After a string of celebrity deaths last week comes the awful news that famed TV pitchman, Billy Mays, was found dead in his Tampa home this morning. Although the recent passing of famed individuals are sad occasions, I feel the most moved by the loss of Billy. Ironically, this wouldn’t have been the case a few months ago except that I’ve gained insight into the man via his series on the Discovery Channel – Pitchmen.
Anyone who’s worked for themselves knows the satisfaction of being in control of your own destiny. The perception that by sheer force of will and hard work, you can be successful at what you do. Those who take on the challenge of owning their own business are often considered “control freaks” and more often than not, perfectionists. I never really realized just how much of a control freak I was until this past weekend when, completely without warning, I had none.
The recent release of Twitterrific 2 for the iPhone has reminded me that software development is replete with truisms. Chief among these are you can’t please everyone, there’s always room for improvement and if you give an inch they’ll take a mile.
Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way what happens when you let competitors know what your up to. If you’re lucky they merely get a jump on your idea, but sometimes, for one reason or another, they manage to beat you to market. This is one reason why I subscribe to the Montgomery Scott school of thought when it comes to product announcements. Named after the famous engineer from my beloved Star Trek, the theory is simply this: Under sell and over deliver.
The momentum behind exposing Time Warner’s recent rate hike and bandwidth cap here in Greensboro is growing. Even our local officials, like Greensboro’s mayor Yvonne Johnson has spoken up and said she’ll do whatever she can to help bring Internet competition into the area. Everyone’s talking, with two notable exceptions: FM Talk’s own morning team Brad Krantz & Britt Whitmire.
I got on a Buckaroo Banzai kick a few weeks back and whipped up an icon that was released over at The Iconfactory as well as the desktop I’m making available today. If you’re a fan of Buckaroo, then head over to my Goodies page and download Team Banzai for your iPhone, Mac or PC desktop and be the envy of all your buddies.
After several false starts, months (even years) of waiting, and disputes with their retail neighbors, the new Greensboro Apple Store finally opened this past weekend. After running down the line high-fiving over 20 people I can start to understand why some people think Mac users are part of a geeky “cult”.
According to an unofficial announcement in the News & Record, the date for the opening of the Greensboro Apple Store has been set as Sat., February 21st.
One of the behaviors that the social networking site, Twitter, has employed since launch has been the ability of users to “protect” their updates. That is to say, a user can keep their tweets hidden from the rest of the world until they choose to let a particular follower “into the club” and allow them […]
Yep, it’s still there and it’s still being worked on. The only visible difference on the facade of the future home of the Greensboro Apple Store is the corporate logo and URL that’s been added in the past week. My friends Anthony, Louie and David managed to sneak a peek inside when nobody was looking and reported that the Genius Bar logo is on the wall, and the interior is coming along. They said it seemed “big”, but I’m dubious since there’s no displays, shelves, etc yet.
We’re back in the space saddle again this week with another installment of The Sci-Fi Cast. This time around we discuss the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica – “Sometimes A Great Notion” with Dave, Jen and a very special guest, my friend from the Iconfactory, Corey Marion. We discuss BSG, the latest sci-fi celebrities to […]
Unlike most of the people I follow on Twitter, Macworld 2009 was my first expo in many years, and the only one where I’ve been one of the exhibitors. The week was fun, exciting and a lot of work. Now that I’m back home in Greensboro, I thought I’d impart some of the knowledge I gained during my experience. In no particular order, here are a few of the many things I took away from my trip to Macworld 2009:
Some people are under the impression that more expensive “AAA” apps, as they are calling them, are doing just fine thank you very much. All a developer has to do, they say, is market their app and the rest will take care of itself. Why didn’t I think of that?
If you care as much about icons and design as I do, then you’re probably asking yourself how I could allow a “for sale” badge to get plastered on Frenzic’s app icon like the ones I previously railed against. At first I couldn’t figure it out myself, and then it became very simple. I took off my “designer hat” and put on my other one… the one that says “business owner”.
Ask any person what’s their favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and you never know what they’ll say. Without a doubt, my favorite version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the 1970 musical adaptation, Scrooge.
Ask any Star Trek fan which series is their favorite and they’re likely to tell you Star Trek: The Next Generation. But from the futuristic utopia that was Roddenberry’s Next Gen universe, sprung the series I’ve come to regard as my favorite – Deep Space Nine. Considered by many to be the “troubled middle child”, caught between Next Generation and Voyager, Deep Space Nine never received the critical praise or audience numbers it deserved.
In what may turn out to be one of the best examples of timing in the last quarter century, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have made a major breakthrough in the field of solar energy. The scientists there have invented a coating that not only boosts the amount of light rays able to be absorbed by photovoltaic cells, but that also allows light to be absorbed from almost any angle.
When it comes to Twitter, I like to think that I fly by the seat of my pants. I don’t have hard and fast rules like some people do for using the popular micro-blogging service. But after many months of following several so-called “celebrities” on Twitter, I’m rapidly forming one regarding the rich and famous. Don’t follow them unless they are willing to reply to you.
I was pleased to see so many of my fellow North Carolinians voting early. But most of all, I was happy that for the first time in recent memory, I actually had a candidate that I was proud to cast my vote for as President. Many people in line were smiling while they waited, I think many of them were voting for Obama too.
I’ve written before about the problems the iPhone has regarding synched photos and wallpapers. With the release of the 2.0 version of the iPhone firmware, I was hoping Apple would have improved the quality of synched images, but sadly that didn’t happen. I also got my hopes up too high when a new feature arrived in 2.0 allowing users to save images displayed in Mobile Safari to the photo library. Press and hold on any image and you will receive a dialog to save the image for later use, including as iPhone wallpapers. However, as I recently discovered, this new feature mangles images even worse than synching them.