The MacBook Air's Emotional Specs (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

The MacBook Air is selling well, Ars Technica reports, with many stores reporting stock shortages and long lead times.

As Railsdaddy David Heinemeier Hansson mentions, this probably comes as a surprise to geeks all over the blogosphere, who were largely focused on the shortcomings of the tech specs - the relatively slow processor, shortage of ports, etc, and not focusing enough on the design and feel of it. Whether it takes 20 minutes or 30 minutes to convert a movie to iPod format is largely irrelevant, what is more noticeable (and therefore more important) is the general feeling of delight (or despair) one feels when using any device. Remember the awe people experienced when flicking images back and forth on the iPhone? Similar experiences abound on the MacBook Air - the feeling of not feeling like you're carrying a laptop, the feeling of not feeling like there's a computer under your keyboard - these are the specs, emotional specs, if you will, that are causing people to buy MacBooks Air. Indeed, the MacBook Air is just another in the long list of examples that prove that Apple is destroying the competition when it comes to emotional specs.

Technorati Tags: Apple, MacBook, MacBook Air, emotional specs, tech specs, design

Posted in: apple , design , macbook , thoughts

Microhoo: Microsoft Offers $44.6B to Acquire Yahoo (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Yesterday I was meaning to write about Amazon's $300 million acquisition of Audible, a match made in heaven, but today comes news that Microsoft is offering $45 billion for Yahoo, which pretty much eclipses the relatively straightforward Amazon/Audible deal.

There were no shortage of rumors regarding a MSFT/YHOO merger/acquisition in 2007, but no formal proposal was actually ever made public and Yahoo came out and said that a deal didn't make sense on account of the potential upside of the restructuring and strategic initiatives set for 2007. As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer states, a year has passed and the competitive landscape still hasn't changed. Indeed, Project Panama has done little to improve Yahoo's situation in the advertising space and search seems to be in the place that it's been in a while - an ever more distant #2 to Google. Perhaps even more indicative of Yahoo's true status, however, was this week's announcement of plans to layoff 1,000 employees.

In the eyes of most consumers, both Microsoft and Yahoo provide second-rate products. In the operating system space, especially with the lukewarm reception Vista received, Microsoft only has their incumbency to stand on. In the internet space, MSN is to Yahoo what Yahoo is to Google, if that. Yahoo does have some great properties, but they aren't the cash cows that search and advertising are, and receive both media and internal attention according. The growth opportunities of the workhorse properties, however unglamorous, are still growth opportunities and still have yet to be harnessed and perhaps this deal is the only way that these properties will get attention.

The deal makes sense to me from a competitive perspective, but does it make sense internally? Can these two behemoths really merge operations and culture well enough to come out a stronger entity? Or will their internal focus distract them so much that Google will be able to distance itself even more from Microhoo? I don't know enough about the internals of Yahoo or Microsoft, but I know that the success of this merger will depend on a few factors, including the compatibility between the cultures and structures of both companies and the appropriate handling of redundant properties.

In the end, I look forward to this deal going through. I think it will revitalize both companies, which appear to have been operating at less-than-full capacity over the past few years. In this sense, although fewer competitors in a market tend to decrease competition in that market, I think we'll see the opposite here. Though there's a very subtle feeling out there that since both are so behind the competition, both Microsoft and Yahoo are about to, or should, give up. This acquisition will give the resulting entity a much better leg to stand on against the competition.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Microsoft, acquisition, M&A, competition, business, Microhoo

Posted in: internet , microsoft , online , thoughts , yahoo

Fixing Broken Windows (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

The "broken windows" theory comes from a 1982 Atlantic Monthly article on strategies to reduce vandalism.

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

My theme for January (and possibly February as well) is to fix broken windows (or as GTD puts it, open loops). That is, to clean up all the half-finished miscellanea in my life. This ranges across everything from finishing books I've started to cleaning out that last box from my move six months ago to ongoing things such as not letting dishes, garbage, and laundry pile up for too long. Having broken windows not only draws energy, but also subconsciously let's you know that it's okay to not finish what you've started. Starting with a clean slate is a necessary condition for success in any new endeavors. In addition, the tiny successes brought by fixing broken windows create a positive feedback loop and it helps you complete even larger projects.

For the transition period, I think it's probably a better idea to save New Years' Resolutions until March. Take the first couple of months of the year to patch up anything left outstanding from the previous year(s) and start fresh, even if you are a few months late. I'd love to hear what other people think about this approach, so if you've had experience doing something like this, drop me a line in the comments or via email.

Technorati Tags: broken windows, lifehacks, GTD, Getting Things Done, open loops, New Years Resolutions

Posted in: gtd , me , productivity , thoughts

AJAX Web Browser? (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

When I first saw the headline that the Opera Browser is headed to the iPhone (later confirmed as false), I joking thought that Opera would be releasing a JavaScript web browser that ran in Safari. On second thought, I realized that a JavaScript browser could be used to bypass proxies by requesting pages from the server and passing them to the client via AJAX.

A quick Google search reveals one JavaScript browser called Accent JavaScript Browser, but it was released in 2001 and says it only runs in IE. A quick test of the browser in Firefox on the Mac shows that it doesn't work too well and that the buttons are only a proxy for the client-side JS functions. I also found another "browser", but I couldn't get this one to work in Safari or Firefox.

So far I'm 0/2 on working AJAX browsers. If a working one did exist, would it even be possible to use it for bypassing proxies? I have no need for this functionality, I just thought that it could be a pretty neat loophole.

Technorati Tags: JavaScript, AJAX, proxies, Opera, security, web browser

Posted in: ajax , development , javascript , security , thoughts

Quotes of the Day ("Laziness" and "Salivating") (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Saw these come across my RSS reader today and just had to share.

“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.” -Walter Chrysler

[via Signal vs. Noise]

I personally prefer being called "selective" instead of "lazy", but I don't feel like justifying that just now ;-)

When a new Mac Pro that Apple advertises as “the fastest Mac ever” doesn’t make the cut for the Macworld Expo keynote, even the more jaded among us start salivating.

[via Justin Blanton]

I couldn't have said better myself. I'm not as big a rumor monger as I used to be (you could say I'm too "selective" to keep up with the 95% of pure speculation that exists out there), but Justin sure nailed it. The new Mac Pro is simply awesome, but I doubt I would ever buy one because I don't need it. For most people, these are just nice to look at and dream of owning for no good reason. That said, Apple has trumped CES for the second year in a row. Last year it was the iPhone at the keynote and this year it was a stealth update to the Mac Pro. Does this say more about Apple's Reality Distortion Field or about the sorry state of consumer electronics? Is a high-end workstation really more exciting than pretty much everything at CES? The fanboy in me wants to say the latter but I really think it's the former. In any case, I think Gizmodo has the right idea: these Mac Pros are just the tip of the iceberg.

Technorati Tags: laziness, quotes, 37signals, Apple, Mac Pro, CES, Macworld

Posted in: apple , hype , pr , thoughts

Eulogy for CompUSA (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Word came last Friday that all CompUSA stores will be closing. While some have some horror stories about their experiences at CompUSA, I've never had any bad experiences. Looking back, however, CompUSA was the place where I had my first experiences with Macs.

The only place to really play with Macs back in 2001 was at CompUSA. At the time, there were few Apple Stores and the only one in South Florida was at The Falls, about an hour drive from me. So CompUSA was the first place I laid hands on an iMac, the G4 Cube, and others. It was the first time I played with OS X - I was amazed with it even though it was in it's terrible Public Beta/10.0 stage. I bought my first Mac at CompUSA - a 700 MHz G3 iBook, and my first iPod - an open-box 1st Generation 10gb iPod. Since then, Apple Stores have sprung up and I've only made smaller purchases at CompUSA, a memory card here, a hard drive there. I have memories dating back even further - I remember buying a 4mb stick of RAM and a 14.4 modem for our 386.

Despite being one of the recent contributors to CompUSA's demise, it will still be sad to see it go. I have a MicroCenter fairly close by, but Best Buy and Circuit City don't have anything on our dear old CompUSA.

Goodbye.

Technorati Tags: CompUSA, Mac, Apple, stores, out of business, closing

Posted in: business , me , news , thoughts

Notes from Joburg (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

I'm leaving South Africa today after a week-long business trip to Johannesburg and I've finally had some time to collect my thoughts. In no particular order:

• Security is a big deal here. All residences from middle class up are surrounded by 8 foot fences upon which are electric fences. Signs announcing "armed response" are all over the place. Radio advertisements for homes note electric fences as attributes of a home as matter-of-factly as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.
• I posted about Vusi Mahlasela recently but I didn't appreciate his lyrics (the ones in English anyway) until visiting Soweto (the South Western Township where blacks were forced to live during apartheid) and reading about the anti-apartheid struggle.
• Soweto was not quite the ghetto I pictured. I did see the tiny 100 sq ft homes and tin shacks (comparable to Brazilian favelas) I was expecting, but I also saw larger homes with BMWs and Mercedes parked in front of them. There is much more social stratification in this so-called slum than the names used to describe it suggest.
• The weight of an empty Coke can is so deeply ingrained that I keep thinking there's soda left in the heavier SA cans when there's not.
• Before my plane left the US, flight attendants sprayed the plane. I still haven't found the reason behind this.
• The 16 hour flight here wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Whether my fatigue was due to jet lag or waking up at 6:30 every day is debatable. Regardless, the 7 hour time difference makes any sort of discussion with people back in the US extremely difficult. SA is almost a full business day ahead of New York and since things start winding down at 4:30 here, it makes any overlap in work hours miniscule if not nonexistent.
• My iPhone gets no service here. When I took my Treo to Spain last winter, I was able to roam there with no problem. A possible explanation might be that international roaming was disabled when I switched to the iPhone but something more nefarious might be at work.

Technorati Tags: South Africa, business trip, travel, thoughts, Joburg, Johannesburg

Posted in: south africa , thoughts , travel

Perhaps The Most Ironic Post Title You'll Read All Day (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Nick Bradbury on blog post titles:

As people subscribe to more feeds, the more they stop reading every unread item and instead just skim the titles looking for something that interests them. If you use boring titles for your posts, skimmers like myself are likely to skip right over them.

Ever since I did my media fast experiment, my Google Reader unread count has floated somewhere between 875 and >1000. Since I switched to more selective reading, I use List View instead of Expanded View and post titles more than anything push me to actually read an item. Another thing to be careful about - titles that are too news-y. If your post title reads, "XYZ Corp Announces ABC", then you need to go back to the writing board, so to speak. For one, a title like that often sums up enough of the entire post to suffice. In addition, a post title like that screams "Press Release regurgitation" and suggests that more of the same basic information that I probably read before. In this case, even "Thoughts on XYZ's ABC Announcement" is slightly better because it signals that you put more thought into the post than simply picking original-sounding synonyms to cover up the fact that not much, if anything, was added.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, titles, writing, traffic, attention

Posted in: blogs , language , news , thoughts

Between Twitter and Blog (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

For the sake of this blog, I'm in dire need of an interface to this blog that is far more lightweight than the standard WordPress web interface. It's relatively easy to feed my tweets into my blog, but that's not what I'm looking for here. Tweets are far too casual to warrant a standard blog post, but blog posts are too cumbersome for some fleeting, yet not-so-informal thoughts. My goal is to find something like John Gruber's Linked List or Justin Blanton's Bits. Any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: Twitter, blog, casual, , John Gruber, Daring Fireball, linked list, Justin Blanton, bits

Posted in: blogs , thoughts , twitter

Turned To Crap (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Paul Stamatiou on his thoughts on the state of the blogosphere:

The larger tech sites/blogs have “turned to crap” to quote an older friend in the field. Everyone’s got an agenda and a quota to fulfill; there aren’t too many “free spirits” when it comes to tech writing, which is why sites like John Gruber’s Daring Fireball receive so much acclaim.

His thoughts pretty much echo mine, and though I've mentioned in passing how much I hate the larger tech sites, this quote does a great job of summing up what I've been meaning to explicitly say for a while. The scale has been tipping to quantity over quality for a while now and shows no signs of stopping.

Some sample stats: Google Reader says that Engadget has averaged 40 posts/day. When I started the media fast experiment, all my feeds were read. It's been a week since that started and that amounts to roughly 280 posts. The current Engadget unread count is 272. That I've found 3% of those posts worthy of my attention is telling. In contrast, Daring Fireball averages 10 posts per day and I've read all of them without hesitation.

The "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" approach was fine when I didn't realize how much time was wasting looking at things I wasn't reading nor cared to read. Now things have changed. The large tech blogs have gone the way of mainstream media in their attempt to increase eyeballs. I am avid fan of a handful of TV shows, but you'll never find me sitting on the couch channel flipping; the chances I'll find something worthy of watching are so slim it's not even worth it. The quantity over quality approach doesn't work on me for mainstream media and I've come to realize it isn't going to work in the blogosphere either.

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, traffic, mainstream media, blogs, Google Reader

Posted in: blogs , internet , mainstream , thoughts

Thoughts on The Beat Goes On (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Despite being a day late, I still want to comment on the iPod announcements made yesterday.

iPod shuffle
New colors and no storage bump on the shuffles gets a huge yawn from me.

iPod nano
The actual nano looks much better than those leaked shots that were floating around a few weeks ago. There was no storage upgrade for these guys either, only price drops to $149 and $199 for the 4 and 8 GB version, respectively. Video finally comes to the nano, but with such a tiny screen I wonder how useful it will actually be. Still, having the nano hooked up to a TV via video out makes for a very portable DVD player replacement.

iPod classic
80 GB storage for $249 (and 160 GB for $349) makes the 6th Generation iPod (or 1st Generation iPod classic?) quite the monster. The standard iPod form factor has become, as the name suggests, a classic and I'm glad Apple stuck with it instead of forcing everyone to the touch screen.

iPod UI
The new iPod UI is an incremental upgrade, with the most notable feature being Cover Flow (which I don't find much use for personally). The new UI also marks the first time that the nano and classic have reached software feature parity (video on the nano also means complete feature parity), so it'll be interesting to see if Apple considers the nano/classic "complete". Prior to yesterday's announcement, it had been two years since both devices saw a significant upgrade, and I wonder if it'll be just as long before we see the next big change for these two lines.

iPod touch
I couldn't make up my mind over whether I thought Apple would actually release a phoneless iPhone this soon. On the one hand, pricing would have been tricky - either it would be priced too low to cannibalize iPhone sales or priced too high to make it a terrible value. On the other hand, there was only so much further Apple could take the iPod classic before it had to enlarge the screen (thereby necessitating removal of the click wheel). I personally dislike the design of the device. The chrome border is gone in lieu of either a matte metal or plastic (hard to tell from the shots) and the iPhone's scratch-resistant matte back is gone for the iPod's iconic scratch-prone shiny metal back. Further, the upper bezel looks disproportionate without the earpiece and the WiFi antenna's plastic covering makes the back of the device asymmetric. Other minor things I noticed (and am apathetic about) are that the sleep/wake button has switched sides and that the headphone jack is on the bottom of the device.

iTunes WiFi Store
Apple is ever slowly creeping into tablet/UMPC space and the touch was the second step in that direction. Instead of working down from the desktop, as Microsoft has done (with limited success), Apple has worked up from the iPod. It's apparent from the name: this isn't a MacBook nano, it's an iPod touch. Unveiling the iTunes WiFi Store and partnering with Starbucks is a small step into building Apple's mobile eco-system, something other device makers have either not attempted or have been unsuccessful at. This will be the touch/iPhone killer feature, and perhaps the future of mobile advertising - truly contextual advertising and services that supplement a brick and mortar's main operations. It's not the device that will reach out to the world, but the world that will reach in to your device.

That said, I don't see myself using the WiFi Store that much since I don't use the iTunes Store much to begin with. However, if the WiFi store allows for over-the-air podcast downloading, then I'll be all over it.

Ringtones
I'm tech-savvy enough to not need iTunes to walk me through making ringtones, but I would argue against those complaining about the price. The extra $.99 is something I see as AT&T having a hand in. Still, $2 for both the song and ringtone is a good deal compared to the $2-$3 one might pay for a ringtone-only otherwise.

iPhone at $399
Though Apple announced during their last earnings call that margins would be lower this season, no one saw this coming. The market is interpreting it as a sign that iPhones aren't selling as well as Apple would like. The original 5 GB iPod dropped 25% five months after introduction (from $399 to $299), so large cuts aren't completely out of the ordinary for Apple. I see the price drop as something Apple planned all along as a way to aggressively go after market share after milking early adopters for an extra $200 and as a way control demand during launch.

Am I upset that I paid $599? Absolutely not. I was perfectly paying that amount and the price drop doesn't change that. I don't see Apple owing me anything much more than I see BMW paying me for the depreciation of my car when the 2008 models come out (in fact, I'm paying them for the depreciation). Price drops and technology progressing are facts of life. The only thing that I might be upset about is that the cost of entry to the iPhone Club has gone down and iPhone owners who felt a sense of superiority and exclusivity as a result of ownership just dropped a few rungs on the social ladder now that the iPhone is accessible to "regular" people. I am not in that group. I see adoption of the iPhone (or Mobile OS X platform in general) a good thing for users, both in terms of a greater demand for new software features or an increased pressure on other device makers to make better devices.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPod classic, iTunes, iTunes WiFi Store

Posted in: apple , iphone , ipod , itunes , mobile , music , news , thoughts , wireless

Thoughts on Blogs vs. Social Networks (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Facebook's announcement of the Facebook Platform and the ability to add third-party applications to profiles has caused me to re-evaluate my thoughts on what defines blogs and social networks, and particularly where you draw the line between the two types of user-generated content (ugh). Tonight, I came across a post by my blogosphere buddy Kent Newsome on the differences between blogs and social networks and so I felt compelled to commit my thoughts to paper/bits/web/whatever (it also gave me an opportunity to return one of the many links he's been kind enough to give me). Kent mentions that there's a ton of people in the blogosphere that he's friends with that he simple would have never met via Facebook and I echo that sentiment.

That said, I agree more with Jay Neely on the fact that a distinction exists between blogs and social networks. The friend/audience distinction Jay describes is seen by the composition of my personal networks on the two types of networks. My Facebook friends consists largely of people I had a previous relationship with in real life with a few A-list bloggers sprinkled in there for the mutual ego boost. After some thought, I realized that there exists an underlying difference that can draw a firm line between blogs and social networks. Facebook is not a place to make new friends, it's a place to interact with existing ones. The blogosphere, on the other hand, is the complete opposite: it facilitates and rewards growth of contacts and communication amongst strangers. This is evident on many levels:

For one, there exists a social stigma about approaching new people on Facebook (it is perceived as "stalker-ish"). This stigma simply doesn't exist in the blogosphere and the mentality is in fact the opposite, as can be seen from the rise of blog search engines such as Technorati and Google Blog Search and the ease of sending trackbacks and leaving comments.

More fundamentally, however, is the fact that Facebook has set up walls between its internal networks. In the blogosphere, this is akin to only being able to use the two-line Google search description as criteria for deciding to link to a blog. And if you do decide the two-line description is adequate enough to link to a blog AND the blogger decides to let your link through (since all "links" between people are moderated on Facebook), then you simply get the "About Me" page with some comments (although I'll admit this will change now that Facebook has opened up a bit and third-party applications are allowed).

Finally, social network profiles are largely static and therefore not very conducive to sustained interaction on the network. Like I said above, how many comments and links would a post-less blog with only an "About Me" page get? Not many. The reason why social networks continue to flourish, then, is that connections created on the network will continue to exist despite this lack of interaction on the network is that the interaction happens off the network. Social networks facilitate interaction off the network, whereas the blogosphere is defined by the interaction that takes place on the (ad-hoc) network.

I don't think either will disappear in lieu of the other, nor will one absorb the other, as I believe the two types of networks serve different purposes. It has been possible for a while to integrate blogs onto social network profiles, but the tools for posting and interacting are much better on full-blown blogs that I haven't seen anyone close down their Wordpress blogs in favor of Facebook Notes or a MySpace blog (Twitter, on the other hand, is a different story :)) Tools notwithstanding, I think that the differences I mentioned above are enough to keep the blogosphere and social networks distinct.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, blogs, social networks, blogosphere, Technorati, Google Blog Search, MySpace, Facebook Platform, trackbacks, comments, discussion

Posted in: blogs , facebook , myspace , social networks , thoughts

Convergence's/The iPhone's #1 Enemy: Gravity (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

This CrunchGear post on a fake iPhone that popped up on eBay reminded me of something that happened to me yesterday: I dropped my Treo. It broke into three pieces (battery, phone and battery cover), and the phone suffered no damage, but it could have been much worse.

Had it been an iPhone that I dropped, I would have not been out a phone, but also (as Steve has pointed out) an iPod and an "internet communicator." Knowing Apple's stance on accidental damage, I would also have been out $600. Also considering the many other ways the phone could find its way apart from you, and the idea of diversifying risk becomes more and more appealing.

Now that the effects of the RDF (reality distortion field) have subsided, I've become less and less interested in the iPhone. I think Apple made a big mistake by not even taking pre-orders immediately after the announcement.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, FCC, eBay, iPod, fake, convergence, gravity, Treo, damage, warranty

Posted in: announcements , apple , iphone , thoughts , treo

In Search Results We Trust (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Robert writes about how Windows Live search has gotten a lot better. He then wonders if it'll do them any good.

Now, the problem is, if Microsoft matches Google, who will switch away from Google? I won’t. The trust I’ve built since the late 1990s of searching Google many times a day without a problem is going to be a very hard thing to beat. To get me to switch Microsoft will have to be better than Google.

How about you? Does Microsoft (or Yahoo or Ask) have any hope of getting you to switch your default search engine?

I have to agree with him. Any time I use a search that's not Google, I'm left with the lingering thought, "Is there something missing here that Google would find?" I trust Google's search results completely. I'm not quite there yet with any other service. And I don't think I ever will be. First of all, I'm probably not going to search my default search engine, but if I did, I'd most likely go through a trust-earning period where I'd double-check all my searches in Google. It would probably be way too much overhead to be worthwhile. I'm right back to Google.

Heck, when I directed one of my Yahoo-favoring friends to do a web search, I told him to "just use Google" without even waiting to see if what we were looking for was in the page results.

Something as simple as the name has a profound effect on search engine choice. "Just google it" sounds right. "Just live.com it", "just yahoo it", or "just ask.com it" sound awkward.

So will just being better than Google get me to switch? Probably not, since I'll have no way of knowing.

Technorati Tags: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Live.com, Ask.com, search, web search

Posted in: google , internet , microsoft , search , thoughts , yahoo