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Apple obsoletes PowerPC Macs
According to announcements today at WWDC, the next release of Mac OS X, OS 10.6 “Snow Leopard”, will not support PowerPC-based Macs. I find this pretty annoying. I like to get my money’s worth out of a machine. Now Apple is telling me I have to get a new machine if I want support, even though that old machine is still doing its thing just fine.
Yeah, I have Intel Macs; but I also have a number of PowerPC Macs, including my main laptop, that work just fine. I’d like to be able to use the latest software on these machines too, but now I’m rev-locked.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like blackmail. It doesn’t feel very “Green” throwing away a working machine that is otherwise adequate, but no longer compatible (with Apple’s business model).
eComm 2009 right around the corner
The conference takes place in San Francisco March 3-5. If you’re interested in where communications is heading, including voice, video, and social services, ecomm 2009 is the place to be.
I’ll be giving a 5 minute lightning presentation on Harnessing Latent Mobile Phone Resources For Wireless Digital Telemetry Applications
Date: Wednesday, March 4
Time: 4:55 - 5:00 PM
Location: Salon EF
I hope to see you there.
“Skype is open” argument - not even wrong
I won’t waste a lot of bits on this. The case of Skype being open can be rejected immediately and indisputably with the simple fact that there is no published IP network specification for communicating with the service. Done. Nothing to see here. Move along please.
What? You’re still here? Okay. Let’s take an example of why it settles the matter. A given VoIP service can offer customers free accounts that include the ability to talk to other networks, including MSN, Yahoo!, Gtalk, and myriad SIP, or Asterisk for that matter, as examples. Note that these services span protocols. This is not a protocol war - the only protocol they share is IP, so if you call that a “protocol war” then welcome to 1982. Gateways may be required to pass calls between two services because they internally use different protocols - but such gateways are technically possible (and do exist in fact) because there are published and supported protocols for interaction. Skype is excluded from this list because they do not offer any such published network protocol.
The argument asserts that Skype is open because Skype supports “the E.164 namespace (i.e. telephone numbers).” While it’s true, Skype supports interconnect to the old telephone network, that fact still excludes Skype from the list above. A given VoIP service cannot offer customers free connectivity to Skype users because doing so incurs real costs to leave the IP network and hop over to the “e.164 namespace.” That VoIP service can offer their customers the ability to reach the MSN, Yahoo!, Gtalk, and other namespaces without incurring those costs. If e.164 makes Skype open, it makes it no more open than Ma Bell, and not “open” in any practical way.
He says:
With Gizmo5 you cannot build a true peer because the source code is not available.
This is a classic red herring. We’ve gone from “open” to “open-source.” Nobody is asking Skype to support a specific protocol or to allow a comeptitor to be a “true peer” on their network (whatever that means, on a given day). We’re talking about a published network interface for interconnect, specifying whatever protocol Skype wishes to expose. If such a protocol spec existed, trust me, people would use it - and Skype users (and Skype themselves) would benefit.
Which brings me to this gem:
There is little consumer demand for the additional support of the SIP URI space.
Someone has a fantastically powerful set of rose colored glasses. Try these searches: skype sip address or skype sip gateway for example. And again, this is really a red herring too because publsihing an open network interface/protocol and “support for the SIP URI space” are not the same thing. While I think supporting SIP would be a good idea for Skype, for their own sake, and Stuart Henshall has proposed many times some great ways Skype could make money offering that, I don’t really care what protocol they offer. SIP would be nice, but hey, open is open. As long as they support some published network spec, just as Yahoo!, MSN, Gtalk, SIP, and Asterisk do, I’ll let them be called “open” - until then, it’s a line of total BS. If Skype wishes ro remain closed, fine, but don’t invent new ways to define “open” just so you can claim they aren’t closed.
Historical footnote
Today I sold my last Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) (formerly SUNW) stock - at a net loss of about 80%.
I was looking pretty smart back in 2000-2001. Even though to a large degree I had lost faith in SUN, I must admit I held this stock more based on emotion, always a bad idea. I felt I was supporting something opposing MSFT and held on to the stock on that basis - I even dollar cost averaged.
I finally decided to take my lumps, accepting the symbolism of the decison, admiting something that I have known for a long time, but didn’t really want to admit: that Sun Microsystems is destined to become a textbook warning sign for other tech companies.
It’s not unlike the day you realize your child isn’t a child anymore, or the day you realize that you’re not as young as you think you are.
McCain Leaves GM Plant To Chants Of “Obama 08″
McCain reassures GM factory workers that their situaion is not their fault. Whew! That’s a relief. Thanks, John.
Bush Legacy By The Numbers
In answer to the question “are you better off now then you were eight years ago?” the following chart provides a visual indication of the results of the last eight years, the legacy of the Bush Administration:
A few of the metrics:
- U.S. Trade deficit: UP 100%
- Consumer Credit Debt: UP 67%
- New Private Sector Jobs: DOWN 79%
- Budget Deficit: Almost tripled, UP 270%
- National Debt: UP 61%
- GDP Growth: DOWN 35%
Taken from Rep. Rahm Emanuel press conference data available here which contains all the original sources for the cold, hard stats.
Corruption, cronyism, and political backstabbing - sound familiar?
In a continuation of the shadow government run in secrecy by Dick Cheney and an administration that is infamous for withholding information from the American public, Gov. Palin kept 1,100 emails from a freedom of information request. Her reason? “Executive privilege” Hmm… Where have we heard that before?
Andree McLeod, a Republican, filed a freedom of information request for emails regarding the case of a Palin-backed effort to oust the state chairman of the Alaska Republican party, Randy Ruedrich, according to The Raw Story:
Palin’s office provided McLeod with a 78-page list (PDF) cataloging the emails it was withholding. Many of them had been written by Palin or sent to her.
Of the withheld e-mails, at least four dozen include Todd Palin, and many of those refer either to the Public Service Employees Association, a union representing law enforcement officers in Alaska. Others including Todd Palin reference Andrew Halco, a former state lawmaker who ran as an independent against Sarah Palin in 2006. Since losing that race, he’s become a blogger who frequently criticizes Palin’s administration.
Daily Show: Sarah Palin IS the Bush Doctrine
A fresh new idea to this election season. No blinking, So new, we haven’t heard it since Bush said the same thing in 2000. And no earmarks, except for the $400+ billion. Etc. Etc.
Evan Tanner UFC wrestler dies in desert - cell phone failure?
By now, most people have heard about UFC wrestler, Evan Tanner, who was found dead in remote area of the Palo Verde moutain desert. TMZ and others reported that “Tanner sent a text message to a friend that he was out of water and needed help.”
If this is true, it really bothers me. If Tanner was in cell coverage, then the phone knows what cell towers it’s using, and therefore it could help locate the phone. It frustrates me that phones don’t have some kind of “panic” button, that could report the cell tower data the phone has, to help rescuers narrow down their search area.
Cell phone 911 doesn’t work. I have no idea if Tanner tried to call 911, but in general it’s useless. Okay, one could argue to fix that, fine. But given how I have been experimenting with cell phones and location by cell tower for a while now, I also know another thing that could be done would be simply to have the phones expose the cell tower data to the user to transmit to whoever they want. With this feature, Tanner could have sent the tower info to his friend - his friend could then use that to help locate Tanner.
Where was the cell carrier in this? Did they help the search by providing the cell tower(s) used by Tanner’s phone? If not, why not?
For my part, I’d rather get help directly from those that know me, rather than rely on the emergency services bureaucracy. I know from personal experience that real people can get a lot more done, more quickly than these official channels. If you don’t believe me, consider these examples:
- Passengers on the 9/11 Flight 93 vs. official non-response
- My 12-year-old son caught in the 2003 east cost blackouts
- Ad hoc citizen groups vs. government emergency agencies in Katrina
I’d want an option on the phone that would paste the cell tower data into a text message that I could send to who ever I wish. They could elect to pass that on to emergency services themselves. I could send them the message and then also call them to explain my situation.
In fact, of course, in many situations like this one with Tanner, one would be outside cell coverage anyway, so any kind of 911 or other emergency service is moot. But in this particular case, and in many such cases, the endangered person was within cell coverage and so cell tower data was available and could have been used to help locate them.
Is Microsoft getting a bum rap?
Mark Evans thinks there is a double standard when it comes to Apple and Microsoft. He says:
No matter how often [Apple] drops the ball with a service (MobileMe) or product (3G Apple iPhone) that doesn’t work, batteries (iPod Nano, MacBook) that over-heat or slashing prices only a few months a product has been released (original iPhone), Apple somehow manages to stay out of trouble.
And
If Microsoft screwed up as badly, the cacophony would be overwhelming with people calling for boycotts and Steve Ballmer’s head.
For one thing, we have to bear in mind that, while Apple’s market share has been increasing, Microsoft is still the 800-pound gorilla, with at least a 90 percent market share. Microsoft is the incumbent. Apple is the upstart. Apple represents the alternative. And, as such, they probably do get cut more slack.
People have a tendency to cheer for the underdog. It’s not as “cool” to endorse the favorite.
And then there’s the fact that Microsoft has not given anybody much to cheer about in a long time. Apple really has produced some impressive innovations over the past eight years: iPod/iTunes, Mac OS X, iPhone. In the mean time, Microsoft has given us more bloated software and disasters like .NET (does anybody even talk about that anymore? - what developer that built on that platform doesn’t regret it now?).
Name any Web 2.0 company and they are not using any Microsoft tools. Its all open source and Mac with perhaps some Flash - Does anybody really think SIlverlight is going anywhere? Apple represents the future, Microsoft the past. Microsoft is John McCain and Apple is Barak Obama. It’s not cool to campaign for McCain… but like Microsoft, he still might win - he just won’t be “cool” in the process.
