Want a cheap room in Phoenix? Apple cancels competing event

As anyone with a heartbeat knows, Apple has a product event coming on Tuesday the 23rd in San Jose at which we’ll certainly see the iPad Mini, perhaps a new MacBook Pro, and maybe some new iMacs. But whatever is being introduced I think it’s fair to say that the event is still in flux, because Apple late Wednesday canceled another corporate event in Arizona scheduled for the same time, this one at The Phoenician resort.

Apple booked the entire hotel (600+ rooms) for Sunday through Wednesday. Their setup people were on site Tuesday. Late Wednesday, as setup was nearing completion, Apple told the resort that they “wanted all of their managers to be on site in their stores […]

By |October 19th, 2012|2012, Breaking News, Business, Companies, Computing, Gadgets, Tablets, Technology|19 Comments
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Windows 8, Users 0?

Windows 8 is just over a month from hitting the market and my sense is that this initial release, at least, will be at best controversial and at worst a failure. Microsoft is simply trying to change too many things at once.

What we have here is the Microsoft Bob effect, where change runs amuck simply because it can, compounded in this case by a sense of panic in Redmond. Microsoft so desperately need Windows 8 to be a huge success that they’ve fiddled it into a likely failure.

Microsoft Bob, if you don’t remember its fleeting passage in 1995, was a so-called social interface for Windows intended to be used by novices. The idea was that Bob should be so intuitive as to […]

By |August 30th, 2012|2012, Companies, Computing, Tablets, Technology|118 Comments
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Cloudy with a chance of data loss

 

This is a followup to my recent column about Steve Wozniak’s warning on the perils of cloud computing, especially cloud storage. It might surprise many users to know there are firms that sell cloud storage and do not back it up.  They rely on the disk RAID and some redundancy in the cloud to “protect” your data.  If something happens to their data center, they could probably not recover your data.

Remember MailandNews.com? They did not have a viable business model.  They also didn’t back up their servers.  One day they had a big crash and relied on the RAID array to recover the data.  It took two weeks and still not all of the data was recovered.

RAID is not a data backup technology.

What […]

By |August 11th, 2012|2012, Computing, Internet|46 Comments
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A belt and suspenders for your cloud storage

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak this week warned of the perils of depending too much on cloud storage and the general press reacted like this was: A) news, and; B) evidence of some inherent failure in cloud architecture. In fact it is not news (Woz never claimed it was) and mainly represents something we used to call “common sense.”

However secure you think your cloud storage is, why solely rely on it when keeping an extra backup can cost from very little to nothing at all?

No matter whose cloud you are depending on it will be subject to attack. Bigger targets get more attacks and something as big as DropBox, say, is a mighty big target, while that spare hard drive attached to a […]

By |August 8th, 2012|2012, Computing, How To's, Internet, Privacy and Security, Technology|36 Comments
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Apple and Samsung: brands at war

I was supposed to be on CNN last night to comment on the Apple v. Samsung  patent infringement trial that just started in San Jose, but then Mitt Romney insulted the Palestinians and I was bumped.  The way these things work is CNN calls the day before so I have time to think up something pithy to say. The question now is what to do with all that pith? So I’m dumping it on you. Consider this the long distance view of this legal battle in the context of what it really is — brands at war.

As a practical matter, I think it is very unlikely that Apple can win based on its accusation of […]

By |July 31st, 2012|2012, Breaking News, Business, Companies, Computing, Gadgets, Intellectual Property, Internet, Media, Phones, Tablets, Technology|68 Comments
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