Long time Mirye Revolution developer Blue Mango Learning Systems received some good release coverage at MacWorld of their new cross-platform documentation creation product Screensteps 2 over on The Unofficial Apple Blog. If you are in need of a tool that helps you pull together your screenshots and documentation text, this is a great tool from a productivity standpoint.
Top technology flop lists are always fun, and InforWorld’s Neil McCallister has produced a really good top 25 technology flop list. What I think is interesting about these lists is that it was never the technology that failed, but the insufferable arrogance of the companies that developed them that sank them.
Two of them come to mind with my own experience: Palm and Netscape. Ill share first my Palm story. (more…)
A shocking article appeared in The Sunday Oregonian summarizing how the State of Oregon has suppressed information concerning landslide predictions made by state geologists in order to appease local governments - over concerns of land development - that the negative reports could impact property values.
The Oregonian reported that Gail Achterman, chairwoman of the Oregon Transportation Commission - who also heads the taskforce on landslide risk stated:
The hard policy decisions have simply not been made…It’s easier to do nothing and wait for FEMA to bail you out.
As lead investor and co-owner of Paradigma Software, the Sun Microsystems $1 billion acquisition of MySQL announced today was a big filler of my inbox - both from the conventional computer industry media and users of our Valentina Database System. That Oracle also acquired BEA Systems was barely covered but also of interest. I think the NetworkWorld quote gets to the heart of the why.
MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.
Sun has, over the course of the last five years, found itself the guest without a chair at the enterprise dinner table. Solaris OS was the operating system of choice when companies were building their first internet infrastructures, and Sun found new relevance with the Java - only for Java to find cold comfort on the desktop but a welcome home on the server. Open sourcing Java and now, the acquisition of MySQL strengthens the relationship it would like to groom with the now respected open source developer community; the relationship that Oracle’s support (or hijacking as Ive heard it referred to) of Red Hat Linux was supposed to accomplish.
This will matter little to developers who use ultra-fast Valentina database system or cross-platform development environments like Revolution. (more…)
Mac Users as Incurable Early Adopters
14-Jan-08
Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield article The Downside to Apple’s Frequent Product Updates caught the attention of several Apple oriented news sites. A quote from analyst Gene Munster that Nick quoted
Given the fact that the pace of Apple product improvements is between two times and four times faster than PC-based products, Apple buyers will always have a higher degree of buyer’s remorse.
An interesting anthropological view of Apple’s product marketing and product lifecycle process - get used to buyer’s remorse because that’s the way Apple does things. Apple perfected this technique by making each product release - not about numerical performance - but perceived benefit or value. In my mind, this means every long time Mac user is a sort of incurable early adopter to the Apple ecosystem. (more…)