Good morning from frigid New England. Or as I call it now, Narnia.
One of the big issues I have with the site post re-design is that the blog isn't propagated to the front page yet. It will be, eventually, but I feel there's some interesting stuff going on here, and most people who visit the main site will never know. Also problematic: I blog about Windows Phone regularly on my Windows Phone Secrets blog. It all needs to be aggregated together, based on the regular email I get from people telling me about something I already posted about or, in one annoying case (the Windows Phone data leak), something I actually started. With that in mind, here are some recent posts from the Windows Phone Secrets blog I think you should know about.
How you can help improve Zune
[Windows Phone] app update that refuses to install? Try this
Windows Phone services around the world: An embarrassing matrix of missing features
Signs of life with Windows Phone momentum? No.
Has Microsoft found the data hog bug? Also no.
Speaking of things that need to change, once I get out from under my current mountain of work, I need to start regularly combing the site and correcting images and other issues that didn't make it through the site transition correctly. That will start this week.
OK, moving on.
Eric Schmidt was "awarded" $100 million for stepping down as CEO, apparently. For a guy who's gotta be worth billions, this is like paying the tip at a meal.
Remember Gary Reback? Then you're old, or have a really good memory. This was one of the key players, on the Netscape side, during Microsoft's US antitrust trial. And he's back, this time fighting Google.
Anyone else disturbed by the lack of quality in the final four teams in the NFL playoffs--now the final two, and it's just pathetic--may nonetheless enjoy a new Bing collaboration with ESPN that highlights "champion quarterbacks and their decisive moments in life and football." It's called I Am a World Champion.
I believe The New York Times has written at least one article about Apple's Tim Cook since CEO Steve Jobs mysteriously went on another medical leave last week. That said, I find today's story, The Understudy Takes the Stage at Apple, very interesting. And I think there are some parallels to draw between this event (Cook's taking over day-to-day operations at Apple, expected to be permanent) and Steve Ballmer's ascension at Microsoft. And not to ruin the surprise, but this may be bad news for Apple. The simplest way to explain this is to simply provide the closing quote in the article: "He will not be the visionary, but that’s O.K. because there are other talented people around him." Sure. That's what they said about Ballmer too. Just a thought.
I railed against Microsoft's decision to add anti-web-tracking technology to IE 9, because it puts the onus of responsibility on the user. Today, the WSJ writes about Mozilla's plan to add similar Do Not Track functionality to its Firefox browser. And like Microsoft's approach, it looks pretty ineffective: It will be off by default and when enabled it requires sites to agree not to track. Wow.
Many people, including John Gruber, are trashing rumors of a Retina Display on the next iPad. Like Gruber, I would love to see it happen, but it looks like it's not. And yes, I just agreed with John Gruber.
The Android 3-based Motorola Xoom will apparently be available February 17, at Best Buy, for $700. There are only a handful of potentially credible iPad competitors. This is one of them. Maybe.
Ed Bott discovers that SSDs make everything faster, even Windows.
One of the big issues I have with the site post re-design is that the blog isn't propagated to the front page yet. It will be, eventually, but I feel there's some interesting stuff going on here, and most people who visit the main site will never know. Also problematic: I blog about Windows Phone regularly on my Windows Phone Secrets blog. It all needs to be aggregated together, based on the regular email I get from people telling me about something I already posted about or, in one annoying case (the Windows Phone data leak), something I actually started. With that in mind, here are some recent posts from the Windows Phone Secrets blog I think you should know about.
How you can help improve Zune
[Windows Phone] app update that refuses to install? Try this
Windows Phone services around the world: An embarrassing matrix of missing features
Signs of life with Windows Phone momentum? No.
Has Microsoft found the data hog bug? Also no.
Speaking of things that need to change, once I get out from under my current mountain of work, I need to start regularly combing the site and correcting images and other issues that didn't make it through the site transition correctly. That will start this week.
OK, moving on.
Eric Schmidt was "awarded" $100 million for stepping down as CEO, apparently. For a guy who's gotta be worth billions, this is like paying the tip at a meal.
Remember Gary Reback? Then you're old, or have a really good memory. This was one of the key players, on the Netscape side, during Microsoft's US antitrust trial. And he's back, this time fighting Google.
Anyone else disturbed by the lack of quality in the final four teams in the NFL playoffs--now the final two, and it's just pathetic--may nonetheless enjoy a new Bing collaboration with ESPN that highlights "champion quarterbacks and their decisive moments in life and football." It's called I Am a World Champion.
I believe The New York Times has written at least one article about Apple's Tim Cook since CEO Steve Jobs mysteriously went on another medical leave last week. That said, I find today's story, The Understudy Takes the Stage at Apple, very interesting. And I think there are some parallels to draw between this event (Cook's taking over day-to-day operations at Apple, expected to be permanent) and Steve Ballmer's ascension at Microsoft. And not to ruin the surprise, but this may be bad news for Apple. The simplest way to explain this is to simply provide the closing quote in the article: "He will not be the visionary, but that’s O.K. because there are other talented people around him." Sure. That's what they said about Ballmer too. Just a thought.
I railed against Microsoft's decision to add anti-web-tracking technology to IE 9, because it puts the onus of responsibility on the user. Today, the WSJ writes about Mozilla's plan to add similar Do Not Track functionality to its Firefox browser. And like Microsoft's approach, it looks pretty ineffective: It will be off by default and when enabled it requires sites to agree not to track. Wow.
Many people, including John Gruber, are trashing rumors of a Retina Display on the next iPad. Like Gruber, I would love to see it happen, but it looks like it's not. And yes, I just agreed with John Gruber.
The Android 3-based Motorola Xoom will apparently be available February 17, at Best Buy, for $700. There are only a handful of potentially credible iPad competitors. This is one of them. Maybe.
Ed Bott discovers that SSDs make everything faster, even Windows.
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