You are looking at posts in the category Business/The Software Industry.
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris, Thinking Outside the WTF.
…as long as it’s cheap.
Ever since the RIAA crackdown on illegal downloading, there’s been quite a drop in CD sales. And iTunes sales have gone up substantially. But the reason isn’t that users feel that DRM is bad, just that illegal downloading and iTunes are both cheaper. The Kindle not selling enough? Maybe because it’s $400. [no citation available, just see for yourself] At least the books are cheap.
Perhaps, it’s not about restricting rights all the way to the point of controlling everything we see and do. Maybe it’s just about the money.
Posted on January 7th, 2008 by Tim.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Tim.
Bill Gates has spent his last full day at Microsoft, and it’s sort of sad for me, marking the end of an era. While I’m sure he will continue to maintain an influence over the company, the days of his pioneering leadership are nearing a close.
Bill Gates is my personal hero, which should come as no surprise to those who know me as a Kool-Aid drinking fanboy. However, the reason I admire Bill Gates has little to do with Microsoft itself. He exemplifies personal qualities that I admire, including technical breadth, ambition, and commitment to effective philanthropy. I’m sure Bill has made some mistakes over the years, as many would like to point out, but the way I see it, the best way to judge character is to see if a person really puts his money where his mouth is. Bill delivers, though I suppose that makes his mouth pretty big.
Adios, billg! So long, and thanks for all the fish/DOS/qbasic/etc.
-Tim
Posted on December 28th, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris, General/Misc., Product Design, Thinking Outside the WTF, UI Design.
(changed for readability)
Me: I hate windows mobile.
Tim: Why?
Me: In what universe do you get a smart phone that’s too smart to make calls with?
Tim: Yours must be defective, i’ve never had a problem with that.
Me: No, it’s not. I’ll explain.
Me: My mom got a palm treo 750.
Me: This should have incited my “ruh roh” response.
Me: somehow it didn’t.
Me: That was fine, even though she never uses mobile web
Me: but then, she got this plantronics headset
Tim: ruh roh
Me: and she was telling me how she couldn’t get the regular phone speaker to work anymore
Me: she disabled bluetooth
Me: but she could still only make calls with the headset
Tim: hmm
Me: soo, I removed the device from the partnership. Now, it still doesn’t work, bluetooth’s off, and when i call i don’t hear anything.
Tim: Did you check the volume?
Me: Furthermore, it requires some ridiculous YES I CHECKED THE VOLUMEFDSFDSF
Tim: and does speakerphone work
Me: –anyways, ridiculous passkey (no speakerphone doesn’t work)
Me: and without the pass key you couldn’t reattach the headset
Me: So now i couldn’t talk on the phone,
and couldn’t talk on the headset.
Me: ==with a palm treo and winmobile, you can do everything but make voice calls
Me: We called tech support
Me: They had us do a hard reset
Me: The lady’s basic explanation was “you have to think of the phone as a little computer. and just like your computer builds up cookies and stuff and slows down, your phone can also get cookies and slow down as well, so you need to turn it off regularly”
Me: (I congratulated myself on keeping a straight face through that one)
Me: but it seems to have worked
Tim: treos suck
Tim: the phone is clearly better than my old one
Tim: but the cpu sucks, and the screen configuration is retarded
Me: it’s totally unacceptable to have to whip out a stylus just to turn off the headset
Tim: there’s not a button on the headset?
Me: there is….it doesn’t work
Tim: my friend josh has a blackjack and bluetooth headset and has zero problems with it
Tim: it’s clearly the treo that sucks
Me: menu->cancel bluetooth
Me: so….go to the MENU menu
Tim: whaaa
Me: i want to find the idiot who dreamed that one up
Me: and give them their phone back
Me: with my fist
Me: the button on the headset hangs up
Tim: funny
Me: not when mom’s on a 2 year contract
Me: there are three buttons on the headset
Me: volume up, volume down
Me: and the “multifunction button”
Me: which i believe is mainly for hanging up
Posted on December 22nd, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, TOS Collection.