Posted by marshall
Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:43:00 GMT
I'm back from WWDC, and it was a great week. The sessions were interesting, I had lots of good discussions with friends, and as usual, a bit of sightseeing was worked in as well. The conference itself was far better than last year's blend of dropped Leopard features and the "sweet" "Web 2.0" "app" "solution" for the iPhone. This year, we got solid information on the real iPhone SDK, Snow Leopard, and even some improvements for web apps.
For once the early buzz was fairly accurate, so my predictions for what was likely to appear turned out to be reasonably accurate as well. The things I thought would happen did, and the things I didn't expect (but nonetheless hoped for) were nowhere to be seen. And while there were a few small surprises, there weren't any really big shockers.
That being said, here are the results, broken down in the same way the predictions were...
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Posted in Musings, Computing, Smartphones | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by marshall
Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:41:00 GMT
There is almost always a surprise at Macworld and WWDC keynotes, and no one really knows going in just what's going to happen. There's no real point in trying to figure out ahead of time what sessions to attend at WWDC; the keynote frequently changes everything.
John Siracusa has been making bingo cards for the past couple of years, containing predictions what may or may not appear at the keynote. I never really played along, but I do have my own expections of what will happen. I'm usually wrong -- most spectacularly at Macworld 2007 (my list was similar to Gruber's) -- but even then it's fun to look back later and compare what I predicted with what actually happened.
So here they are, broken down by how confident I'm feeling.
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Posted by marshall
Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:48:00 GMT
TUAW is saying that WWDC next week will bring a build of Mac OS X 10.6, which "will not include any new significant features from 10.5; instead, Apple is focusing solely on 'stability and security.'"
Daring Fireball notes that the name for this release is rumored to be "Snow Leopard", and follows up with this comment:
"If you’ve ever wished that Apple would spend more time focusing on making existing parts of the OS work better rather than adding new features, this is going to be the release for you."
Count me in among those who have wished for something like this.
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Posted by marshall
Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:28:00 GMT
This morning I read an interview with Bill Gates. This has got to be one of the scariest things I've read in a long time. From the article:
At any point in our history, we've had competitors who were better at doing something. Novell was the best at file servers. Lotus was the best at spreadsheets. WordPerfect was the best at word processing. Right now...Nokia is way ahead of us in phones; we're closing the gap. Sony is ahead of us in video games. We're just on the verge of something (the Xbox 360) that will help us close the gap there. In Web search, Google is the far-away leader...And Apple in music has done a fantastic job.
Look at the list of competitors -- all in different markets. And the message Gates is giving is, "We're going to kill them all." And when they're done with those, they'll find new markets to conquer. There's no need, market-wise, for Microsoft to compete with Nokia: Sony Ericsson, Palm, and Blackberry all compete in the smartphone space to drive it forward. There's no need for Microsoft to compete with Google: Google has competition from Yahoo and other search/portal sites. The only driving force is greed. Microsoft wants to own every single tech market, just because it can. And that's a terrifying prospect.
The future according to Microsoft: when you talk on the phone, it will be a Microsoft Windows Smartphone. When you drive your car, it will run Microsoft Windows Automotive. When you start your computer, it will run Microsoft Windows Vista. When you watch a DVD, it will use Microsoft Windows Media. When you play a game, it will be on the Microsoft Xbox. When you connect to the internet, it will be through the Microsoft Network. When you open your internet browser, it will be Microsoft Internet Explorer. When you search for something, your search results will come from Microsoft Network Search. When you check your e-mail, it will be with Microsoft Outlook. When you type a document, it will be with Microsoft Office. When you want news, you'll watch Microsoft NBC. When you listen to music, it will be Microsoft Windows Media Audio. When you set up a web site, it will run on Microsoft Internet Information Services, with the Microsoft Active Server Pages .NET runtime, using a Microsoft SQL Server database, and running on a Microsoft Windows Server. And that's just the short list.
These are all different markets -- phones, cars, operating systems, multimedia, game consoles, web search, databases, television, web browsers, and more -- with companies competing in each, but Microsoft wants there to be just one company controlling them all. All of the information you receive will come through Microsoft. And just as they did with Novell, Lotus, and WordPerfect, they will ensure -- through licensing deals, pre-installation, and other monopoly-extending means -- that competitors in every tech space are not given the chance to breathe.
I hope Google wins. I hope Apple wins. I hope Nokia wins. I hope Sony wins. Anyone, really, but Microsoft.
As a side note, here's another fun Gates quote from the article:
Software in general, whether it was from Microsoft or somebody else, was not set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together. So it's not like there was some software that had this security capability and our software did not.
Actually, Bill, the UNIX base that drives Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, and other operating systems was set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together, from the beginning. Just because you were late to the game doesn't mean "software in general" was.
Posted in Musings, Computing
Posted by marshall
Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:51:00 GMT
So my friend Tim was lamenting the fact that nobody blogs anymore...or seems to anyway. And it inspired me to post something. So here it is. Something. Yeah.
Actually we're working on yet another re-working of our on-line properties, where I'll take my project site and use it for the technical ramblings that I've wanted to post here but haven't for fear of boring everyone. At least there I'll just be boring myself. We also signed up for .Mac so that Lara can publish photos directly from iPhoto and create web-newsletters and such, which interests her more than this whole blogging thing. I think we've re-designed the site more often than we've actually posted to it. Oh well.
On a completely separate topic, I went to Chevy's for my birthday and they gave me a hat...to keep! None of this putting-it-on-your-head-and-then-taking-it-back business; they actually give you the straw sombrero. That's pretty cool. Also saw Batman Begins on the IMAX screen. Excellent movie, but too hard to watch on the enormous IMAX screen -- a regular theater is cheaper and easier to see.
Posted in Musings
Posted by marshall
Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:30:00 GMT
It's just past 1AM here, and I just got back from Wal-Mart. For the past two years, I've gone to Wal-Mart for the midnight release of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Collector's Box Set, which have a little statue and a bonus disc in addition to the Extended Edition discs. Wal-Mart has generally run some special deal for those who show up at midnight where the price is lower than Best Buy by a couple of dollars, and it's kinda fun to hang out with the group of fans that shows up.
But tonight I walked away empty-handed.
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Posted in Musings
Posted by lara
Fri, 01 Oct 2004 03:04:13 GMT
Hey, what's your personality type? We've been having fun with this lately.
Check it out and post the results in the comments!
I tested as INFJ. But no, I don't do ESP.
Posted in Musings
Posted by lara
Sat, 21 Aug 2004 18:44:00 GMT
I was just reading from The Message, and I was really struck by what I read. So I thought I would share.
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Posted in Musings
Posted by marshall
Sun, 09 Nov 2003 19:00:00 GMT
Lara and I went to go see The Matrix Revolutions yesterday. I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the second film, right up until the ending. The ending was such a terrible, terrible letdown that I don't think I'll ever properly enjoy the first movie again. What a waste of a great idea.
Warning: Don't continue reading if you plan on seeing it and want to keep the plot a surprise.
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Posted in Musings
Posted by marshall
Wed, 01 Oct 2003 18:00:00 GMT
My faith in the reliability of Nissans has been greatly shaken by our experiences with our Sentra. We bought this car new (2002 model) from West Hills Nissan in November 2001, and in the not-quite-2-years that we've owned it, it's given us constant problems. The windshield wiper switch failed about 10 months after we bought the car, leaving us without wipers in the middle of heavy rain. One month after that, the alternator failed, right in the middle of rush hour traffic. We've had to replace the belts twice this year, the driver's side window has been acting up, and the cheap map lights have never worked right. This is in all in addition to things like having to get the windshield and the passenger visor replaced because of cracks.
The latest problem to hit us is the "SERVICE ENGINE SOON" Light of Doom. It's come on a couple of times before, but eventually it went out before anyone could take a look at it. This time it's not going away. We brought the car in for service on Monday, and they told us that the car's computer needed to be reprogrammed. It's a $130 charge, and not covered under the car's warranty.
Now, when we bought the car, we purchased the Super-Duper Gold Preferred Plus Extreme Warranty. The Service Agreement for this plan (PDF) says that everything is covered except the items in Section 8, which describes things that normally wear down like brakes, bulbs, upholstery, and the hamster that generates the power for the audio system. Section 8 says nothing about the computer failing, nor do I think it should, as that doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should normally fail. Nissan, however, claims that it's not listed in their book of covered parts, so they refuse to fix it under warranty.
Now, to their credit, the folks at McMinn Nissan in Dormont -- where we've been taking the car lately, since it's on the way to work -- have done their best to be helpful, and they didn't charge us the full price for the computer reprogramming. Still, it vexes me that we had to pay for it at all. I am terribly vexed.
This sad tale doesn't end yet, though. This morning, on the way into work, the light came on again.
Posted in Musings
