Monthly Archives: September 2011

One Format To Rule Them All: Now That We Live In The Future, How Much Machine Do You Need?

Sep 30

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Thin is in. Or maybe I should say light is right.

The MacBook Air is no longer an object of ridicule in consumer circles. Amazon is launching a ridiculously light on storage tablet, built utterly around Cloud integration. The Chromebook1 is settling into it’s groove as the first browser only OS. The days, it seems, of ever increasing HDD space and laptop bottoms that can scald the hair right off your legs, are over.

Or are they?

Intel is now touting its own sponsored line of Ultra Portables, starting with the Dell XPS 15z; a super light, specced out the gills PC that seems more than a little, uh, “inspired,” by the design of the MacBook Air.

Reading over the ad copy and seeing phrases like, “unmatched sophistication,” and, “uncomprimising2 power;” the 15z is a machine that’s going after the Air in a way that no other PC has thus far. Microsoft and Intel have to know that the ultra thin, ultra trendy Air is sparking a bit more drool lately than, say, the latest Lenovo workhorse. Not necessarily because it’s better, but because it’s sexier.

But the phrase that Dell is has chosen for its prime real estate; the one that seems to be their tagline for this little venture, begs the questions: “Where exactly are we headed? and, What exactly do we need?” Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Operating Systems-You're Not Necessarily a Mac Or a PC, Random Thoughts, The Cloud

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The Kindle Fire: Not An iPad Killer, But Man Do I Want One

There’s something magical about the combination of a good brand and a low price point.

To date, I have been an unabashed iPad fanboy. Not because I think that Apple necessarily makes the best product, but they do make one that’s incredibly intuitive to use and simply works, all the time1. And, as others have pointed out, at length, much like with the iPod, Apple didn’t create a tablet market, they created an iPad market.

Huge difference. And that difference is felt keenly by everyone trying to get an Android tablet to market that performs well. (more…)

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Social Media Awareness-The Community Manager’s First Day

Sep 28

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There was a time when you could afford to be behind on your tech knowledge.

Kennedy was in the White House back then, but still, there was a time.

Unfortunately, we are far, far beyond that now.

Take a look at that graph up top. Going back a few years that whole process; going from innovation to adoption by laggards, could take as long as a decade, or more. Now a product or new piece of tech can achieve that full cycle in under a year.

The hard truth is that, unless you’re a developer (and even then) there’s no such thing as an expert anymore. At least not in anything to do with computing. Things are changing at too rapid a pace and knowledge becomes obsolete almost as soon as its gained.

But…

If I do my job properly here, you won’t be caught entirely by surprise when the next iPad utterly changes mobile computing forever. My job is to keep up and fill you in so that you don’t have to go crazy trying to figure out what you’ll need to know to stay in business next year.

Feel free to fire me if it doesn’t work out.

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Anticipating Evil: What Happens When Google Wins?

Sep 22

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With great power comes great responsibility-Spiderman (Or Possibly Stan Lee)

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain-Harvey Dent

Today, I evangelized for Google.

I don’t approve, in general, of selling products for companies for free. I’ve made a career out of doing the opposite, in fact. But today, without even thinking about the fact that I wasn’t getting paid, I did the following:

  1. I posted multiple links on my soon (within the next few hours) to be defunct Facebook page to my Google+ account, and encouraged all of my friends to join, as they will no longer be able to interact with me on their favorite social network.
  2. I walked a friend through the features and benefits of Google Docs over Microsoft Office and converted him to its use.
  3. I walked a complete stranger through the same process; even going so far as to create a shared doc so she could see the value of the collaboration tools.
  4. I talked to no fewer than four people, in real life, about the advantages (when they finally arrive in Canada) of buying a Chromebook.

This was all in the span of about 9 hours.

I’m passionate about what Google is doing; with social, with the cloud, and with productivity in general. I think that this whole concept of everything being rolled into a browser, making work, life, and everything in between utterly seamless and essentially without thought, is the natural maturation of the Internet. I believe in these concepts so strongly that I will soon be making some very large bets regarding them, at possible detriment to my financial security. (more on this later) Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Random Thoughts

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