I have a preternatural fear of skeletons.  The origins of this fear go like this: when I was 8, on some nondescript day leading up to Halloween, I was walking past my father’s darkened den, which was situated at the end of a long hallway.  Back then, house phones were beige and weighed the same as a mature watermelon.  As I was walking rapidly down this dark hallway – convinced, on some level, that something was shambling after me – I glanced into the office at the huge beige phone that normally sat perched on the desk next to the door.  All at once, in what to this day is the most bizarre visual trick I have ever played on myself, the phone morphed into a giant skull, its jaw disturbingly askew, with horrible eyes too large to be human.  I remember literally yelling and running down what was left of the hall into the kitchen, convinced beyond all reason that there was a huge, wet-eyed skull sitting on my father’s desk, waiting for me.

Fast forward 32 years.

Strange, then, that I decorated my house for this Halloween in an almost pure skeleton motif.  I have a 4’ skeleton hanging from a tree outside my office with landscaping twine, an unintentional, amateur approximation of a noose.  My walkway is lit with little plastic skulls, their frozen grimaces chained together with electric cord.  I have a latex pirate skeleton – or at least half of one, as he has no lower body – perched on a stone bench leading up to my porch, a strobe light situated underneath him.  I basically have skeletons and skulls everywhere, mainly as a result of my son going as a skeleton for trick-or-treating tomorrow night.  And something being wrong with me.

The confession comes like this: when it gets dark and I’m outside amongst this spectacle, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recall The Desk Skull.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a little irrationally afraid.  I’d also be lying if I said that I’m not embarrassed by this and wonder what deep-rooted unexorcised demon made me go whole-hog with the skull business.  I’d also be lying if I said I’m 40 years old and if you think any of this is funny, then you are sadly mistaken, because once you see a giant skull on your home office desk, nothing is quite the same.  Ever.  I don’t wish this curse upon anyone, so get that smirk off your face.

So.

In non-skull related news, I have decided to parse the Internet for its most precious harvest this week, so you don’t have to.  Here’s the bounty:

• So much for the Pre saving Sprint.  It’s latest quarterly results showed a loss of $478M and 135,000 subscribers.
• Excellent feature in Wired by Amy Wallace regarding the confusing social movement to skip childhood vaccinations.
• 37signal’s Jason Fried with a speaking tip that should be common sense, but isn’t: don’t tell the audience you’re not prepared.
• In keeping with the Halloween theme, here’s a great primer on H.P. Lovecraft, one of my childhood favorite authors.  All the required reading is here.
• Here’s an awesome, 3D-zoomable demonstration of cell size and scale, bounded from everyday to infinitesimal by a coffee bean and carbon atom.
• Apple’s 2009 advertising budget is huge, but Microsoft’s makes it pale by comparison. What’s working better?  See also: you can’t brute force everything.
• Google singlehandedly shrinks the dedicated GPS market by announcing a free turn-by-turn navigation app for Android 2.0/Motorola Droid.  A version for the iPhone is also in the works.  Translated: the standalone GPS market just got marginalized.
• The iPhone is still runner-up in terms of smartphone marketshare, but the trend is more than promising.  How long will it be before it overtakes the #1 spot?
• Om Malik’s karma can destroy MacBook Pros. Three of them, to be precise.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Careful with those skeletons.

I think this news, simply translated, means the iPhone won’t be announced on Verizon as soon as many hoped it would:

There is still no official word about when or if Verizon Wireless will ever get Apple’s iPhone, but the wireless operator has confirmed it will be getting the Palm Pre early next year.

The company’s chief operating officer, Denny Strigl, spilled the beans on the impending smartphone availability during a conference call with analysts and investors discussing the company’s second-quarter earnings on Monday. The Palm Pre, which was highly anticipated for several months, is currently only available on Sprint Nextel’s network.

Since Sprint and Verizon use the same underlying cell phone technology, it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that Verizon would be getting its own version of the Pre. But it’s somewhat surprising that the carrier will be getting the device so soon.

It’s not that surprising.  With the analysis in that the Pre can’t offset Sprint’s mounting subscriber losses, the Pre needs to find high ground, and soon.  Both Sprint and Verizon are CDMA networks, and Verizon is the best network going.  The problem is that Verizon’s biggest knock that is that its phones suck, and the Pre is an instant vaccine to that ailment and a move that should make many Verizon customers happy.  It’s a symbiotic fit.

The more I think about this, coupled with talk of a mothership, Verizon-controlled app store, the more I think the iPhone isn’t going to see Verizon until its LTE infrastructure is in place.  If then.

If I’m wrong and Verizon gets the iPhone and the Pre next year, heads up on two counts.  One, Verizon better hope its network is truly the most reliable around, because it’s going to see unprecedented data levels and demand from high-end smartphone customers.  And two, heads up to AT&T, because it will see subscriber defections like there’s no tomorrow.

At the time, throwing rocks seemed like a good idea. 

Kit and I were 13 years old.  We had a tree house in the forest behind my subdivision, a fallen deer blind that we converted into a war room for our exploration ops.  Not too far from this was Devil’s Ridge, a 30 foot drop in the forest floor that led to all sorts of childhood mythos: that’s where ghosts were spotted, if you got too close to the edge you’d be pulled off by an unknown force, that once you went down you’d be unable to come back up.  Being 13, imaginative and considerably stupid, we typically treated Devil’s Ridge with a special reverence, because nobody knew what went on deep in the forest.

Until the dirts came.

Back then, kids who smoked cigarettes, wore jeans jackets, rode minibikes and had actual biceps were called dirts.  It was a derogatory term assigned primarily out of fear, because if a dirt got a hold of you, it was commonly accepted among non-dirts that he would kill and eat you.  And you’d be alone in your suffering, because non-dirts would scamper away to their Atari 2600s and Micronauts before you could cry help.

On this particular summer day, four dirts were at the bottom of Devil’s Ridge, smoking cigarettes and talking about how they should tweak the carbs on their minibikes to get them to run leaner.  They were strange creatures, bordering on Yeti-caliber mystery, right up until Kit had his big idea.

“We should throw rocks at them.”

To me, this was like attacking Russia with yarn and tinfoil. “Why?” I asked. “Are you insane?”

Always the quiet tactician, Kit calmly said, “We have the high ground.  We could throw a bunch and then get out of here before they even know what’s going on.”

My critical thinking skills dissolved in the face of such blinding logic.  I agreed with Kit’s plan and immediately forgot these kids had minibikes, a working knowledge of everything mechanical and enough testosterone coursing through their veins to wither any false bravado simply by stroking their surprisingly full beards.

Kit and I perched ourselves at one of the ridge’s outcroppings, each with about ten rocks the size of large hail.  We counted to three, stood up, and chucked the rocks down on the horde of teenage cyborgs.  The last thing I remember seeing is their heads immediately swiveling and focusing their targeting computers on us as the rocks left our hand.  They saw us and we weren’t getting away with squat.

Quite literally, the next hour was spent running through a suburban woods trying to evade smallish murderers on minibikes.  I still don’t know how in the space of 45 seconds they went from smoking cigarettes 30 feet below us to 10 feet behind us on wailing death machines.  From that moment on, however, I had a newfound appreciation for the minibike; those things are dynamite.

The point of all of this is twofold: (1) don’t throw rocks at hormonally-advanced teenagers when you are in fact not one of them, and (2) if it weren’t for a lucky dive into a thicket, I would have been killed, stuffed and mounted by dirts and therefore wouldn’t be around to bring you the following links.  Hooray, right?

• The HTC Hero is the first mobile phone to get Flash functionality in its browser, so how’s the performance?  Maddening. (thx Daring Fireball)
• Unfortunate news for Microsoft: sales down 17% and after-tax profit down 29% versus a year ago.  The PC sales slump has really taken its toll.
• Wired: How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans.  I know a lot of people who fail on many of these.
• Apple owns 91% of the high-end ($1000+) computer market.  This means that you can predict respectably well what sort of computer someone bought by the price they paid.
• Fast-food photo artists, your jobs are about to be commandeered by animation interns. (via kottke)
• LA Times: 61 essential postmodern reads, replete with an iconic legend to inform readers about each books’s postmodern trickery.
• If you plan on losing your wallet, make sure you have baby pictures in it if you want a clean shot of getting it back.
• A group of scientists at the University of Washington are working on a way to make electronic messages and documents “self-destruct” after a given period of time.  Great idea, but it will quickly devolve into a cat-and-mouse game involving hacking the vanish code and having new code developed, etc.  Think virus author vs. antivirus vendor, or heck, Palm Pre vs. iTunes syncing.
• Finally, Walter Cronkite’s lesson as it relates to authenticity and transparency.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Dan Frommer for Silicon Alley Insider:

Microsoft won’t pay for its employees’ Apple (AAPL) iPhone data service plans anymore, even if they’re used significantly for work purposes. Nor will it pay for Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry service, or a new Palm Pre. Instead, it will only reimburse data plans for Microsoft Windows Mobile-powered smartphones.

Lots of negative noise about this on Twitter, but I think people are being too quick to take a shot at Microsoft without considering business realities.

I know from firsthand experience that some companies won’t reimburse mobile phone expenses regardless of platform.  I also know that like it or not, it’s often a business truism that a company doesn’t support employees using competitors’ products or services.  Would you?

When is the last time you heard about a Apple employee, under regular circumstances, being allowed to use a Windows laptop?  How about an employee on Google’s Android team walking around with a BlackBerry?  What about an HP employee conducting load tests with MicroFocus’s QALoad?  How do you think shareholders would receive the Pepsi exec who is caught at a conference with a Coca-Cola product?

In business, you’re often well-served to eat your own dog food.  Arguing that it’s wrong for a company to reimburse only those employees who do so is a bit idealistic in my book.

I’ll begin with Bud Caddell’s smart Venn diagram illustrating how to be happy in business:

…to which Caddell appends the following:

Over the years, I’ve found myself facing the following scenarios. (and I’ve added my two cents on how to move forward)

We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well. I’m constantly surprised at what can be monetized. And on the web, there’s a market for almost anything. But this problem requires you to rapidly iterate your positioning and the type of clients you serve. Often, we’ll get transfixed on a single direction early on (because we’re desperate to solidify our business) and we’ll miss our chance to radically experiment with the market.

We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town. Mediocrity is not a sustainable strategy. Being able to recognize your own weakness is a profound strength, and acting to improve what you do is key to any kind of long term growth and stability. Find the best talent and steal them. Learn how your competitors run their businesses, and copy what works.

We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do. This is perhaps the most fatal trap for any business I’ve worked in. These are the sirens calling you to shipwreck. You’ll hemorrhage your best people, you’ll stop loving what you do, and you’ll lose the passion that built your business in the first place. Start saying ‘No.’

Finally, an assortment of random thoughts and links, in no particular order because it’s Friday and who really orders lists on a Friday?

• Looks like the Palm Pre won’t be available on Verizon within six months.  I knew it sounded too good to be true.
• “Meet the Command Line” is about the best UNIX primer/screencast I’ve ever seen for those who have never used the UNIX command line before.  (Thx Daring Fireball)
• Dave Eggers, one of my all time favorite authors, waxes visionary on the surprisingly bright future of print media.
• An illustration of free markets at work, this time in a labor-retaining flavor. (Thx Tyler Cowen)
• 37 Signals on how job applicants should forget the resume and start killing on the cover letter.
• Since it’s the weekend and I know you really don’t want to sweep the garage, I inflict upon you the  nasty pox known as Crush the Castle.  Have fun, and remember that your dirty garage isn’t my fault.
• The Big Picture has a fascinating photojournal about sulfur mining in Kawah Ijen.  Then again, I’m the sort of geek who sits around and watches Discovery all night.  Your mileage may vary.
• Larry Cheng discusses Jeff Bezos’s question during an MFG.com board meeting: “How can we double down?

Really, truly finally, I leave you with two videos that squarely insult the intersection of human capability and Newtonian physics.  Happy Friday.

Inspired Bicycles — Danny MacAskill

Damien Walters, freerunning showreel, 2009

]]> http://www.miproconsulting.com/blog/2009/06/friday-nonsense-how-to-be-happy-in-business-plus-assorted-but-very-useful-links/feed/ 0 http://www.miproconsulting.com/blog/2009/06/palm-pre-roundup/ http://www.miproconsulting.com/blog/2009/06/palm-pre-roundup/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:01:30 +0000 Jeff Ventura http://www.miproconsulting.com/blog/2009/06/palm-pre-roundup/

Looks like the iPhone had better bring its game face to WWDC and OS 3.0, because the Pre isn’t kidding around.  It gets high marks for its WebOS, which allows real app multitasking, and reviewers unanimously praise its OS speed, browser, screen and overall user interface/experience.

It gets nicked for a fairly poor keyboard, some random crashing/hanging issues (to be completely expected with first-gen OS and hardware) and a few memory management issues. Not to mention a nearly-nonexistent App Catalog to rival Apple’s App Store.

Bottom line: the Pre – especially once Palm offers an SDK and gets a robust App Catalog going – pushes the high-end touchscreen smartphone market forward in several big ways.  The Pre might not be the iPhone killer (I’ll wait to see what comes out of WWDC before judging that), but it’s the closest we’ve seen so far.

Here is a roundup of the early Pre reviews on the web right now.

Walter Mossberg, WSJ:

All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.

David Pogue, NYTimes:

The Pre, which goes on sale Saturday, is an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone; it’s the iPhone remixed. That’s no surprise, really; its primary mastermind was Jon Rubinstein, who joined Palm after working with Steve Jobs of Apple, on and off, for 16 years. Once at Palm, he hired 250 engineers from Apple and elsewhere, and challenged them to out-iPhone the iPhone.

Ed Baig, USA Today:

I’ve been testing the Pre for more than two weeks and like it a lot. Pre is easy on the eyes. I can’t think of a more comfortable cellphone in my hand. It has a lovely screen for taking in YouTube videos or browsing the Web. The “always-connected” software foundation at its core, which Palm designed from scratch and calls WebOS, is slick and rife with possibilities.

Peter Svensson, AP:

So webOS makes the iPhone look clunky, which is stunning in itself. It also thoroughly shows up Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile. That operating system has had multitasking for years, but few users have appreciated that. Rather, Windows Mobile has been blamed for making phones clumsy and slow. Now, webOS comes along and does multitasking right.

Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky:

Simply put, webOS is absolutely gorgeous. As far as phones go, it’s not just the only device we’ve seen which competes with the iPhone for looks, but we’d go as far to say that it bests the iPhone in some categories. The selection of fonts and font styling, use of transparencies, unified look of all of the elements, smooth transitions, and detailed application icons tie together in a really elegant way. It’s clear that Palm’s designers took a page from the Apple playbook here, but when something looks this good, you can hardly fault them. As our man Oscar Wilde said, “Talent borrows, genius steals.”

Generally speaking, the Pre’s UI makes sense and makes it easy to get things done rather quickly and painlessly. It is an impressive beast, though a beast nonetheless — and that means taming will be in order. We saw plenty of little glitches: messages that wouldn’t pop up (or go away), transitions that hung for a bit, and we definitely had a crash or two. In particular, it seems like Palm still needs to work on memory management — we noticed the device getting a little laggy after a day of heavier use, so we’re thinking not every process is being killed completely.

Gizmodo’s Jason Chen:

Think of it like this. The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware—someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market.

PC World’s Ginny Mies:

Hardware flaws aside, the Palm Pre made a solid impression on me. Its eye-catching design and smooth operation make this smartphone the most exciting device I’ve seen in a while.

CNet’s Bonnie Cha:

Despite some missing features and performance issues that make it less than ideal for on-the-go professionals, the Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information.

Finally, here’s the Pre’s welcome video, seen upon first boot of the phone.  Very nice, even if it borrows ambiance heavily from Apple’s welcome video for a Mac’s first startup.

Lot of interesting things going on this week that can’t get their own blog post, but nonetheless are worth checking out.  Enjoy.

• Jon Rubinstein and Roger McNamee interviewed at D7 about the reinvention of Palm and the buzz surrounding the Palm Pre.  Lots of conference notes here, but the video demo of the latest Pre WebOS platform is especially interesting.
• O’Reilly Radar: Google Bets Big on HTML 5 (From Google I/O).  The good news here is that current web platforms already support a good chunk of HTML 5.
• Jeff Veen introduces Typekit.  Finally, real fonts for the web.  Attention designers: those of you who are willing to learn this and implement it for your clients will create sites that are head-and-shoulders above those that still capture creative typography in images or Flash.
• Poor Sprint.  Just as it begins to settle into the warm light of Pre exclusivity, Verizon goes and announces that it plans to offer the Pre to its customers within six months of the Sprint launch.  Oh, and Android handsets too.
• Finally, Hulu Desktop for Mac and Windows that work with each platform’s respective remote controls.  No more messing with embedded web browser controls.
• MS previews Bing, its re-branded MS Live Search (VIDEO).  I understand the desire to have a short, catching, verb-able brand name (“I don’t know what the population of Michigan is.  Why don’t you bing it?”), but the more I say it, the more ridiculous it sounds.
• This week’s New Yorker cover was painted exclusively by Brushes, an iPhone app, by artist Jorge Colombo.
• Why underdogs should take more chances.  Good examples of this theory in both sports and business.
• Rebecca Blood’s Summer reading 2009 lists.  If this isn’t the best argument for a Kindle, I don’t know what is. (Via kottke)
• Scratch that: Infinite Summer, an online book club project aimed at reading all of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest from June 21st to September 22nd, is the best argument for a Kindle.

Have a great weekend.