Decaflon

It's fantastic, full of potential, and I'm really excited about it. The problem is I don't use firefox. Maybe I'll give it a go when my new iMac gets here, but I am so spoiled by the speed/snappyness of Safari that I feel like I'm moving back a generation any time I fire up the fox.

Though there's no reason ubiquity needs to live inside of a browser. Quicksilver is similar in concept and implementation, and it's a desktop app. The concept of very simple user interaction between a multitude of disparate services... that's gold. I want more of that.

I'm anxious for the day I can purchase dinner, movie tickets, etc with my iphone and not have to carry a wallet anymore.

One concept I've been wanting to implement for a while, but don't have the time to do for free, is location data.

You "leave" files, web pages, descriptions, etc at an actual location. A restaurant leaves a menu. You're walking by and browsing google maps or another app, and you've got a cue that there's info. Click, see the menu, when you're near the restaurant. This is a simple example, it can be a lot more robust and interesting. Just imagine some ARGs with that kind of feature.

There have been a lot of studies on this that have come up negative. What is it about this one that invalidates them?

Also... I really have to question these people. They suggest using a wireless headset. That still gives you a big dose of EM in your head. It's not the same, it could be more, it could be less, depends on the brand and design.

A wired headset would reduce the affect quite a lot.

As long as whatever comes out can play spore, SCII, and Diablo III at a good res and frame rate, that's all I'll ever need ;-)

That is a rather odd request. That really only applies to gamers, I'd wager.

There's a handful of programs that really take advantage of gpu's outside of gaming, and the number is growing. The apple platform is the only place you get that now, but I know there are linux libraries and drivers in the works, and surely by now there's something on vista that will.

While your graphics card does control the rendering of what's on your screen, even the most basic crap from 4 years ago can quickly render high resolution desktops and apps. Graphics chipsets matter when you're watching highly compressed video for which the driver allows the use of hardware encoding/de-encoding, games, and less than a dozen apps that actually tap into the GPU for image processing.

Also worth mentioning that you can't upgrade your graphics chipset on any laptop or notebook, period.

Whoa. Thanks for the tip, I still haven't upgraded to 2.5 on mine... need to stop neglecting that.

I'm anxious for twinkle to get into the store. Twinkle is a location-aware twitter. You click the "near me" and set a radius, and you see other people twittering in your town. Some people use it for "tweet-ups." But it's pretty cool. I see people talking about local news, sports, weather, etc. Got a few followers/followees from it.

There's a lot of crap, I agree. There's a lot of good stuff too. I'd wager a better browsing/rating system is not long off.

It must suck to run iTunes on windows.

I had a scare this morning as I tried to upgrade to the 2.0 firmware. It loaded on, and then went to activate RIGHT WHEN the activation servers started getting overloaded.

Luckily it only took about 10 minutes after that before I got in and my phone is back.

The App Store is super easy from the phone or iTunes. Twitteriffic is better than the desktop version. I'm loving all the location aware apps. This is pretty exciting.

PhoneSaber! Soon I'll be able to swing my phone at people and make menacing light saber noises WITHOUT USING MY MOUTH.

That's a lot of assumption, and no fact.

This is why I'm looking at flash again. It's kind of been an elephant in the corner both in my mind, lots of potential but I hated using several of the previous versions of it's development environment. This tips the scales to it's potential, so I hope they've caught up with making developing less painful. I know ActionScript 3 has made quite a few big improvements.

You know, we've been saying these same things for like 4 months now? Maybe longer?

I think it's obvious twitter has to shape up to survive, but I don't think the decline has even started yet. I think they're still growing as far as users goes.

Myspace is still terrible, has problems ALL the time. It's been terrible ever since it started to get popular, but I think we're just now seeing it begin to decline.

There have been other options for a long time. The problem is everyone is still using twitter :)

Quick, someone register cdrepairengineering.com

I'd be happy if they just allowed it to use bluetooth keyboards. Seems like a firmware update would do it.

Good advice all. Doesn't really get me anywhere, but it's nice occasionally to complain/preach to the choir.

I wonder if this is enough to scare admins into upgrading...

A lot of my audience is in the big corporate world, where IT is ... almost always a problem. It's a lot like you say, they have constraints either due to legacy apps, paranoia, or just negligence. Once something gets in place as a rule, it takes quite a lot of questioning to really get to the why and affect change.

I'm not really at liberty to list all of the corps I'm talking about here, but you would be surprised how prevalent this is. It's well over 50% still.

I think I will work up a strongly worded recommendation. Maybe along the lines of "while we do test for IE6, we cannot guarantee performance or compatibility based on the age of it's technology and widely known problems."

Setting a requirement instead of a recommendation seems a lot more harsh and irksome.

But I do like the year angle, that could help motivate.

how can you produce value that competes when you start with nothing

Value doesn't come from your parents' fortunes, the neighborhood you grew up in, or your past 5 generations. Certainly, some have a lot more advantages than others but I see those advantages squandered quite a bit more often than actually used to any effect. Yes, even squandering an inheritance tends to give one a comfortable life, but a comfortable life does not mean that you are creating value. How many great artists have died long before their works became appreciated? How many night time tinkerers are we still benefiting from today? Garage bands? Starving authors and poets? All it takes is passion, and a bit of focus and we can do extraordinary things.

It is true that often value is not recognized for what it is. Often bright people never break through a socio-economic barrier to become truly well known or influential. Those trends are much more complicated than upbringing or privilege. Exempting cases of outright bigotry or misogyny, anyone with sufficient drive can be successful--perhaps not enormously so. I tend to believe that it's possible even in the most adverse conditions. It may not be likely, but I tend to believe in individuals far more than circumstance. Of course, I can only speak from my own experiences. I've never been at rock bottom.

But, I tend to be an economic conservative and social liberal. So maybe I have this optimism and "fight-the-odds" spirit because of that?

If you're in an urban area... most networks have good coverage everywhere. When you get into the country, you just never know.

It wasn't always like that. The companies started building out the infrastructure from different cities so certain providers would own regions. It's been several years since that's been the case.

Oli, I don't think fixed term contracts in and of themselves are an evil. My main gripe is in all but a few exceptions there is NO alternative. Just recently some of the big providers have followed Virgin's lead in offering pay as you go, and month to month pricing at non-ridiculous rates, but it's still the exception rather than the rule. A fixed term to get a deal on a phone, great. No problems. A fixed term because there is nothing else available: not so great.

Contracts came about because of customer churn. It's an entirely inside out concept. Yes, it does cost to set up a user as well as terminate them, but it's negligible and can be made next to nothing by efficient operations.

Then they started being part of phone subsidies, and that still is the case in a lot of places.

But more, it's just a rather dishonest ploy to get people stuck and not have to worry about actually having the best prices or service.

I think a lot of this is perspective.

I don't think it sucks asking for a raise. I'd never have a problem asking my employer for more money if I thought I deserved it, and I honestly can't put myself in the head of someone that would be difficult for.

With the popularity of wordpress growing so explosively over the last couple years, what sort of tactics are you going to take on security? Do you have anyone helping with the project actively trying to hack WP to eliminate holes before they're found by truly malicious people?

As a business if you are focused on your competitors, you're losing to them. Being aware of them is one thing, but if you start emulating them to keep up you are in a very bad position.

This really seems like a case of "if it's not broke..." There's a lot of things to consider here. Benefits, work environment, type of work, bonuses, job satisfaction. We're not seeing the whole picture. It's every employees decision to decide what's best for themselves. If the payrate isn't good for them, then they need to seek a raise, or seek another job.

I'm all for paying people what they're worth, even to the point of being overly generous. But there is a lot more to it than just a flat number. Even not considering all the variables on a personal level, there are variables at the company level. In a great company, most if not all of the employees are clued into the overall strategy. Pay rates may very well be a part of that.

Apple right now, I'd want more stock.

Microsoft, I'd want more salary.

Google I'd want more salary.

But I'm not typical.

It's only a mess up if the Apple employees are upset and wanting more.

And if that's the case, wouldn't they be dropping like flies and seeking employment elsewhere?

After a certain level, I really don't care what I'm paid. I got a raise a few months back that I think we completely unnecessary. I'm not complaining, but there is a lot more to a job than the salary.

Microsoft and Google engineers have to spend a lot of time and effort dealing with windows and Microsoft products.

That requires a significant pay boost. Who wants to deal with that crap?

Yes, I know, I'm a biased Apple user. However, I was a Microsoft Gold Solution Provider before I made the switch. The only Microsoft product I have to deal with directly these days is IE. I'd take a pay cut if I didn't have to deal with IE.

what's the difference?

The five year gap between releases?

I would wager everything but the memory card slot will be done via the AppStore, in several varieties.

I've already seen some MMS apps, but haven't tried them. I've got Video recording, quality instant messaging (looking forward to PUSH enabled version of this,) on my iPhone 1.0