Macintosh

The Steve Jobs Effect...on the Backdating Scandal

Technology Monster — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:11:12 +0000

For whatever reasons?and they could range from a principled belief in his innocence, to a pragmatic understanding of his importance to Apple?s financial well-being-- Apple?s board has backed Jobs despite pressure that would have led many companies to have asked him long ago to resign for the good of the team. Certainly, plenty of lesser known CEOs have been forced out, based on far less evidence (publicly-disclosed evidence, anyway) of involvement in backdating than Apple has admitted about Jobs.

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Will iPhone Mess Up Cell Phones Upgrade Cycle?

Technology Monster — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:11:11 +0000

Sure, for decades now, people have been replacing their mobile phones more and more frequently -- most recently, every 18 months. That means that if cell phone makers or carriers decide to add new functionalities to these phone when they are already in use, they could, potentially, do that over the air. If consumers are able to get new applications this way, I think some of them will stick with their phones longer. So, why splurge on a new phone?

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Samsung Takes on Apple's iPod (again)

Technology Monster — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 21:19:37 +0000

Introducing the K5. After years of trying, the South Korean giant has finally come up with a truly drool-worthy competitor to Apple's iPod. True, the moniker K5 doesn't give me any feel-good vibe the way iPod does, but Samsung's little device offers any Apple-weary consumers a very good alternative to the ubiquitous iPod. The 4 GB K5--about twice as thick as an iPod nano--comes hot on the heels of SanDisk's release of the 8GB Sansa digital music player.

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A Ray of Hope for Desktop Linux

Technology Monster — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 04:06:15 +0000

I don't see anything on the horizon that seems likely to change that, but, for Linux fans, here's a ray of hope: IBM, one of the penguin's biggest backers, is releasing a version of its Notes communications and collaboration software designed to run on Linux. Under its "Migrate to the Penguin" program, Big Blue pays business partners and software resellers incentives of $20 per user, up to $20,000, for migrating customers from Microsoft Outlook/Exchange to Lotus Notes on Linux.

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Apple Threatens Site For Highlighting A Product Flaw

Technology Monster — Sun, 14 May 2006 20:25:12 +0000

Now Apple has sent a letter demanding that one of the pictures be taken down because it is a copyrighted image. What's concerning the company, most likely, is not that the copyright was violated, but that the image is evidence that some poor manufacturing resulted in overheating. Now, because they've resorted to legal measures, the images are everywhere and they look like bullies who are unconcerned about product quality.

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Bandwidth Scarcity, The Latest Excuse For Banning MySpace

Technology Monster — Sat, 13 May 2006 20:56:17 +0000

There have been plenty of stories of schools worrying about MySpace and banning students from accessing the site. Their concerns are well documented, but a community college in Texas has come up with a new reason to ban it; they claim that MySpace is a bandwidth hog, slowing down the school's network. The school may be bolstered in their claims that MySpace is a bandwidth hog by the fact that some Apple retail stores are also banning the site, using the same excuse.

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Hidden Open Source Code In XCP Designed To Make CDs Work With iPods?

Technology Monster — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 22:41:08 +0000

Just as the whole Sony BMG/First4Internet rootkit fiasco story was first breaking, there was another story making the rounds about how Sony BMG was specifically using the copy protection not to protect, but to try to pressure Apple into opening up their own copy protection scheme. Lots of people had complained about how Apple doesn't open up their copy protection, so no one else can create copy protected songs that go on the iPod.

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Mac OS X 10.4.4 and iTunes 6.2 Update

Technology Monster — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 22:41:08 +0000

Three things in the Mac OS X 10.4.4 update caught my eye: .Mac now syncs which RSS feed items you have and haven't read in Safari. On the other hand, I am quite pleased that now I no longer have to decide, via the pop-up menu in the lower right hand quadrant of the iTunes window, whether I want to use external speakers via the Airport Express, or my computer's built-in speakers; now there's a third option, that uses both, "Multiple speakers."

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