The Next Big Thing

This is a repost of a comment of mine in the Communities Dominate Brands blog on a post by Tomi Ahonen about the iPhone 5SE. It has been heavily edited to fix spelling and grammar errors, and links have been added.

I do however strongly suggest reading all the comments on Tomi’s post to get a feel for what pushed me into putting my Futurist hat on this late at night!

There’d been the usual war games between the iSheep and the Fandroids about when Apple or Android was going to crash because [insert appropriate company name here] wouldn’t be able to adapt to the Next Big Thing. This got me thinking about what the next big thing could be…

Computer Industry Numbers

Commodore 8296 Personal Computer

There’s some interesting numbers coming out of the computer industry. Let’s take a look at them.

NSA Spying Scandal – An Analysis

NSA Logo

Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the NSA Spying Scandal closely. In fact, I’ve been following it for several years, since before I first ran into Barrett Brown. Seriously. The leaks about go back a long way, and most writers appear to have missed the implications.

Web Hosting

Me & Kleopatra

I’ve been talking to a variety of companies about web hosting. My needs are a bit odd, because in effect I want to become my own web hosting company.

Seriously. I’ve got friends who’ve been screwed over by the big boys, who don’t understand the specific needs of writers and musicians. I do. I also will not be hosting in the United States, so I can avoid the joke called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Instead of Notice and Takedown, Canada operates on a Notice and Notice regime. You think there’s a copyright infringement, you send a notice. I pass it on to the specific account, they check, and if they disagree, they send a notice back to you.

This cuts out such silliness as Microsoft getting a copy of Open Office pulled as Copyright Infringement. Yes, it happened. Microsoft reversed course as soon as they realized a mistake had been made, but it happened. Then there’s the case where a major record label decided that it owned the copyright to bird song…

There are also privacy concerns involved when hosting in the United States. Canadian privacy laws are stronger. So, I’ve pulled the trigger, made the payment, and some sites will be coming online early next week.

Regards

Wayne Borean

Friday May 10, 2013

Getting the Desktop Back Up And Running

Me & Kleopatra

Due to various exigencies, my desktop got loaned out. In other words a friend’s gaming rig died, he needed something with lots of horsepower, and didn’t have the cash to buy a replacement. So he got my desktop as a loaner.

Twitter Nightmares

The Fail Whale courtesy Wikimedia

Twitter is one of the greatest communications ideas ever. But the Twitter software itself is a terrible curse.

‘Motor Mouth’ in the National Post Inaccurate

David Booth

David Booth, who writes a column for the National Post, is less than knowledgeable about engines.

The Charge of the Tablet Brigade

With apologies to Alfred Lord Tenneyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Shops
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Tablet Brigade!
Charge for the consumers!" he said.
Into the valley of Shops
Rode the six hundred.

Let’s talk about tablets.

iPad Failures

Me and my junior editor, Kleopatra

I have a confession to make. Kleo and I own an iPad.

Doing the Password Polka

Me and my junior editor, Kleopatra

Kleo and I got a nasty reminder about password security today. A fellow writer’s preteen daughter has a Facebook account. Yes, I know the rules say that you have to be over a certain age, and she is barely that age.