Category: rant

  • Waiting on the WordPress 2.1 update

    I always say wait on upgrades to key software and the newest version of WordPress is no exception. Let somebody else work the kinks out while I keep getting work done. I’ll get the same new gee-whiz features a week or two later while avoiding all the disasters and head aches suffered by the early…

  • Tags aren’t categories and vice versa

    Begin rant: One thing that annoys me about the otherwise fabulous WordPress software that runs this blog relates to categories and tags. Categories, which run along the side of most blogs (look to the right), tell you about general topics a blogger has written about that might be of interest. Sort of somewhere between an…

  • Short-tailed Sony reader needs a much longer one

    Sony’s new e-book Reader certainly seems like a marvel of technology but it’s also an example of a company forgetting to ask the most basic question of new product development: what is the customer benefit over existing products? With a nod to Chris Anderson and his much discussed long tail thesis, the real direction for…

  • About time, Starbucks and iTunes

    Something like 20 years ago, I first encountered Hear Music as a catalog of cool albums selected by some people with taste like mine. They may have pioneered the idea of getting recommendations from favorite artists. It was a great way to learn about old stuff like the blues and jazz, too. But like many…

  • Where oh where is an iPod recorder

    I’m loving my iPod “with video” more than ever, but I am missing big-time the recording capability of my old 3G iPod with its Griffin Technology iTalk accessory. I’ve been waiting for months for a replacement. In January, a small company called Xtrememac pre-announced a product called the Micromemo that looked cool, was a bit…

  • Verizon and Tivo, so greedy together

    I owe a post on Tivo, or on the Toshiba-made RS-TX20 combo Tivo DVR and DVD burner that arrived on Christmas, but that will have to wait for another day with more free time (short version – it’s awesome except for the way it changes channels on our cable box). Instead, I’ll just loudly complain…

  • Canon wisely chooses to back down megapixels

    The bane of my existence, or at least the part of my life devoted to being a gadget hound and early adopter, is feature creep — the annoying tendency of tech companies to pile on feature after feature with each new iteration of a product until the original usefulness is buried. This tendency explains why…

  • Scott McNeally’s iPod bashing

    Staci at PaidContent is reporting Sun CEO Scott McNealy’s latest off-base, self-interested ranting. I guess the thin client thing has died so now Scott is taking aim at the portable music market. In Scott’s dream world, cell phones accessing music stored on central servers, Sun servers no doubt, will overtake the iPod. “It’s going to…

  • Down goes Palm, yet another notch on Gates’ belt

    (Updated 9/28) The depressing news that a once innovative and leading software company has been vanquished by Microsoft is hardly surprising. Palm, now called PalmSource, revolutionized the “personal digital assistant” by shedding features and focusing on simplicity and a good user experience. Now it lives to see the day that its own hardware unit, called…

  • The future of Microsoft Office is not pretty

    You almost have to laugh when Microsoft unveils screen shots of its next update in the creaky Office franchise. Just wait, just wait one more year, and we’ll make Word really great. Really, really great. We promise. Based on the screen shots, it look more likely to cause head aches than upgrades. Somehow this mishmash…