Posts in misc
Microsoft Bashing
Not a complaint, but I’m a bit curious about all of the recent Microsoft bashing from fairly high profile MS alums. A few days ago Don Dodge, a former startup evangelist at Microsoft who’s now at Google, blogged about his positive experience discovering Apple products after escaping the Microsoft vortex. This is the same guy that told Venturebeat two months ago:
“At a high level, Microsoft today is where IBM was in late ’80s, early ’90s. When I was just starting my career, IBM ruled the world. IBM was the dominant computer provider in the world — hardware, software, network, you name it, IBM was king. I think in the late ’80s and early ’90s, we saw that shift and Microsoft became king of the hill. And in 2009, 2010, going forward, Microsoft is sort of like IBM. It’s a longtime company with a great tradition and still very profitable, but it’s not the leader. Microsoft is not making the innovative leaps and coming out with the new stuff.”
But the much larger news item was yesterday’s juicy New York Times op-ed by former MS Vice President Dick Brass in which he describes Microsoft as a “clumsy, uncompetitive innovator.” Microsoft quickly posted a pretty lackluster response to the op-ed that sidesteps Dick’s points entirely and instead claims Microsoft measures its contribution by its broad impact, whatever that means.
I’m interested in this topic now because these guys are definitely not morons. And I’m wondering what’s causing this to come out now. I think it might be because of iPad. That’s a class of product that Microsoft tried to pioneer, and failed. And if iPad does turn out to be a big hit, then it could be another big blow to Microsoft’s ego/pride/morale/perception. It’s kind of like MS is the dutiful older sibling that’s repeatedly being shown up by the golden younger brother or sister, not that I would know anything about that! In either case I guess only time will tell.
My New iPhone Home Screen
The results are in! Seven days later, here’s my new home screen:
And for comparison, here’s the before:
I may rearrange the order over the coming weeks, but otherwise this is what I’m going to keep. (In fairness I did use a few other apps over the course of the week, like Cydia and TripTracker, but decided not to move them because they aren’t apps I use on a regular basis.)
I must say it’s been a somewhat surprising exercise. There were seven apps on my home screen that weren’t being used regularly: Contacts, Maps, Weather, Mint, Pandora, Shazam, and Settings!
I’m not that surprised about Contacts. Some people like it but I find it redundant. Maybe I’m too much of an iPhone old-timer but I get to my contacts via the Phone app out of habit. I am surprised about Settings though. In theory it makes perfect sense to keep it on the home screen but it turns out I hardly use it. That is most likely because my phone is jailbroken and has SBSettings, which I use obsessively.
Mighty Wallet update
A few months ago I picked up a Mighty Wallet. I’m still using it and will probably get another when this one wears out. So far it’s holding up really well though it is coffee stained in a few places. I do get a lot of comments on it as most people have never seen one before so it makes a nice icebreaker. And I just discovered a new “feature” the other day.. After a few too many times forgetting to get my AAA discount at Tully’s I decided to just write a reminder inside! And below that I’ve written the spending categories which my Amazon credit card awards double points so I remember to use it when I’m supposed to.
Mighty Wallet
Discovered these online a while back and thought about getting one. Happened to see them at Barnes and Noble yesterday so I bought one! I’m going to write my address on it so if I lose it whoever finds it can drop it in a mailbox lol :D
Links for week ending 11/1
Inside Facebook’s Super Cool Designer Offices:
http://www.shelterpop.com/2009/09/29/inside-facebooks-super-cool-designer-offices/
Geek Heaven? Grand tour of Google’s new Kirkland campus:
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/video_the_grand_tour_of_googles_new_kirkland_campus.html
Google talent search: error 502?:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=50641&tsp=1
Don't try to be a pro athlete
EDIT: The following is a blog post I wrote over a year ago but never published… I absolutely don’t mean it to be malicious or overly negative. I just believe that making a good living playing sports is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I also believe that our society holds a distorted, overly romantic view of professional athletics and as a result too many children grow up with role models like Michael Vick. Why don’t we encourage children to look up to someone like Steve Wozniak? Anyway just recently I heard that an old baseball teammate Tripper Johnson is playing football for the Huskies. This reminded me of an old draft blog post… Here it is:
I was back at work today after my trip to the east coast and I didn’t really feel like doing anything productive. I’m not sure how I got started but I found myself googling for bits of info on pro athletes that I know/knew. The results were far from inspiring. Marques Tuiasosopo is a third string quarterback with the New York Jets. Zach Tuiasosopo has been on a few practice squads and is now with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Fortunately, their dad Manu placed a lot of emphasis on academics and they both have degrees from UW. Most of the star baseball players I knew skipped college. I played select baseball with 4 players that were drafted and signed after high school and none of them has had success beyond high A. (Pro baseball primarily consists of rookie leagues, low A, high A, AA, AAA and the majors.) Probably the best all around baseball player I knew was Tripper Johnson. He played for Newport High and was generally regarded as one of the best KingCo hitters ever. He was drafted in the first round out of high school by the Baltimore Orioles and supposedly signed a contract with a $1.5 million signing bonus. I was pretty surprised to find that he is still playing high A ball after 8 seasons as a pro. In terms of rewards A ball is pretty far from the major leagues with an average salary of about $1200/month, though apparently you get $20/day for meals when you’re on the road. This just goes to show how tough it is to make it big in professional sports.
Note to self: save this for when my kids say they want to skip college to be pro athletes.
Halo 3
Majid
over the weekend my dad had a brain aneurysm and was taken by ambulance to swedish medical center in seattle. we’ve set up a blog at http://majid.assareh.com to keep friends and family updated of his status.
"wick"-ed cool candle
These look pretty clever. But I don’t get what happens when you burn down the wax on the candle side.
