Category: Uncategorized

Useit.Com: Remote Control Anarchy. At least there's some justice in the world: the consumer electronics industry is losing significant sales because prospective customers are afraid of the complications entailed in attempting to integrate one more box into their existing system. [Tomalak's Realm]

Tablet Love.  I love the TabletPC. One reason is that, like many writers, I have an abiding love for the physical act of putting pen to paper (or, for the past 18 months, pen to screen). I have a few “nice” pens, a couple Mont Blancs, two Watermans, and I use those for writing letters,… Continue reading Tablet Love

Thinktecture: Blogs As Micromarketing Tools. I bet that a good 50% of the readers of this blog already know about thinktecture, a company that's less than 24-hours old. Because of blogging, I'm the #1 Google return for various queries about programming airline reservation systems, which is how I keep myself in Jolt Cola and Doritos. I've published… Continue reading Thinktecture: Blogs As Micromarketing Tools

Cable TV shelf spaceA New Jersey TV producer's effort to establish a new cable channel dedicated to the martial arts tells the tale about the structure of the oligopoly control of cable access. The Philadelphia Inquirer article (“Why few niche channels ever make it to cable TV”, 6/4/2004) shows how difficult it is for small… Continue reading oligopoly control of cable access

Petopoly It's still early days in the process, but the retail pet supplies industry is becoming an oligopoly. It used to be that pet stores were exclusively a mom-and-pop local enterprise. But two massive chains, based on the models of other megaretailers like Toys 'R' Us and Circuit City, are grabbing market share through massive… Continue reading oligopolies breed oligopsonies

Eric Sink digs into 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. Eric Sink is tearing into one of my favorite books: Reis and Trout's 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. He's doing a post every day about each chapter and applying each principle to the software industry. Really interesting stuff. Every post so far has gotten posted to… Continue reading Eric Sink digs into 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

Code Complete 2nd Edition a conversation changer, Larry says. Larry O'Brien, former editor of Computer Language and Software Development magazines (translation: if he says something about programming I listen) says on his Knowing.net weblog: “Pedagogical quibbles aside, Code Complete 2nd Edition deserves to be the most read software development book of the year, a distinction… Continue reading Code Complete 2nd Edition a conversation changer, Larry says

Explaining the Big in SP2.  Microsoft's Channel 9 has posted a video and transcript (useful for folks trying to access using non-Windows machines) of a session (here) with Windows XP product manager Rebecca Norlander. She explains why Windows XP Service Pack 2 is so large–264MB for the latest build available to external beta testers. “We… Continue reading Explaining the Big in SP2

'Inside the Victorian Home': Upstairs, Downstairs. In the late 19th century, Judith Flanders's social history shows, the contents of a home were a window on the Victorian character. By Alida Becker. [New York Times: Books]

NetGear's Back Door. A BugTraq report claims that certain WG602 units from NetGear have an unavoidable backdoor password for administration: A few days ago, we linked to news that Linksys's WRT54G had certain firmware releases that left remote administration turned on. Now a report says that it's likely that a username and password that's available… Continue reading NetGear's Back Door