs and only flip over to Windows (via Boot Camp or Parallels) when they have to.
Another: I was at a euchre party last night. Three of the twelve people there told me they were buying Macs for their next computer, every one saying that they are “sick of Windows” (even Vista, as one guy said). None of them is a a tech news hound, so I see this as fractional evidence that Apple is slowly becoming a household brand, and not just for the iPod.
In 2001, TheStreet.com’s David Goldstein wrote with a fair degree of solemnity:
“It’s desperation time in Cupertino, Calif.,” opined TheStreet.com. “I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.”
Yet another example of how silly one can look when they bet against Apple, at least with the current management regime. Of course, it’s easy for me to say that with the benefit of hindsight — in 2001, Apple’s spectacular brand momentum wasn’t what it is today.
The next time you have an itch to send an email to a political blogger or post a comment or do a trackback, do it. Make it a habit.
I’ve been making this a habit since I started GF, and it absolutely, without-a-doubt creates tributaries that lead to larger rivers. Fantastic advice worth heeding.
A Spanish consultancy company put out a search (link in Spanish) for candidates with considerable “internet experience,” which means prospects should understand the basics of navigation, search, file formats, browsers, etc.
They received 50 applicants in short order, 30 of which came in from Hotmail email addresses. All 30 Hotmail-based applicants were deleted as quickly as they arrived. The reason the company provided for this decision is what absolute truth looks like when it’s typed out.
You can’t pretend being an internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time.
Actor Eddie Griffin destroyed his producer’s ultra-rare Enzo Ferrari while practicing for a charity race to promote his upcoming movie, Redline.
I understand that accidents happen (even $1.5M ones), but what gets me is Griffin getting out of the car unscathed and casually joking about it.
“Undercover Brother’s good at karate and all the rest of that, but the brother can’t drive.”
He refers to himself as “Undercover Brother”. After totaling $1.5M of racing machine, only 400 of which were ever made.
Maybe it’s just me and my crazy upside-down worldview, but if Griffin crashed my Enzo, he’d get “Undercover Brother” out of his mouth and that’d be about it. Like, forever.
Let’s talk about what happened to Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users. She recently had a small group of people, some of whom are very well known, make some downright vulgar comments about her. Things got dangerous when they crossed the line into death threats.
Yes, really.
Before you read my post any further, read Kathy’s story (linked above). Go. Do it now. Read the comments to her post too.
As sad and disturbing as this is, we bloggers have to face three hard facts:
We work in an internet medium that offers others the perception of anonymity coupled, in most cases, by comment pages that allow allegedly-anonymous people to write and say whatever they want.
In a medium this connected, this mature, and this instantaneous, the same shitty elements we deal with in real life can make their presence known more forcefully and quickly than in real life. In that sense, the internet is a lens that can very quickly magnify both the good and bad regions of human behavior.
As bloggers, we put ourselves out there for all to see. We get criticized. We get some pretty harsh comments. We get private emails, both good and bad. We get talked about and bashed and dissected on other forums. In short, we’re public, we’re easy, we’re out there. People will and do take shots. That’s why you see so many blogs fold so quickly: someone always has an axe to grind.
I said just a few days ago that Apple should get around to putting a stake in the ground and defining what Leopard actually is lest it run the risk of blogosphere speculation building something so huge (and so unreasonable) that Apple could never deliver it.
This is what I’m talking about. Suddenly, out of nowhere, we have Arstechnica, an eminently credible site, guessing that Leopard is “secretly three-dimensional” (whatever that means). The reason this particular author speculates at this? Why, garbage collection, of course. Oh, and because of the iPhone’s interface. Oh, and because of CoverFlow and other app-level graphic effects.
Please, just knock it off.
It’s bad enough that this comes from Arstechnica, but it’s even worse that it’s being picked up by other Apple blogs as a viable story.
Look, I want to see Apple pull an anthropomorphic time-traveling rabbit from another dimension that screams Gary Jules lyrics at people in high-def sound as much as anyone, but I’m not going to speculate irresponsibly about it.
PS — Leopard will have a magic rabbit that screams lyrics in high-def at people as a secret feature. You heard it here first.
Next time you want to freak a woman out to the point of her never talking to you again give her the Good Luck Newborn Necklace, which features a small metal newborn baby pendant with a chain through its head.
You’ll be ready for anything with a metal baby bobbing around your neck. This is no ordinary newborn however - it’s straight from the center of a king cake, a New Orleans treat that’s shared among friends and has a small baby hidden inside.
Sadly, it seems they’re sold out of the guy’s tee already, which is disappointing.
How can you help? Good question. If you’re a dude, you can go here, find your size, and click on the Reprint me? link underneath your size. You enter an email address and whammo!, you’ve voted for a reprint.
I wear an XL, so it will be mighty handy if you do too. Just sayin’.
Paul Thurrott claims that everyone is worried about when Apple will release Leopard, but the real question is what Leopard actually will be.
I don’t typically agree with Thurrott, but here, he’s spot-on.
…if I were a developer focusing on the Mac OS, I’d be frantic by now. If Leopard is really shipping in Spring 2007 (which started last week, by the way), then why hasn’t Apple provided its most valuable supporters–developers–with the information they need to take advantage of these secret features? It’s an absolutely ludicrous situation, perhaps the ultimate example of Apple’s ridiculous penchant for security.
Clocky is an alarm clock I’d wager most people need if they are brave enough to admit it.
Clocky gives you a chance to wake up like a reasonable, sane person who has some grasp of responsibility. If you fail — and you know you would, or you wouldn’t be reading this with so much interest — Clocky sounds its alarm again, rolls of your nightstand, and starts tearing across the floor. You have to get your ass out of bed to turn it off before it finds some matches and sets the dog on fire.
The question isn’t “Who needs this?” but instead, “Who doesn’t need this?”
Update: Nimish Batra tells me the quote below is from Douglas Adams and implores me to go do some research. So I did. Sure enough, it was published in Adams’ “The Salmon of Doubt”. Thanks Nimish.
As someone who’s come to love good tea, I’ve also come to (slowly) understand the proper way to prepare it. The reason most people shrug and look at you funny when you suggest having a cup of tea is because they’ve never a cup that’s been properly-prepared. Slopping a bag of orange pekoe Lipton into some moderately hot water doesn’t get you tea — it gets you a cup of brownish swill you have to struggle to drink.
All of this is largely because we’re dumb Americans and we don’t understand the nuances of making good tea, but the good news is that the BBC has provided us a handy guide to lead us out of the dark ages in our relationship with the drink:
So the best advice I can give to an American arriving in England is this. Go to Marks and Spencer and buy a packet of Earl Grey tea. Go back to where you’re staying and boil a kettle of water. While it is coming to the boil, open the sealed packet and sniff. Careful - you may feel a bit dizzy, but this is in fact perfectly legal. When the kettle has boiled, pour a little of it into a tea pot, swirl it around and tip it out again. Put a couple (or three, depending on the size of the pot) of tea bags into the pot (If I was really trying to lead you into the paths of righteousness I would tell you to use free leaves rather than bags, but let’s just take this in easy stages). Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk then it’s probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea. If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea you will scald the milk. If you think you will prefer it with a slice of lemon then, well, add a slice of lemon.
There. You’re well on your way to tea-snobdom. Go and spread the word.
Sometimes you have a feeling in your bones about an issue. The words to explain that feeling come later, but the feeling is there before everything. Some call this intuition, and while it’s one of the most powerful human forces on Earth, our Western society doesn’t give it much credibility berth, instead seeking corroborating data or opinion to make the feeling valid.
Sometimes though, examples that illustrate the spirit of your intuition fall into your lap, courtesy of the universe. They help the words along for those who need it.
Senator John McCain recently provided such an example.
I’ve been increasingly disgusted with the conservative Christian right. Some people genuinely don’t understand why I say that, so there’s been the occasional discussion about stem cell research, the teaching of evolution in schools, the absurdity of Intelligent Design — stuff like that. Even though I consider myself well-versed on subjects related to that topic, conversations rarely go well, degrading into a spiral of emotionalism and judgment. Reason almost always loses its place at the table.
So when I read about John McCain’s latest stumble concerning HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, I smile a little. Not because the topic is funny — it’s anything but — but because it’s so rare that a perfectly befitting example walks out of the fog and highlights everything. It’s a picture unto itself, and it says much more than any thousand-word essay ever could.
Six years ago today, Apple released OSX 10.0, the first iteration of its next-generation operating system that marked a sharp departure from it’s “classic” operating systems. OSX 10.0 had its share of bugs and rough edges, but look what six years can do.
Today, OSX is considered the most advanced desktop OS on the planet, and we wait patiently for 10.5 Leopard, its newest incarnation.
I came back into the Apple fold with OSX 10.3 Panther from a Windows XP world, but I got street cred: I was a diehard Mac user back in the System 6 and 7 days. I got through high school and college using (mainly) a Mac. During Apple’s dark years I admit I succumbed to the Wintel world and did the hobbyist build-your-own-rig thing, but after the appeal of PC gaming began to wane, I started to look for something else.
Which led me to the Mac again, this time under OSX.
And here I am. One iBook, two PowerBooks, two PowerMac G5s and one MBP (my only current computer) later, I’m purely Apple these days and couldn’t be happier. It’s been an interesting ride watching OSX mature into not only a rock-solid OS with better application support than many imagined, but also into the platform for alpha-geeks and luminaries across the world. Anytime I hear of a new, intelligent voice in the blogosphere or tech world, I assume they’re using a Mac. And I’m almost always right.
So here’s to you, oh-ess-ecks (I still can’t bring myself to say OS “ten”, which I know makes me a monster). You’ve come from project to obscurity to interesting to maturing to cutting-edge to the strongest and most dangerous desktop competitor Windows has ever seen.
What if, and I’m just saying things as they come to me, this animal-can-be-ground-and-shaped-into-a-meat-patty- which-can-be-mass-produced-and-fried-on-heating-elements, and-then-sold-by-a-corporate-entity-bent-on-feeding-the-obesity-
line-to-young-children-by-using-as-their-public-representation-and-
symbol,-a-clown,-whom-we-shall-call-Jesus-(no-wait,-let’s-save-that-one-
for-later),-whom-we-shall-call-Ronald-McDonald,-and-these-meat-
patties,-which-will-be-inexplicably-and-mysteriously-called-hamburgers -after-a-completely-different-animal-I-haven’t-created-yet,-will-also-
be-considered-sacrilegious-by-fully-one-sixth-of-the-world’s-population,
-and-oh-oh-why-is-it-that-the-numbers-0157-cry-out-to-me?-
because-OH-MY-GOODNESS-I-can’t-believe-it,-but-this-stuff
-is-just-so-brilliant!
Absolutely clever piece. Worth reading for the 0157 reference alone.
A recent rumor from DigiTimes claims that Apple might delay its next-generation version of OSX, called Leopard, until Fall 2007. This is a dramatic departure from the “Spring 2007” company line that has been held for the prior eight months.
DigiTimes isn’t exactly a bastion of rumor accuracy, and I find this one difficult to believe. Difficult as in almost impossible — at least for the reasons DigiTimes cites.
If Leopard isn’t up to snuff and is simply not finished — in terms of feature completion or quality — then such move would be prudent, because Apple can’t afford to botch such a visible OS release. And recent developer builds and community zeitgeist cast some doubt as to whether Leopard is wrapping up as cleanly as it should.
If you enjoy stories about a small, angry company that rips off other another company’s design property, modifies it slightly, calls it their own and then threatens lawsuit against the company from whom they stole, you’re in luck.
Daring Fireball turned me onto the story of how LogoMaid, a shop that sells company logos and graphics for few hundred bucks per, ripped off Dan Cederholm’s SimpleBits logo, modified it oh-so-slightly, then threw it in their online logo catalog for sale for $199.
The LogoMaid knock off isn’t an exact replica, but it’s clearly an unabashed rip-off.
Cederholm’s logo is on the left; the LogoMaid rip-off on the right. (Image courtesy of DF.)
This issue came to a head during a Flickr discussion after Cederholm spotted the knock-off logo in LogoMaid’s online catalog and posted it to his Flickr account. From there, as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber says, things get weird.
The Macalope, one of my favorite Apple sites, finally succumbs to full RSS feeds, kicking his old partial feeds into a lake of razors and vinegar.
Bravo, ‘Lope.
The Macalope is a great Apple news and analysis site. You will read it if you know what’s good for you. Better yet, subscribe to his feed now that it’s normal and not truncated and worthless and retarded.
I quietly applauded about this time last year when Daring Fireball’s John Gruber came out to tell the Mac community that constantly repairing permissions under OSX was crazy superstitious voodoo, and I’m glad to see he’s reminding us again.
Arguing that you (a) run Repair Permissions all the time and (b) have no permisions problems, and then drawing the conclusion that there’s a cause-and-effect relationship there, is like arguing that your diligent avoidance of sidewalk cracks has a causal relationship to the fact that your mother’s back is doing just fine. Troubleshooting computers is science, not magic.
If you’re still repairing permissions every time the rain hits the window, it’s time to stop. Step awaaay from Disk Utility. Repair disk permissions only when you have — get ready — permissions problems.
A good full-on discussion about Repair Permissions — what it does and doesn’t do — is found here, courtesy of Macworld.
First there was the March 24 release date rumor. I think we can safely assume that’s not happening, given
(a) we’ve not heard a lick more about Leopard, including its “top secret” features, let alone had a demo, and
(b) nobody in his right mind formally announces a widely-anticipated product like Leopard on a Saturday, when the news is slow and the stock market closed.
But where’s the beef? Where’s the rest of the hype? Where’s the closure to the featureset rumors from a marketing standpoint? Where’s Jobs officially kicking off Leopard season?
As I said before, Leopard won’t just quietly slip into the market.
I stand by my mid-May/early-June prediction, although I’d love to see a (well-tested and market-ready) release earlier.
AppleInsider reports that OSX Tiger has a bug that will cause Photoshop CS3 to run at less-than-optimal speeds, which creates a performance barrier.
Apple claims this bug has been fixed in the upcoming Leopard OS milieu.
“Buffering is disabled by default in CS3 (Creative Suite 3) when running on Tiger because of an OS issue. Every 30 seconds, the OS pauses Photoshop for anywhere from a fraction of a second to several seconds as it manages that giant buffer cache,” he wrote.
“If you’re painting, this is a big problem, and it’s why we made the ‘disable VM buffering’ plugin available for CS2. Apple says that issue is fixed in Leopard, but we haven’t verified that yet.”
On the whole, this is good news, because I’d bet CS3 will fly bone-stock on Intel Macs, and Leopard realizing even further gains is good sauce.
The New Yorker on The Wisdom of Children. The first third of the article (partially quoted below) is hilarious; the rest, not as much (but still worth reading).
I. A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table
MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let’s talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won’t tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
Wired has a good piece up discussing five reasons why the AppleTV rules and five why it sucks.
Top reason (as I see it) that it rules:
5. Everyone else has finally, belatedly, decided it’s hot. This might seem like a stupid reason. Maybe Not. If it repeats the success of iTunes, it’ll become the standard, and sometimes, that’s the direction of least annoyance. Remember, this is supposed to be an appliance, not an application. Most of us want it to be a near-invisible interface between us and our media, not a science project.
…and top reason it sucks:
3. It doesn’t do much. Even though it’s a capable computer in itself, it’s all in the service of functionality that’s designed in, instead of being emergent from its hardware capabilities. Yeah, that’s just the way it works with modern appliances, but if it has a Pentium M CPU, 256 MB RAM, a 40GB hard drive, why no PVR? Why such limited features?
I would love to comment further, but as I noted on Twitter about 30 minutes ago, I might be one of the last human beings in North America not to have an HDTV yet. I have two TVs in my house, both SD. One is a 32″ Panasonic that I paid something like $1000 for about nine years ago, the other is a 52″ rear projection SD Sony that I negotiated into the deal when we bought our house.
I actually am looking for reasons to buy the AppleTV so I can give it a proper review, but it’s pretty difficult when I don’t have the basic technology around to effectively use it.
There are two basic visions of the future of the web, and one of them is wrong. I’m going to work on the right one for a while. At Google. Starting today.
Google just nabbed a superstar. Congratulations Mark.
A BRITISH Airways passenger travelling first class has described how he woke up on a long-haul flight to find that cabin crew had placed a corpse in his row.
The body of a woman in her seventies, who died after the plane left Delhi for Heathrow, was carried by cabin staff from economy to first class, where there was more space. Her body was propped up in a seat, using pillows.
The woman’s daughter accompanied the corpse, and spent the rest of the journey wailing in grief.
All I know is this: if I woke up next to a dead woman and her wailing daughter, I’d have so many flight vouchers that I’d be flying all over the fucking world for free for the rest of my life.
But it gets better. Get a whiff of BA’s official statement regarding the incident:
Paul Trinder, who awoke to see the body at the end of his row, last week described the journey as “deeply disturbing”, and complained that the airline dismissed his concerns by telling him to “get over it”.
I said just a few days ago
Sometimes though, examples that illustrate the spirit of your intuition fall into your lap, courtesy of the universe. They help the words along for those who need it.
