tech
No joining the Googleplex for me
Got my "Thanks but no thanks" e-mail from Google today. Not that I'm really surprised. What was surprising was getting a response from them to begin with. Given how Windows-centric the company is on the desktop, and given how Macintosh-centric my resumé is, I wondered why I even got a chance at a screener review in the first place.
"But Macs are <em>still</em> more expensive..."
Winn Schwartau, on conducting a total cost of ownership (TCO) breakdown comparing a Windows PC to an Intel Macintosh, what he refers to as a "MacTel":
The results of this TCO astounded me. For my small enterprise, owning a WinTel box for three years costs twice as much as owning a MacTel. Somehow, this just seemed to go hand-in-hand with my previous post.
The greatest trick
There's a line in The Usual Suspects where Kevin Spacey's character Verbal Kint says, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist."
The greatest trick Microsoft has gotten away with is convincing the public that the Wintel PC platform is open. I think the familiarity John talks about in his piece is the main reason (coupled with the just-a-year-old PC they have) my parents haven't switched.
Niceness
I have this theory that there is an ineffable quality to certain attractive consumer products, and I can only term it niceness. It's the MSG of consumerism - you don't know what it tastes like by itself but you know when it's present and you know when it's not.
[...]
It's somewhere in the confluence of size, shape, materials, texture and that pleasant weightiness that lesser products don't have. I said it was the MSG of consumerism. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't more like consumerism's crack cocaine. Jonathan Ive is my dealer.
Clocky go crashy
Welch wants one, but I think if that thing was in my house, it would end up in pieces once I hunted it down.
It's Official
Camino, which is fast becoming my favorite browser, has finally been officially released. The RSS auto-detect feature, a la Safari, is what is keeping me from completely switching from Apple's browser. [Via Chris.]
Dell can't compete with Apple
Dell has discontinued its sale of hard drive-baesd MP3 players. John Gruber:
Someone should make a list of all the pundits and tech columnists who, back in October 2003 when Dell first introduced the DJ, predicted that it was the beginning of the end for the iPod.
Calendar hosting
If you find yourself wishing you could have your very own online calendar to sync with iCal, but 1. Have not the resources available to you, or 2. Have not the desire to learn how to set up PHP iCalendar then Tom can help you out with his new calendar hosting service. Just be sure to tell him the Retrophisch™ sent you.
Drive capacity envy
Seagate is now shipping 160 GB laptop drives. These are in the Momentus line, and run at 5400 rpm, with an Ultra ATA/100 interface. The Serial ATA version is coming later in the year. What's interesting to note is that the drives are shipping, but no pricing is available. I had thought I would rather a 7200 rpm 100 GB drive, over a 5400 rpm 120 GB drive, should I upgrade my PowerBook. Depending upon pricing, I would gladly run a 5400 rpm 160 GB drive. Lee, who passed on the above link via IM, is hoping this announcement will drive down the cost of 120 GB drives. Update: Lee, again via IM, points to OWC's listing, with a price of cough, cough $399.00.
More miscellany
I would be more excited about Google Pack if (a) the Google-specific apps worked with Mac OS; (b) I didn't already have some of these apps, or equivalents, installed on my wife's PC; and (c) if she had any interest in the ones that are not installed.
I believe John is being very kind when he describes the latest shots of Windows Vista as "really ugly". My reaction contained the type of words my mother told me were not nice to say aloud. Or even think.
Speaking of his Gruberness, it doesn't sound as though he's impressed with Kodak's new logo either. I know I'm not. That font is hideous.
Today's miscellany
Ron Moore, creator and executive producer of the best show on television, shares his favorite science-fiction tomes.
From the "You've Got to Be Kidding Me" Department "Hi, we're Western Digital. Since our hard drives are slightly above average in performance and reliability, rather than making them top-notch, the industry's best, we thought we would throw our research and development in to making clear cases for the drives, so you can see the inner workings..." It actually is a rather impressive drive, specification-wise. I just prefer Seagates, when I can get them.
From the "You've Got to Be Kidding Me" Department: Part Two The mail arrived at the house today at approximately one o'clock this afternoon. I know this only because I was walking down the stairs at that moment, and saw the postal worker depositing today's mail in our box. Within today's delivery was my latest order from the BMG music club of which I am still a member. I don't order from them very often, waiting for the really good sales they have from time to time, but that's not really the point here. The point is that at approximately two-thirty, an hour and a half after I pulled the order out of the mailbox, an e-mail from BMG hit my In box, informing me my order had shipped. Way to stay on top of things, guys.
Google Apple's best friend?
Tim Beyers ruminates that if the rumors are true, and Google is set to introduce either a low-priced computer running the "Google OS", or roll out the Google Pack software package, or a for-pay video download service, or any combination of the above, this could drive more Windows users in to the open arms of Macintosh.
Calendar fun
In my pursuit to not renew my .Mac subscription this year, I decided to install PHP iCalendar. Since we use only SFTP on our box, and none of the the iCal FTP apps out there support that protocol, I was left with publishing from iCal via WebDav. After I confirmed with him that WebDav was available on our box's installation, Jim, our sysamdmin, walked me through setting up authentication for publishing and viewing. This was not without its little hiccups.
Being the brilliant guy he is, Jim soon figured out the issue, and now I am happily publishing my calendar to the web. A quick bookmark, named oh so originally "Cal", in Safari's Bookmark Bar, and I'm set.
Smooth Guy
Do you want to know why Guy Kawasaki was made the head evangelist by Apple in the mid-1990s? Because Guy's so smooth:
You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Actually, the entire post is about Guy's optimal PowerPoint presentation. (He sees a lot of them as a venture capitalist.) If you give presentations, it's a worthwhile read.
What's in your Backpack?
So the gang at 37signals have launched an affiliate program for Backpack, and, of course, I've signed up. You will note the link graphic in the side bar, under the "Support" heading. 37signals is doing something a bit differently with the Backpack affiliate program: you don't actually receive cash, but rather credit toward your own Backpack account. Theoretically, your own Backpack usage could be completely free if enough people sign up for a paid plan through your referral link. You can use this link to sign up for and use the Backpack web service. The default plan is free, so it doesn't cost you a thing to try the service out. Backpack affiliates don't make a dime unless you upgrade from the free plan to one of the paid plans, which start at a mere five dollars a month. (This is the plan I am currently on.) Continued use of Backpack is one more reason I will likely not renew my .Mac subscription next year. I just wish the affiliate program had been up and running last month, when I upgraded. Then Tom, who got me hooked on Backpack to begin with, could have earned some coin. Backpack won't be for everyone, just as with any other tool, but as with any other tool, you won't know if you'll like it unless you try it.
del.icio.us joins y.ah.oo!
Now that Yahoo! has absorbed another social-software site, maybe del.icio.us's import feature will get fixed. I'm hesitant to really dive in to the service, or Furl, until one of them can import all of the bookmarks I have loaded in my browser.
How you know you're a parent #1,487
While testing a new product for review, you set your iPod on shuffle, and hear Hootie & the Blowfish, dc Talk, King James (old Christian metal group), Petra (the Aerosmith of Christian rock), and then VeggieTales. Just kind of throws that whole rhythm off to have Junior pop in to the middle of the mix with "Come over to my house and play!"
This is what is known as "hitting the nail on the head"
It kind of amazes me what shortcomings the people who buy Windows computers are willing to live with. It used to be the case that Macs were more expensive than other kinds of computers, pound for pound. This is no longer true, of course, and hasn’t been for some time, but even if it were, it seems like it would be only proper. It seems like people who buy Windows computers have to spend a lot of time finding and downloading (or buying) programs to make their computers do stuff my computer does all by itself.
Michael Hyatt: Judge, Jury, Executioner
Relax, mouth-foamers, we're talking about software. I like Michael's system, sequestering apps for a specific amount of time to see if they're truly needed or not. I need to do something along these lines, though I've already pared down to 110 items in the Applications folder from a clearinghouse earlier this year.