I’ve been wondering today if I actually think enough to call this weblog “Angus Thinks”?
Is there a requirement to think a certain amount to be able claim that I do think and does the subject matter actually matter?
I can see I’m going to have think about this a bit more…
Well by now everybody probably knows about this, but I thought to follow up my previous post.
Apple launched the most amazingly large flat panel screens on Monday. The largest is a 30″ lcd panel.
There was also a demonstration about Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) which is looking quite promising. It is promising to be a 64 bit operating system offering full contextual search facility and a new widget/desktop accessory thing with shades of Konfabulator.
There was no indication of a new iMac at that presentation though. Which is odd given the story about the supply chain.
Perhaps the following days will bring more rumors (false of course) which I can think about.
I just got finished adding a few new links. It’s getting to be this sort of six-degrees of weblog kind of thing. How can I get from here to any other page on the internet via only the links on this page? I don’t think that can be done from my blog yet but there are weblogs that it probably will work from.
Yet the odd thing about weblogs is that they’re moving away from the main web at speed. The design and technology powering them is diverging quite rapidly. RSS seems to be the preferred way to read web logs and the styling is becoming quite unlike traditional web pages. Content is typically not even on a unique page.
What purpose does the keypad actually serve on a mobile phone? Most people these days are not typing numbers on it. Numbers are usually stored in the address book. People type sms messages on it, but is that efficient? T9 predictive text input is ok but it really isn’t as efficient as a proper keyboard.
I wonder if it’s faster or slower than graffiti like pen based input systems? Would a screen based keyboard be better? Maybe some kind of thumb-board?
Mobile users have been carefully trained to type at speed on a very poor keyboard. Could they become used to a different and more efficient arrangement or are we permanently stuck with the legacy of the 12 key number pad?
Dhruba posted a review of the Nokia 6600 a while back. He also let me borrow it for a few minutes to play a game on it and it is beautiful to use. Smart phones definitely seem to taking the place of the PDA.
I definitely want one 🙂
I was thinking the other day about whether you actually need physical manifestation of media content. Does a movie gain something by being physically on a DVD rather than being stored digitially on a computer?
There is definitely one advantage in actually storing the movie on some kind of physical object because you can pick it up and move it around, even take it to places where the network infrastructure doesn’t exist. The obvious disadvantage is that you do actually have to take it physically to wherever you actually want to watch it.
It is also somewhat less impressive to give a gift of piece of paper representing a piece of content rather than an actual CD or DVD.
So I was wondering if the answer might be in tokens. The token would represent the digital media and identify ownership but the content itself would be stored digitally on the network. It would solve some of the problems of trying to squeeze more and more content onto smaller disks although it certainly wouldn’t solve the disconnected problem.
The token would be used to actually read the media, so there would be no problems with damaged content affecting the film. Tokens might be damaged but they could be replaced in that situation and since they would be simple anyway the survivability would probably be high. I carry around a collection of plastic cards everyday that are replaced about once every three years. That is somewhat more robust than video tape and probably better than DVDs too.
I see the token as being a smart card like object of some kind and perhaps the tokens might even reusable.
It’s a thought anyway…
It must be delightful for the banks to be able to get away with taking 4 days to clear a cheque. The interest that they earn on the money in the meantime must be significant. However there is some slight justification for cheque clearance delays, in the UK at least, the cheque seems to have to be physically returned to the bank of the person who wrote it.
Much, much worse is taking 3 days to make an electronic transfer. I suppose they probably write them out on paper and send them to the issuing branch as well.
This really shouldn’t be allowed in the 21st century, but maybe everyone will switch to paypal for immediate transactions?
AppleInsider is saying that a new iMac is coming soon, while Think Secret is saying that there won’t be an iMac at the wwdc which starts next week.
So what (apart from the fact that it is probably a bad idea to belive everything you hear) does this tell us. Currently I’m tending towards the appleinsider view that something will happen soon, because they have evidence that retailers are not being restocked. You don’t restock if if you’re replacing the product next week, it’s bad for retailer morale and worse for their profits.
Think Secret on the other hand is saying that no iMac will turn up at the wwdc. This might be true as well, Apple might ship a new iMac just after conference, but why? It doesn’t make that much sense.
Who knows?
One thing that is essential however is that the new iMac must be cheaper than the current one. It might just about get by at the current price, but when you compare the current units against offerings from Dell as I did only yesterday, the Apple machines tend to look overpriced. This makes me sad to some extent, but it shows how a company like Dell that essentially doesn’t innovate can offer lower prices. The inovative companies tend to charge higher prices (Intel,Microsoft,etc).
The eMac is probably the right way to go. It’s a common thought but if Apple offered an eMac without the screen for $50 or $100 less I would probably buy one immediately. Even if it only had a G4 processor. The bottom end of the market is where I and quite a lot of other people permanently sit. So it’s worth making sure that there is something there for them to buy.
I only hope that people will learn to appreciate their macs more and be willing to pay the premium for the stuff.
I’ve been working away on my method for making popcorn at home in the microwave.
I realised after a while that leaving the popped popcorn in the microwave after it has popped just causes it to burn, go brown and taste bad. So my current method involves removing all of the cooked popcorn aboout half way through (as soon as a good proportion of the kernels have popped). Then putting the rest of the (unpopped) kernels back into the microwave.
This seems to give a much better result, the popcorn is removed fairly quickly after popping and the whole lot tastes much better. If only there was some way to remove the kernels without stopping the popping. I begin to see why people have these hot air machines. I still think this method is slightly cheaper though. 🙂
I have sucessfully managed to make a purchase from the iTunes music store. Oddly enough I didn’t enter the start date for credit card and things went much better. I have no idea why that might make a difference. It could even be that there was previously a technical problem that has been resolved.
Anyway good news for me 🙂