on 26 February 2010
The trouble with being a Mac user is it lulls you into a false sense of security. It’s like what happens with snow. In most northern countries people aren’t surprised by it, and just trudge around looking resigned until it goes away again. Windows users have the same kind of relationship with stuff that fails to work, does the opposite of what they meant, or tells them to wait while the system restarts to complete installation of another essential update. continue
Tagged as:
Apple,
Business,
Internet,
Mac,
MacUser,
Virgin
on 19 November 2009
on 4 October 2009
Incomprehensible regulations mindlessly enforced: a reliable staple of modern consumer news, represented most recently by TV Licensing’s push to get business owners signed up. continue
Tagged as:
Business,
Internet,
Language,
Law,
Television
on 15 September 2009
Talking to a new client today about marketing copy and the importance of tone of voice: to answer your customers’ unspoken questions before they wander away, you have to talk to them, not just list information. Serendipitously, on the way back I picked up the US edition of Wired and found gatefolded within it the most gorgeous example of copywriting wrongness courtesy of Nokia, apparently via Nathan Barley. continue
Tagged as:
Business,
Design,
Language,
Media
on 9 September 2009
Microsoft has weighed in to the Google Books debate, filing a brief in its capacity as a publisher (of books, not software) in the class action suit that seeks to give Google the right to digitise every book in America. It wants the case thrown out, and it’s right. continue
Tagged as:
Books,
Business,
Copyright,
Google,
Internet,
Law,
Media,
Microsoft
on 7 September 2009
Bizarre story on guardian.co.uk yesterday, headlined ‘iPhone makes worldwide loss’. Had me going for a minute, but the giveaway is in the breadcrumb – ‘Business > Telecommunications industry’. continue
Tagged as:
Apple,
Business,
iPhone,
Media
on 31 July 2009
For layout artists, the bane of corporate reports and technical reviews is the presentation of data. But most graphs aren’t complicated to create, so why spend time fiddling with Excel when you can draw them far more elegantly yourself? Read the full article in MacUser Vol 25 No 16, on sale now.
Tagged as:
Business,
Design,
Mac,
MacUser,
QuarkXPress,
Tutorials
on 31 July 2009
So Stephen Fry has admitted to downloading the series finale of House over BitTorrent because it was quicker than finding a legal copy. Lord Stephen of Twitter made his confession during July’s iTunes Festival, where he criticised the entertainment business for suing file sharers, saying that ‘making an example of ordinary people is the stupidest thing the record industry can do’. The industry appears to agree, because it’s stopped doing it, just as the British government – trying to appease the industry’s previous stance – proposes formalising the process. The currently favoured alternative, threatening to cut off users’ connections if they’re deemed to be sharing files illegally, has just been ruled unconstitutional in France, the country most gung-ho about implementing it. It’s all getting harder to follow than an episode of House. continue reading at www.macuser.co.uk
Tagged as:
Business,
Copyright,
Law,
MacUser
on 22 July 2009
on 21 July 2009
Chris Anderson wondered if Obama’s putative pinko anti-trust policy (ie having an anti-trust policy) might interfere with Google’s cross-subsidisation of free services from ad revenues. continue
Tagged as:
Business,
Free,
Google,
Law,
Media
adambanksdotcom @chrisphin Previous link didn't work for me either, this does - you have to come in from Google