I often hear people ask, how does Apple do it? How are they able to release amazing products time and time again, products that redefine markets, products that are beautifully designed? The answer seems very clear to me, focus. Apple has a single minded focus and commitment to producing great products. This is not just […]

I recently tried out Microsoft OneNote, I’ve heard great things about the tool previously but being a Mac user for so long I didn’t have the opportunity to use it. Lately, I’ve been using VMware Workstation on my Mac so I can run Outlook and properly schedule a meeting. The latest Office update I got […]

A very strange thing just occurred with my MacBook Pro. The audio output stopped completely, it was working earlier today. I tried to change the volume, and it showed as muted but with full volume, a bit weird. Plus it started emitting a strange red light out of the headphone jack. A little searching and […]

As the NY Times article todayshows, social networks are sprouting up everywhere. Small niche sites such as the Portland Trailblazers, BarackObama, Nike, and now Ning’s wicked service which allows anyone to build their own in just a few minutes. But how many of these disparate sites will someone want to join? Does some one need […]

In a futile attempt to catch up on my ever growing pile of magazines, I came across a good article in the Economist about the art of conversation. Cicero wrote in 44 BC the following rules, which all could still apply today, even to the latest form of blogging “conversations”: Cicero’s Rules for Good Conversation […]

Baseline magazine has a good article on Inside MySpace. The article discusses the technical issues MySpace has had to deal with growing to 140 million users. If you are interested in technology, scalability and large site architecture, definitely check it out. It is interesting to read about all of the account milestones they reached and […]

After trying to remember the HTML character code for the fancy quote mark for the 1,00th time, I realized we have a long way to go with interactions with computers. I’m not talking just pretty GUI’s and simple keyboard and mouse interfaces but the whole HCI gambit; computers are supposed to be smart and make […]

Here’s an interesting observation from my father: About 1972 or so, I worked for a company called ISS, which built disc drives. One of the products was called a 7330, (a copy of the IBM 3330), a roughly washing machine size device that stored 30 MB and cost about $50,000. To store 1 GB of […]

I was reading Orbiting the Giant Hairball today by Gordon MacKenzie, a Creative Director at Hallmark. In it he relays the following story. After going around to elementary schools and talking with students about his art he would ask the students about all the beautiful pictures hanging around the school. He would ask them to […]

What should I do with my life, an article by Po Bronson discussing his last book on the topic of life’s meaning. I found the book very interesting and inspiring in many ways, maybe because I’m still struggling with the problem myself. Read the article, you might find it stimulating, here’s a few snippets from […]

Paul Graham has a fairly interesting article about the rebellious attitude of hackers, nerds and other intellectuals. He compares it to the same rebel nature of the country’s founding fathers like Jefferson, who he quotes: The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept […]

Sun is in big trouble. They have their head in the sand, or possibly some where else, and unless they pull it out quickly they are nothing but a Dead Man Walking. Sun is losing business to Linux Pixar switches from Sun to Linux, Dell switches from Sun to Linux, E-TRADE, Amazon.com and numerous others […]