It's about time

I maintain blogs on both the Blogger and WordPress platforms. There certainly are other platforms out there as well. I was about to migrate all my Blogger blogs to some other platform over a technical glitch on Blogger that had tested the furthest reaches of my patience - search.

Little things mean a lot

In Windows, a dialog box pops up. It's annoying, we reflexively click just to make it go away, and then ask ourselves, "wait...what did I just do?" In Windows, the "proceed/yes" button is on the left and the "cancel/no" button is to the right. When we read from left to right, the "proceed/yes" button is the first button we see, and we tend to click it without thinking. Every once in a while, we're realize too late that we've done something we can't undo, much to our chagrin.

Thoughtlessly, intuitively, Ubuntu just works

I'm going to be discussing my experience in exploring Ubuntu over the next little while, as I learn new things.

Here's what made me smile just this morning.

For work, I went to check the earnings release for a company we're looking at, which they've posted on their website in pdf. So I click on the link, the pdf downloads, I click on the downloaded link, and the Q3'10 results pop open in Evince Document Viewer. And that's when it hit me - I didn't even think about going to find a viewer, didn't have to install a viewer. Having installed Ubuntu, the OS included this open source software as part of a minimum package the developers decided the average user should have.

I didn't have to think about it. It just works.

I'm running free in Ubuntu

While I am an Iron Maiden fan, I was never keen on the single Running Free, and couldn't quite understand how it became somewhat of an anthem from their earlier material in spite of its relatively uninspired musicality from a band that was on its way to becoming the defining act in the story of the heavy metal genre, the final book end culminating the legacy of their countrymen, Black Sabbath, the band that ushered forth the new era in music. However, the chorus just keeps looping in my mind as I attempt to put into words how I feel during this first exploration into using a Linux operating system.

Rogers falls short

The headline today: Weak subscriber growth hits Rogers.

The joke is that these results "sailed below analysts' expectations." It's funny, because the current results are merely the answers to questions we here at Non-techie Talk were asking six months ago.

Google Wave subsides

Official Google Blog: Update on Google Wave

Previously, I mentioned that I got Google Wave, from a theoretic point of view. Now that Google has squashed it, and having read some of the reactions to it, I join those who suggest this is no failure at all.

It's not over - HP buys Palm

HP has announced an offer of $5.70 per share or $1.2 billion, for Palm Inc. Palm isn't going to say no, and there will be no review of competitive advantage because the two companies barely blip the radar in the handheld space, so it's pretty much a done deal.

I'm still trying to figure out what it all will mean, ultimately. For time being, however, it should be safe to say that Palm is not dead yet.

Social Media, Celebrity Endorsements and the Phantom Referral

I always wondered why a battery company thought I'd buy their batteries because Michael Jordan said they were good. I mean, he played great basketball for sure, but how in the world did that make him an authority on batteries?

And, honestly, with all Tiger's money, did I really believe he actually drove a Buick? And that, if he says so, I oughta go ahead and buy one myself?

The concept of the celebrity endorsement depends on a socio-psychological reaction to a perceived person of power or authority. Note that "power" and "authority" are not the same: in the cases above, there's no logical connection between the athletes and their knowledge or expertise in batteries or cars - it's not their authority that influences us, it's our perception of their power to which we're more willing to acquiesce.

It's only just begun

Rogers Communications stock is down. No kidding.

To date, analyists and stockholders have appreciated that RCI has been able to generate ROI. This is understood to be a result of a number of factors, among which is the position of being the sole nation-wide GSM carrier. This position has provided a competitive advantage that has served the stockholder well. And, it's about to evaporate. Will it take profits along with it?

Is this how it ends?

The Globe and Mail ran a story on Palm Inc. looking for a buyer and, some five days later, there are no comments on it.
 

Not one.

Nobody cares.

Vultures are circling

The headlines are grim:

• Palm teeters

• Palm at a crossroads

• Palm Circles the bowl

Seems like a long time ago when the "newness" of the Pre ushered in a wave of hope that sent Palm's stock rocketing. But sales have been lacklustre, and what went up has surely come right back down.

And so, I mourn.

Google Wave - I get it

Collaboration is a remarkable thing. I remember trading hockey cards as a kid - at recess, in the schoolyard, we'd huddle, whip out our collections wrapped in elastic bands, and start shuffling through them, looking to trade multiples of one player for cards we were lacking, so we could say we had every one of the 1978-79 New York Islanders. As one kid started shuffling his doubles, kids would should "got'im, got'im got'im, NEED'im!" and then the bartering would start as that kid shuffled through his for a card the other kid needed. There was jostling, and no adults chaperoning the mayhem, yet, like a stock market trading floor or a fish market, there was order to the chaos, and in that fluid environment, deals were made and folks left the scrum better off than they came into it.

Can a piece of software possibly replicate the dynamic fluid collaborative environment. Google Wave is one more product that is trying to do so.