Category: General Tech

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from ForkBombr reader Greg McLaughlin, the writer of Cornfedtech, asking me if I’d do a series of interviews with him. I of course agreed, and the first section (about the new Mac mini) has been posted. I’ll post links to the additional segments as they show up.

I never really considered myself to be someone with a southern accent, but there are some parts in there that give me away. Especially the sentence about Apple “bumping it to a 800 port rather than the slower 400 standard.”

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Ars Technica:

iWeb ’09 finally addresses this issue with the introduction of FTP publishing. In addition to MobileMe and exporting to a folder, you can now add a complete set of FTP criteria, specify a specific upload directory, and use SFTP or even SSL. This is certainly no substitute for clients like Transmit, but as far as iWeb’s K.I.S.S. approach goes, FTP publishing is one of the best moves Apple made to finally make iWeb an appealing alternative to all those new Mac users who don’t need MobileMe.

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From a New York Times interview with Twitter creator Jeff Chu:

My life has been a series of well-orchestrated accidents; I’ve always suffered from hallucinogenic optimism. I was broke for more than 10 years. I remember staying up all night one night at my first company and looking in couch cushions the next morning for some change to buy coffee. I’ve been able to pay my father back, which is nice, and my mother doesn’t worry about me as much since I got married a year and a half ago.

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CNET:

“It seems that customers prefer to have a greater screen, which also means a larger keyboard,” Jonney Shih said. “I still believe we have a good opportunity in 8.9-inch for kids, telecoms (providers) or emerging markets. The 7-inch (Netbook) is going to be phased out, although some emerging countries may still have some demand.”

No big surprise here. I think that 9–10 inch netbooks hit the sweet spot.

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John Herrman over at Gizmodo wrote this week about Cydia, the software repository available for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touch devices. The goal of the Cydia team is to allow free and paid-for apps through their store, allowing users to side-step Apple’s official App Store:

Converting Cydia into a proper application store won’t be complicated, and more or less amounts to Freeman adding a centralized payment service to the software. His competitive ambitions, though, aren’t so subtle: He told the WSJ that “the overworking goal is to provide choice” and that he plans on match or beat Apple’s commission for downloaded apps.

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Bloomberg has an interview with Palm investor Roger McNamee, on Palm’s new device, the Pre:

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

[…]

“Think about it – If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market,” said McNamee, 52. “Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.”

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A (Very) Brief History of Apple Notebooks Apple’s first foray into “portable computing” was a nightmare. The “ Macintosh Portable” was a failure largely due to the technology of the time. Released in 1989, the Macintosh Portable was basically a Macintosh SE with lead battery, it clocked in at a whopping 15.8 pounds.

Two years later, Apple released the first PowerBook machines. The machines were small, light-weight, and fast - thanks largely to Sony, who actually engineered the machines. The machines - and the subsequent PowerBook Duo family - were a huge success, albeit mostly within the business world. Their high price tags usually kept them out of schools and individual’s hands.

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Kirk Mastin, on printing an photo taken with an iPhone at 12x18:

Of course if you view the image closer than 2–3 ft you can see the grain in the image. However, most photos of this size are usually viewed at a distance of at least 4–6ft away. In this case, the photo looks amazing. The grain in an iPhone photo is irregular. iPhone photos have much smoother grain than many digital point and shoot cameras, which is a great thing: iPhone photo grain mimics analog film grain.

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Blair Saldanah is a collector of all things Apple, and is selling off his collection, piece by piece:

Here’s the situation: my wife needs medical care; and we don’t have health insurance. As we all know, desperate times call for desperate measures. So… I’m forced to liquidate my absolutely amazing Collection of Apple Memorabilia! Take a look around, see what you like, and email me to discuss your needs. Many items have some bargaining room (maybe!) and we’ll do quantity discounts too, so find what you want and let’s talk. You might be surprised!

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Mac|Life has posted a lengthy piece named “ 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know.” Here’s a tidbit:

But to help give you the street cred–that is Mac knowledge–to back up the passion, we present the 50 things you really should know if you want to call yourself a Mac geek. If you’re a recent convert to the Way of the Mac, be sure you study this compendium so you can move up a few levels of geekitude. If you’re a longtime Mac geek, test your know-how against our list–and be sure to let us know what we missed by flaming us at [email protected].

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Amazon has released Kindle - an iPhone app that, well, allows users to read Kindle-formatted e-books, magazines, and newspapers. The application is easy enough to use, and the iPhone client keeps bookmarks and reading locations synced between the iPhone and any Kindle devices synced with the Amazon account, but purchases have to be made via a desktop browser, Mobile Safari, or an actual Kindle device

The obvious question here is why. Less than a month after Amazon announced the 2nd generation of their Kindle device, they have opened their platform to include the iPhone (and other smart phones will probably follow). I think the answer is simple enough - Amazon’s money isn’t in the Kindle reader, but in the content they have for sale. And with a whole lot more iPhones than Kindles out there, that content is about to be seen by many, many more consumers.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that President Obama will nominate Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission:

If confirmed, Mr. Genachowski will take over an agency that has had rocky relations with Congress and major companies in the telecommunications industry under current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The agency may also still be coping with the U.S.’s transition to digital-only television, which is scheduled to take place Feb. 17 but could be pushed back to the summer.

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