News

I de spise mail-in rebates. On the marketing irritation scale, mail-in rebates rank up there with infomercials for worthless products and telemarketers that consider the “do not call” list merely a suggestion. I bring this up because I recently had to deal with two rebates for my Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M. To their credit, the Fujitsu…

Over the last 100 years, management philosophy has gone from enslavement to empowerment, according to Leander Kahney at Wired Magazine . Steve Jobs has bucked that trend with what seems like tactics from the Industrial Revolution, and it has worked. The results have allowed Apple to leap ahead of the competition. “In the 1940s, Bill…

Citing recently discovered problems with Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 Updates, Adobe has removed the updates from their site and suggested that customers revert to Lightroom 1.3.1 and Camera Raw 4.3.1. Instructions for backgrading were supplied at the Lightroom Journal site. “For those not in immediate need of the updated camera support available in…

The Mozilla Project announced on Monday the release of Firefox 3 Beta 4. The new version has over 900 big fixes over Beta 3 and adds several improvements. “The fourth beta of the next major Firefox version offers over 900 bug fixes over Beta 3, including improvements in download manager, full page zoom, better integration…

Mr. Klein commented “Weire going to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible.” He also expects that a large number of Java-based applications will be able to run on Appleis handhelds once the JVM is available. The company plans to distribute…

Appleis Calculator application.

Noting that Microsoft and Yahoo! have two very different cultures and internal technologies, Microsoftis Ray Ozzie said that Microsoft would not rush the consolidation process, according to the Financial Times on Monday. “Technology companies, if they dive in and just smash things together for smashing them togetheris sake, itis reckless, itis just simply reckless,” said…

Sources close to Mr. Jobs claim that after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2003, he chose not to pursue surgery because of his skepticism of mainstream medical science. Instead, he employed alternative treatment methods — including a special diet — for nine months before agreeing to undergo surgery to remove the tumor.…

You can store colors in the Color pane.

The measure is little more than a request, and is effectively non-binding. It follows more direct efforts from some activist shareholders in the past to limit or otherwise give shareholders more direct say in the way the company pays its top execs. In response to the vote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told shareholders on hand…

Microsoft cut its prices for Vista across all versions, but the cuts donit seem to make any competitive sense, and the price still pales compared to Mac OS X, according to ComputerWorld on Tuesday. “In the United States, Microsoft will make price cuts that are largely symbolic gestures. It will cut the price of the…

At Appleis annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday, Steve Jobs was asked about possible successors. He said that candidates include Apple COO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppeheimer. Mr. Jobs said that he sees many potential successors. “Weive got great talent, and I think the board would have a few really good choices,” Mr. Jobs said.…

One of the things I love about creative conferences is that there are so many really creative people around. You never know where you’re going to find something interesting that totally captivates you, like maybe someone from Sesame Workshop. Nancy Stevenson from the Sesame Street Sesame Workshop spent a morning showing off how her crew…

Appl e came out with new MacBooks and MacBook Pros yesterday. Aside from the new additional features announced, there was one subtraction: The laptops no longer ship with a remote control. It’s now a $19 option. I imagine there will be some grousing about this among users, complaining that Apple is increasingly “nickel-and-diming” us, removing…

Noting Appleis $18 billion in cash, Business Weekis Arik Hesseldahl believes that itis time for Apple to buy back some of its 879 million shares. “Eighteen-and-a-half billion dollars is a lot of money,” Mr. Hesseldahl opened. “Itis more than the estimated 2007 gross domestic product of Nicaragua. Itis bigger than the estimated 2005 expenditures of…

Oddly enough, I packed as if I was presenting at the event. All of my usual presentation gear including video adapters, backups of important files, and printouts with critical data about the venues I’ll be at is safely tucked away in my carry on bag. Really. Some habits are hard to break. For all of…

Coincidence can be a funny thing. Just last week, I emailed the folks at Unsanity software, requesting an interview. In case you don’t know, Unsanity makes about a dozen popular utilities for Mac OS X. By far, my favorite is WindowShade X. It has long been (together with LaunchBar) one of the first two third-party…

The Apple Store is down… again.

Iim talking about WordService from Devon Technologies. Youill need to download and install this free Service yourself before you can take advantage of its reformatting and editing goodness. Hereis how: Download WordService from the Devon Technologies Web site. Expand the WordService archive and install the Service file. It goes in /Library/Services. Log out and re-login…

Microsoft has not yet acquired Yahoo!, but Kevin Johnson, Microsoftis president of the Microsoft Platforms & Services Division has published an open letter that aims to put concerns at ease, including the fact that Yahoo! is a non-Windows company. “We believe our proposal is a compelling one and that the combination of Yahoo! and Microsoft…