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>> Postings for October 2011

John Dix - Moving from BlackBerry to the iPhone 4S

Thu, 27 Oct 2011

I’ve been a BlackBerry user for years but finally decided I needed a device that provided a better Web browsing experience so just made the leap to an Apple iPhone 4S and thought I’d share some impressions.

Let me say up front this is an apples to oranges comparison. My BlackBerry Curve 8530 was great for what it was: a small, lightweight phone/email device with limited browsing capacity and a few other goodies. RIM has many other devices, such as the Bold 9900, that are much better for accessing the Web and, while I looked at them, they didn’t offer all the bells and whistles the 4S does and I quickly decided to make a clean break (so this review isn’t meant to be a comparison of the 4S and any of RIM’s more modern Web-driven devices).

John Dix, Network World | Read more...


Kirk McElhearn - How the iPod changed the world of music

Mon, 24 Oct 2011

Back around 1979, I was an early adopter. Before the first Sony Walkman was available for sale in the United States, I had bought a Sony Pressman, a brick-sized and -weight device that could both play and record cassette tapes. I was initially interested in this device to record music that I played with friends; it had a built-in stereo microphone, as it was designed for recording interviews. But I quickly realized, as I carried it to and from my friends’ homes, that I could also listen to music on it.

In those days, the bands I listened to were The Cure, Joy Division, Theater of Hate, The Durutti Column, Talking Heads, and other postpunk bands. I would walk through the streets of suburban Queens, New York, the Pressman wedged in the back pocket of my blue jeans—or, in winter, in a coat pocket—with a pair of headphones on my ears. Back then, you didn’t really see people wearing headphones. The Walkman wasn’t introduced until June 1980, and even then, it didn’t catch on very quickly. You would occasionally see people in the streets of Manhattan with headphones on, but it took a few years before it became common.

Kirk McElhearn | Read more...


The Macalope - Crazy making

Sun, 23 Oct 2011

The gap between reality and the iPhone 4S commentary makes the Macalope go all sarcastic. But will he have enough sarcasm left for Wall Street analysts? Click “read more” for the surprising answer (which is “yes”)! Finally, it’s time to gird your loins as Steve Jobs’s biography hits the shelves next week.

Can we talk for a minute about what a fail this iPhone 4S is? Ugh, mega-fail. Total disappointment fest. Lackluster-o-rama. Lame-a-palooza.

The Macalope | Read more...


Simon Jary - Apple gives Ps a chance

Mon, 17 Oct 2011

PC  Seemingly the opposite of the Mac and everything Apple, of course the term PC or Personal Computer applies just as much to Apple as it does Microsoft, Windows and the legion of dull, beige (now plasticky grey/silver) boxes called PCs. In fact, there’s no computer more personal than one of Apple’s, be it a Mac, iPhone or iPad – for all are personal computers. Unlike Microsoft, Dell, HP et al, Apple somehow builds not just personification but personality into its computers and its brand. DOS and Windows PCs are faceless. The Mac not only had a face, it even said “Hello”.

PageMaker  Aldus Corporation, developer of PageMaker, the software that kickstarted desktop publishing, was named after Aldus Manutius, the inventor of italic type and the semicolon.

Simon Jary | Read more...


Andy Ihnatko - Rewriting the AppleScript

Tue, 11 Oct 2011

I refuse to get upset about the tight level of control that Apple maintains on its products, and by extension its developers and its users. It comes down to this:

1) Yes, Apple hardware comes with restrictions that would be insane in any other context. But...

Andy Ihnatko | Read more...


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