Archive for February, 2011

App Store 30% Cut

Monday, February 21st, 2011

I have little doubt that Apple is within the law in asking for a 30% cut of sales of anything that’s sold through apps in the app store. But that’s not really the point. Folks who create content or services that people subscribe to are putting a lot of work into it. They’re building businesses […]

iTunes Personal Cloud Service

Monday, February 14th, 2011

There’s been some speculation lately about a mini-iPhone which would stream music from your home computer instead of having significant onboard storage. Whether that’s true or not, the idea of streaming music from your computer at home isn’t so far fetched. There are a few enabling technologies already in place that make this possible. MobileMe […]

Language Skills

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Which programming language should I learn? I see this question all the time.  In 2011, I think the answer is becoming easier than it used to.  And that doesn’t mean there’s any one language that’s “winning”, or that’s the language to bet on for the future. No, in fact, the industry seems to be going […]

Writing in Advance

Monday, February 7th, 2011

I remember an old episode of some TV news based sitcom, where the star was writing obituaries for people who weren’t dead yet. The idea stuck in my mind for some reason. I’ll bet newspapers still do that. There are all kinds of news stories you can write in advance. For example, you could write […]

Kinectimals and the Sign In Process

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

I love the idea and technology of the Kinect .. it sounds like the perfect toy for playing some more physical types of games with my son.  Kinectimals is cute and he likes to play it. But what spoils the whole thing is the awkward sign-in process in a lot of games. Microsoft apparently has […]