Category: General Tech

Don’t Be A Free User

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Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard:

So stop getting caught off guard when your favorite project sells out! “They were getting so popular, why did they have to shut it down?” Because it’s hard to resist a big payday when you are rapidly heading into debt. And because it’s culturally acceptable to leave your user base high and dry if you get a good offer, citing self-inflicted financial hardship.

Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won’t do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you’ll be the only game in town!

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Firefox to Drop Leopard Support? [UPDATED]

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Kelly Hodgkins at TUAW:

Mozilla engineering manager Josh Aas proposed ending support for OS X Leopard in six months. It lets Mozilla address any final bug or security fixes and gives Leopard owners time to upgrade if they want. Leopard owners don’t have to upgrade as the current version of Firefox will continue to work. They just won’t receive any supplemental security fixes or enhancements to the browser.

While Hodgkins doesn’t mention this, dropping Leopard will mean PPC-based Mac users will be left behind as well.

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Millions of Smartphones Tracking Users’ Every Move

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David Kravets:

The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone.

Though the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, Carrier IQ was virtually unknown until 25-year-old Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut analyzed its workings, revealing that the software secretly chronicles a user’s phone experience — ostensibly so carriers and phone manufacturers can do quality control.

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The Fire Loses Round One

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Vivek Gowri, Anand Lal Shimpi:

I’m curious to see how this plays out. The e-ink Kindle has a unique (perfect?) form factor and delivers a pretty good experience. The Kindle Fire has a more generic form factor (perhaps too small for certain uses?) and delivers a varied experience depending on what you’re doing. I appreciate what Amazon is trying to do here: good tablet experiences shouldn’t cost as much as much higher performing computing devices, and cheap tablets shouldn’t sacrifice everything to get there. The Kindle Fire is Amazon’s first attempt at bridging the gap between those two extremes. It’s the best out today given its price point, but it’s not the best Amazon could have done. I’m waiting for round two.

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7-Inch Keyboards Are All Wrong

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Ars’ Casey Johnson in her review of the Nook Tablet:

The virtual keyboard suffers from the same major problem as does the Kindle Fire and every other 7-inch tablet: the portrait-oriented keyboard is slightly too big for comfortable thumb-typing, and the landscape keyboard is too small for ten-finger typing. I submit that, unless your hands are significantly larger than mine, 7-inch tablets are just never going to become e-mailing, note-taking machines. I’d rather try to type things out on my smartphone than a 7-inch tablet.

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2011 Holiday Shopping Guide

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It’s the holidays, meaning it is time to get something for those nerds in your life. I’m here to help you not screw it up.

Tech

  • $79 Kindle — Amazon’s new e-reader is great. It’s cheap, small and has incredible battery life. I’ve read more than I ever have since purchasing mine several weeks ago.
  • Apple TV — For $99, you get iTunes, AirPlay and more. Apple’s set-top box is an amazing value, and a must-have for any TV setup.
  • Bose SoundDock Series II — It’s a Bose iPhone dock. Everyone needs good tunes that sounds good.
  • The Glif — iPhone 4/4S + tripod. What a slick combination.
  • Twelve South Compass iPad Stand — Twelve South’s iPad stand is well-built, handsome and sturdy. When not in use, it folds down in to a small, well-designed pouch.

Writing

  • Field Notes — These little notebooks are my favorite in the world. They are pocketable, sturdy and affordable. They ship in multiple colors and setups, so there’s an option for just about any writer.
  • Blue Pilot G2 07 — Don’t listen to the others — this is the best pen on the market.
  • The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2011 — This book isn’t just for those of us with journalism majors. If your favorite nerd writes on the web, they need this book on their desk.

Fashion

Entertainment

Vices

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