iPhone 3GS Solutions - No Burn
July 3rd, 2009If your iPhone 3GS sometimes attempts to turn your hands into blistered grips, or you turn your pocket into a mild inferno, you have someone to blame: yourself. Of course, Apple is not blame here. They have released a mild set of notes on the topic, but admits no wrong doing. Now we have some directions for how to prevent, and improve your iPhone’s performance.
If you missed what is happening overall (Pre user?), take a look at this. iPhone’s have been randomly overheating, burning users, and refusing to be used until a more agreeable temperature is reached. Great for a new product launch.
PCWorld, the gentlemen that they are, have complied a list of tips and tricks, but from the community and from other sources to keep your iPhone at a fair temperature. You can read them here. I have not had this issue in the year that I have had my iPhone 3G, and given how it seems to be an accelerating problem, i want to hazard that recent design changes are causing problems. This must be very depressing to the old 3G owner who shelled out the $500 to get the 3GS only to have it turn their fingers into charcoal.
Apple, take this public, fix the firmware, or launch a recall. Being “coy” in this situation is akin to being an asshole.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Green Dam(n) Back - Iran To Blame?
July 2nd, 2009
Well, the Chinese government just put us all through the rumor mill. We just discover that Green Dam has been delayed, perhaps indefinitely, and then hours days later it comes roaring back ready for action. A higher up in the Chinese regime claimed that it was only “a matter of time,” until the software was in place. Now, why would the Chinese government want to do this? Let’s break down the options to make this clear:
- Suppress freedom?
- Block pornography?
If you picked number one, or both, you are correct. We all need to be very clear about this: Green Dam will be used to control the population of China. Do you find it strange that it comes back to life following the pro-democracy rallies in Iran? Not to think to hard and invent things, but it seems that they could be connected. If the Iranians so successfully used the internet to fight tyranny, then one of the largest most powerful remaining tyrannical governments would be watching that with fear in its eyes.
Of course, Green Dam remains a poorly coded, perhaps pirated, piece of software. It is hackable, but to the average citizen if might be too hard to work around. This is an attack on freedom. American PC manufacturers, do not comply with the Chinese government! Take a stand against a government attempting to silence and control parts of their population.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Firefox 3.5 Downloaded 5 Million Times In 24 Hours
July 2nd, 2009
Impressed? Since we are in the middle of the Great Browser Wars, any launch of a major browser requires an old fashioned pissing contest. Safari did so many million in so many days. Chrome did a fraction of that, but was XX% faster than so an so. It goes on and on. Still, nothing comes close to the world record setting eight million downloads that FF 3 did on launch day.
Even so, Firefox 3.5 did a very respectable 5 million in 24 hours, which breaks down to:
- 208,333.33 downloads per hour
- 3472.22 downloads per minute
- 57.87 downloads per second.
- 5.787 downloads per 1/10th of a second.
Of course, the total Firefox numbers are also quite impressive. Firefox has seen a total of 950 millions downloads, of which 500 million came in the last year. When Firefox breaks through a billion downloads, expect a party in the open source world, and mock funeral in Redmond. Actually, a Billion-Firefox party sounds like fun, who’s down for drinks?
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Chrome Extensions Far Off - Google Seen Not Caring
July 2nd, 2009
Chrome, out of beta, promoted on the Google home page, and rocking a 3.0 build, still does not support extensions. Well, sure, if you are running the latest developer build, you can enable them through the command line. Can you guess how many normal consumers know how to do that? If you held up zero fingers, you are a winner.
Cnet is reporting that Delicious has now built a very light-weight (read: does little) Delicious plugin to let you save links to you account. Not that this is at all groundbreaking, but the fact that this type of development is worthy of a headline on Cnet shows a problem with Chrome: when will plugins actually work? For everyone, without extra work? Google seems to be mum on the topic.
FireFox, at least personally, was made into a serious threat to the Microsoft browser hegemony by its endless customizability through plugins. Plugins for everything. Developer plugins, social plugins, porn plugins, ad-blocking plugins, everything and anything that could be thought up. Chrome just loads quickly and has the best browser bar in the market. It works for me, as a dyed-in-the-wool Chrome user, but for the FiredFox fanatic with a host of plugins, he is not going anywhere.
If Google actually wants Chrome to succeed, plugins and extensions should be their top priority. Perhaps everyone at Google made the switch to Chrome from IE6. Who knows?
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Microsoft Hiding From European Win7 Pricing
July 1st, 2009
It’s only kinda their fault. In Europe we pointed out that Win7 pricing was quite a bit higher than in the States. Microsoft essentially shouted “don’t blame us, it’s the damn antitrust at the EU!” Nice try Microsoft. The are claiming that due to the need for European Win7 to not include IE, they cannot let users purchase the “upgrade” versions of Win7. They need to pull IE from those machines, thus requiring the people wishing Win7 to buy a full version. The brings pricing closer to parity.
However, let’s count of the differences between a DVD with the full version of Win7 and the upgrade version, in terms of cost to MSFT. Still at zero? Fair enough. Microsoft is trying to get away with predatory pricing on European customers, and blame their regulators. Get real, software is not hard to ship. It’s hard to build, but MSFT has already built it. Perhaps Microsoft has some ulterior motive for this pricing scheme, but I have yet to find a legitamate reason for this.
I understand the need to make money, especially when you are dumping tens of millions into new products like Bing. But this reasoning is merely ridiculous. People are no longer foolish enough to spend hundreds on software without batting an eye. The pirates will make up an price differential that you throw at them. Try again Microsoft.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Comcast Launches 4G - Evil Now Wireless
June 30th, 2009Comcast is not my favorite company. You know why, if you actually use the internet. But as I am currently typing this post via a Comcast provided internet connection (ie: I pay them, they give me internet), I have to cover this. Comcast is now launching their splendid new 4G network, with the help of Clearwire, and some WiMax love.
Brilliantly called “Comcast High-Speed 2go,” it is about twice as fast as the 3G access you are used to having on your iPhone. Not bad, at an average 4 megabits. It is coming to Portland Or, where I am currently located, today. While I am not shelling out the extra bucks (iPhone 3G tethering is fine for me), someone is.
This is a big deal, if you live in a soon to be supported metro area, have extra money to blow, dislike finding wifi, and want to give Comcast money to continue being assholes. Or: a big deal for seven people. When they actually manage to fling the signal far enough to make wireless actually not feel like “crap-im-out-of-range-fi” I will pay attention.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Yahoo Still Lost - CEO Explains
June 30th, 2009
I know that you probably do not enjoy annual meetings of companies. These meetings for even the hottest company can easily be surpassed on the excitement scale by watching paint dry while blindfolded competitions. Yahoo’s recent annual meeting was nothing of the sort if you read between the lines. Fortunately both Businessweek and the WSJ liveblogged the whole deal a few days ago. After reading and comparing notes from the around the internet, we have the dirty bits for you to read.
Let’s start with search: Yahoo is screwed. Quick, what does BOSS stand for? Yeah, I thought so. That is one of Yahoo’s largest pushes on the search front Carol Bartz (CEO) brought up. Even more, Yahoo will not be working with Google on search, period. Something about the government disliking the move. Or put more carefully: we are not in a position to fight this, and Google is not going to pick a fight with regulators over a deal with us. We are alone, and our search offerings will continue to be third rate.
In regards to the small and unused bits of the Yahoo-verse that waste money, Carol called them “space debris,” and discussed their shutdown. Focus seems to be her game, and she ran the meeting like she was the goddamn boss. Shockingly enough from a CEO, but after the Yang debacle having a real leader feels wonderful.
Lover her of hate her, she is a straight shooter. In regards to the possibility of MSFT deal, she said (paraphrase) “we are not going to tell you until the deal is complete.” Damn, that is hard to argue back to. Not even a hint if she wanted the deal or not, just “shut up, trust me, and I will get back to you.” Carol apparently has a firm grip on how to manage this sort of meeting, once again fixing a Yang problem.
All in all, the Yahoo meeting gave me a single impression: they do not get it. They need to focus on building a core search product that function, and a better advertising vehicle to monetize it. Following, cull the masses of their projects (Carol does get this, but the company will probably hate the change), and focus on two things: reach and profits. Carol seems brilliant so far, but she did not seem to hit a new vision as hard as a critique of the past. Saying “we have an execution problem,” is a good step. But it does little remedy it.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Green Dam Damned - China Backs Down
June 30th, 2009
Here is a small morsel of good news if you are still reeling from the turmoil of the past several weeks: China has pulled back from its “Green Damn Youth Escort” software. You recall Green Damn, it was that buggy trash software that China put out to filter the internet, and control its populace. That Green Dam, not this one.
Of course, China was under intense pressure from literally everyone: the US, the EU, hackers, its population. It is one thing to do as Britain does, and slowly lock down a populace with cameras, searches, and brutal laws, but far another to merely announce that you will control all of their information influx. The Chinese government’s hubris can still surprise, even to this day. If they are playing a hearts and minds campaign, they are failing.
Perhaps they will merely attempt to patch the software, and go at it again, at which point PC manufacturers will have yet another choice: give in? In all honesty, if all the PC manufacturers refused it, the Chinese government would be in trouble. Computers are a vital aspect of the modern economy, and the Chinese powerhouse would not work without them. Now, if the Federal government would create a pool, of say one billion dollars, and use that to repay a portion of lost profits to PC manufacturers, they might make a stand.
China would be immediately pinched. Let me rephrase my intentions: Green Damn sets back the hopes of a more free Chinese society. That is both bad for China, and the world. Green Damn is digital tyranny.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Quantcast Wants To Find Your Audience For You
June 29th, 2009If you had access to endless servers of data on millions of websites, you might have an insight or two on where the people are that a specific advertiser wants to reach. Quantcast is betting that it can do it, and scale across a variety of sites around the internet. Today in a major press release, the company announced the launch of its “Media Program,” which apparently is “connecting planning and buying to deliver custom addressable audiences.” Quite ambitious.
Startup Quantcast, backed by 25 million in funding was probably looking for a creative way to apply their constant influx of data, and pull some dollars from it. What they have built is quite impressive, if you are not familiar with the Quantcast system, it tracks visitors to individual websites, and further breaks them down by age, gender, etc, giving you a detailed and open view of a websites audience. Advertisers that need reach just a slice of the world are going to be willing to pay top dollar to find their niche, and Quantcast knows where that is.
Insert functional business model here.
Assuming that Quantcast can successfully link websites to advertisers, then we might see a new powerhouse emerge. Information is power, and Quantcast is holding a lot ammunition. It makes you wonder why Compete is tracking such a different data set. Why not meet Quantcast head to head here?
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
Pay More, Get Less - Windows 7 In Europe
June 29th, 2009
All respect to our brothers and sisters across the pond, but it seems that you are about to be screwed. By now we are all familiar with the odious decision of the EU to block the installation of the Internet Explorer browser inside of the Windows 7 shipping box. Sadly, it seems that Apple is allowed to ship the horrible fantastic Safari browser wherever it pleases. But, now there is word that less for more is even better than less with more.
If you are buying Windows professional for example, take a look at the pricing disaster (via ComputerWorld):
“Windows 7 Professional, the key retail edition for businesses, will sport a price tag of €285, or $400.60, and £189.99, or $313.84, at Saturday’s exchange rate. In other words, EU customers will pay twice the $199.99 U.S. price; U.K. buyers will pay 57% more.”
It doesn’t take a judge to make that seem fair. Of course, MSFT can price Win7 at whatever level they want, it’s their own product, but after our initial positive reactions to the US price structure, this is quite disappointing. Whatever happens, Win7 is going to boost the land of Windows in the world, just as Bing is doing it on the internet. It would just take less time if half of the world was not being screwed at the checkout counter.
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments (0)
