Category Archives: Rants

It’s Really Not About Freedom

There seems to be no end in sight to the anti-freedom arguments being leveled against Apple. I see new ones every day. And I maintain that the problem with the majority of these arguments is that they misdirect or conflate the wrong things. A recent example comes from Mr. Dave Winer (via Daring Fireball). Winer, [...]

Thoughts on Apple vs. Adobe

The whole Apple vs. Adobe thing is fascinating to me. The fact that Steve Jobs has now personally and publicly written on the matter highlights what a big deal it is. And now the Free Software Foundation has responded with a missive on open software. For my part I largely agree with Jobs’ take and [...]

Arrivals

Just a note to say that my MacBook Pro arrived yesterday (Sep 9). I’ve not had a chance to play much with it beyond transferring my data, but I’ll be sure to report on it as soon as I can. Also, today (Sep 10) my Snow Leopard Box Set — which I pre-ordered from Amazon [...]

Sticking it to Sprint

Apparently, Sprint’s not doing so well. Apparently they’re having customer retention problems. That means that people would rather go to the hassle of changing phone service providers than continue giving their money to Sprint. While it wasn’t my number one reason for switching, I can say from personal experience that Sprint’s horrendous customer service was [...]

Apple Tablet? Really?

If this is what the rumored Apple tablet is going to be — basically a bigger version of the iPod Touch — then I’ll pass. I mean, really, what’s the point of a device like this? It’s too big to be an iPod or an extremely mobile computing device like the iPhone, and I already [...]

Google’s Definition of Beta

So for, like, forever Google apps — in particular, Gmail and Google Calendar — have bore a beta label. Now, no one has any idea why this has been the case, but this week Google has decided to remove the beta label with little more than PR-speak as an explanation: “We realize this situation puzzles [...]

Twitter: No, I Fully Admit, I Don’t Get It

The buzz around Twitter is, frankly, reaching a pitched and utterly annoying frenzy. Some of the latest stuff I’ve read, though, has inspired me to add my voice to the throngs. Yes, that would be you people. Now let me start by saying I don’t use Twitter. I don’t even have an account. And this [...]

Shocked to Shit

I really like my Apple aluminum keyboard. I really do. It’s compact and attractive, and hairs don’t get all caught in it, or if they do you can’t see them. The keyboard is springy and resistive; it’s got a really nice feel to it. Unless, of course, you’ve just walked up to it across a [...]

Thrifty but Evil

I had my first ever Planes, Trains and Automobiles type experience this year. And I owe it all to Thrifty car rental.

Capacity, Not Memory

When talking about cell phones and MP3 players with flash-based internal storage it’s become commonplace to refer to the device’s capacity as “memory.” Even Walt Mossberg and other respected tech writers — the very folks who are supposed to make technology easier to understand — are guilty of this practice: “The G1 also has much [...]