The iPhone has pretty much killed the Mobile Web Page. The WAP protocol is dead. Other phones are beginning to support full page web browsing. By the end of next year, even Windows Mobile phones will have the full sized IE8 browser embedded in them. Many sites are even optimizing their webpages for the small screen mobile devices. Some have switched to narrow columns on their pages which allow users to quickly zoom in on the column and read an article. Some have specialized websites that are "mobile friendly". The best ones use CSS to determine whether or not you're a phone, and then display their website in an optimized fashion. (Take a look at Google's various sites or weather.com).

The mobile web is finally taking off because someone finally realized that you need a device that makes surfing the web practical and get a few million people to use it. Once sites realize that people are using their phones to browse them, these sites make phone optimized pages.

The only dark side to the mobile web are specialized phone apps. There are too many websites, that instead of creating mobile-friendly versions of their site, create a specialized iPhone app. This unfortunately takes pressure off the company to produce a truly mobile app. Flightaware.com is an excellent example of this. Their website is hard to maneuver around on an iPhone, so they made an app (which has fewer features) instead of improving their website.

...then, don't buy LPs from Apple. That simple. You can still by stuff song-by-song.

Apple has two sets of customers. Those of us who buy stuff from iTunes and the content providers who provide the merchandise to iTunes. Apple has to balance out the two competing interests. Sorry if you don't like that.

The content providers never liked the song-by-song buying because people cherry pick. What use to be a $12.99 album sale is now only a $2.98 sale of three songs that everyone likes a lot. Even decent songs that people might have grown to like weren't selling because people bought for immediate gratification. The triple tier pricing wasn't helping.

To get people buying albums again, Apple and the recording industry came up with something that provides an extra benefit for buying an entire album. You get linear notes, extra songs, a few behind-the-scenes type of stuff, etc.

If you think it is now worth plucking down $12.99 for an "album", go for it! If not, then buy what you want song-by-song.

At least give Apple credit that the album standard is an open standard with no DRM. Anyone can sell "albums". Anyone can create an "album". (The $10,000 fee is a misunderstanding. When Apple came up with the Album concept, the record companies could produce their own, or have Apple do it for them. To the big studios, $10,000 is a bargain, and many took it. It allowed Apple to have Albums on sale from day one, and showed the potential of albums to everyone. The standard is open, and Apple will allow anyone to create albums.)

Whatever you think of iTunes, it showed the world how to actually be profitable selling on line content: Make the transaction easy, provide reasonable value, and give consumers what they want. Apparently, that was a revelation to the record companies. The iTunes store introduced the following concepts:

* Song-by-song pricing. The recording industry wanted to push bundles and subscriptions
* You own the song when you buy it. The recording industry wanted to charge both subscription and rent.
* Reasonable pricing: 99 cents/song was a shocker to the industry who wanted to charge $2.99.
* Easy shopping experience: The iTunes store showed everyone else how to setup an online store. Now, there are dozens of them.
* Actually using the song on multiple devices. Yes, there was originally copy protection, but as far as copy protection went, it was quite mild: You could download your music to your MP3 player, you could burn a CD of it, and you could share it with five different computers. Apple may have never liked the idea of DRM, but the recording industry would never have gotten on board if Apple didn't have any at all. But think of what the recording industry wanted to do: You want a CD, to play it on your computer, and your MP3 player? Well, that's three separate purchases. With iTunes, it was a single purchase.

These are all things that we now take for granted for any on-line store we visit.

If you don't like iPods, don't buy one. You can buy many other MP3 players and there are many online stores that are a bit cheaper than Apple, or have music you cannot find on the Apple store. These MP3 players work well with those stores.

If you like iPods and have an iPod, buying from the iTunes store is quick, easy, and if you think that's worth the 20 cent premium, then buy from iTunes.

It's that simple.

Fast booting is important because it means that you can actually turn your machine off instead of keeping it on all the time. I have a Mac Mini PowerPC which we never turn off because booting takes way too long.

However, Windows "cheats" because it starts the sign on process before it is actually ready to begin. Various background processes are still starting up by the time you see your desktop. Other OS systems are taking similar approaches now. My Ubuntu Linux system comes up in less than 10 seconds after the BOIS check, but I still have to wait several seconds after I see my desktop before I am able to connect to my network. I can bring up FireFox as long as I don't have to load any remote webpages. I can create an email as long as I don't have to send it anywhere. So, fastbooting and shaving off the other 9 seconds doesn't exactly do me a world of good.

The iPhone initially show was in January right after the first Zune came out. I thought "Wow, that's what the Zune SHOULD HAVE BEEN". The Zune might be finally getting there, but now its too late.

Don't get me wrong. The Zune HD is finally turning out to be what it should have been all along. But, it's really not anything different than the iPod Touch and the iPod Touch has a gazillion applications. Well, you say, the original iPhone didn't have an app store, but neither did anyone else. The thing Microsoft must realize is that the Zune has to compete against THIS YEARS iPod Touch.

In marketing, you have something called the "delta". This is the thing that your product has that your competitors don't. When the iPhone came out, the delta was a true to life web browser and easy syncing with your computer. It was the music player/phone/browser that everyone wanted. Since then, everyone has a music player/browser/phone combo. Now, the delta is the app store.

What's the Zune HD's "delta" that will get me to throw out my iPod Touch and line up to buy a Zune? HD Radio? It's hasn't really caught on. OLCD screen? That's a nice touch, but is it that much better than the iPod's screen? The Zune is $10 cheaper? Naw.

Here's what the Zune should have had:

* Compatibility with the XBox. Hey, you got a zillion XBox games, why not make it so they can easily be ported to the Zune?
* Camera that's integrated with Twitter/Facebook/Flickr. It should have spot metering and auto focus. Optical Zoom would be a big plus.
* Multiple platforms. Hey, the Mac now represents 15% of the consumer market. Maybe even more. Why are you immediately dropping that big a chunk of the market? Heck, the songs in iTunes aren't DRMd any more, and there's an API for perusing the catalog, so you don't even have to pull a Palm Pre. Show that you're willing to compete against Apple's home turf. And, don't leave Linux out.
* Work out a deal w/ Sprint a la Kindle for networking. Not necessarily a phone service, but use the Sprint network for your network. And, of course, WiFi.

All of this would have made the Zune something to consider despite having sand kicked into its face and its lunch money taken for the last few years. Now, it's just an also ran iPod look alike. If I want an iPod look alike, I might as well by the real thing.

Tethering isn't disabled. What is disabled is tethering without the carrier giving you a signed configuration bundle to use.

I've talked to a few people who use AT&T and still have tethering on their iPhones after upgrading. They got the new configuration bundle and have no problems.

Apparently, this was a request from almost all of the official carriers to prevent the iPhone from tethering without their permission (which can be had for another $20 or so per month). This was originally aimed at supported carriers, but it is also affecting unsupported carriers too.

That's what happens when you tie the hardware to the provider.

I use to run the tutoring department at College and remember getting "homeschooled" kids who knew very little. Even worse, most of these were raised by Christian Fundamentalists and had an extremely narrow view of the world. "President Franklin Roosevelt? Wasn't he a communist? He lead the war effort in World War II? Didn't know that." I've had kids who couldn't do basic Math because the parents weren't that good at it. We also had kids who never read books like Fahrenheit 491 because it contained cussing and people smoked in it.

If these were the kids with the curriculum goals of Home School, I can imagine what type of people I get from the Unschooled set.

Yet, when my oldest son was ready for High School. We home schooled him. In fact, we pretty much Unschooled him. Why, because he has Asperger's Syndrome and couldn't figure out what to do in High School. His I.Q. is officially "over 140" which is about as high as it now gets measured. He took the SAT in 7th grade and got a 1250. He read almost every book we have in our house including the entire encyclopedia. He studied Calculus on his own for fun, and was already getting several science journals. In the 9th grade, he already knew more academically than most college graduates. What he didn't have was any social skills.

So, we spent the next three years having him do various tasks around the house, shopping, dealing with returning items from the store, joining social groups such as Boy Scouts, volunteering, and maybe a smattering of academics. By the time we finished, he could actually look people in the eye, smile, not get overly upset when anything went wrong, etc. In short, unschooling him was the best thing we could have done. It allowed him to advance in life, make friends, and learn to live in this world.

For the 12th grade, he took the GED and we signed him up for Community College just so he could get back into the academic swing of things before heading off to college.

However, my son is probably one in a million. Unschooling was extremely hard work too. I probably spent more time planning his "unschooled" curriculum than if I merely taught him the three "R"s. I can easily see this becoming shluffing off. You have your kid do a few math problems, learn to balance a checkbook, and read the newspaper, but never tackling harder literature works or even doing the more advanced non-Calculus mathematics.

The "Home school" kids fell into a wide spectrum, and I saw most of the lower ranked ones in my tutoring center. The ones with the Dad who's a nuclear engineer and the mom as the Shakespearian scholar I never saw, but those are probably quite rare. If you can pull it off, home schooling and unschooling might really be great ideas. However, if you aren't willing to put in the time and energy, it can be an absolute disaster.

I am very suspicious of much of the Home School and Unschool movement because much of it isn't simply "My schools aren't teaching my kids enough", but "My school is teaching my kids things I think they shouldn't know", and that's a big problem.

The first article linked to was a tiny bit on the snarky side. As far as the first article was concerned, Apple is guilty, and people who buy Apple products are black turtleneck shirt wearing jerks. Plus, they smell bad.

From what I've seen from various reports, Apple iPhones are not exploding all over the place. There has been a few, but rare to the vast number of iPhones out there. The exploding battery problem is about the same rate as any other product that uses lithium batteries.

The cracking screens are also apparently rare compared to the number of iPhones. From the Apple report, none of the cracked screens caused they've investigated appear to be from the battery exploding as many reported. All batteries were in excellent condition. Further according to the report, the screens on the iPhones show damage due to point damage such as being dropped or having something like the tip of a key dig into the iPhone's screen. None of the screens appeared damaged in a wide area as you would expect if the phone started to warp due to excess heat or if an actual explosion happened.

A few people have stated that the screen exploded in their hands, but there was no outside confirmation of that. Apple felt that if any such incident of an iPhone screen cracking while in hand, it could be the result of a microscopic fracture suddenly increasing in size due to handling the iPhone itself.

However, this doesn't actually free Apple from the responsibility. Swirling razor sharp blades are also known to cut, but we don't allow manufactures to put them on products without some form of protection. Consumer phones are put into pockets, dropped, and stepped on. Putting a glass screen might not be such a great idea on a phone. Yes, it limits distortion and scratching, but it makes the screen more brittle too.

The question is whether a consumer should expect their phone screens to shatter in a manner that might injure them. For example, if you buy a fan, it has a cover to help keep your fingers away from the blades. Lamps are wired, so when they're turned off, there is no power running to the socket, so you can change the bulb without worrying about electrocuting yourself. Yes, we consumers should know to keep fingers away from fan blades and to unplug lamps or shut off the circuit breaker when changing bulbs. However, that didn't stop regulation requiring extra precaution.

At the same time, no one expects laptop manufacturers to seal their systems to prevent users from spilling drinks in them even though this is quite common. No one expects a car to be able to run if you ram it into a light-pole at 40 mph (another too common occurrence).

Does putting an iPhone in your pocket and finding that the glass has shattered constitute product abuse or does it constitute expected consumer behavior and the product should take that into account? Unless France's independent report shows another issue, this is what appears to be the real issue.

There are two types of anti-poaching agreements.

The first states that if an employee worked at company "A", they can't be hired by company "B". The second states that company "B" won't call up people they know who work for company "A" and offer them jobs. If that employee goes to company "B" on their own accord, that's fine. It's just that company "B" can't openly recruit company "A" employees.

Apple's anti-poaching agreement with Google was of the second kind. Apple wouldn't try to recruit currently active Google employees and Google wouldn't actively recruit Apple employees. If an Apple employee went over and applied to Google for a job, that employee would be fair game for Google to hire, and visa-versa. I am assuming that Apple wanted a similar agreement with Palm. Apple doesn't want employees who are unhappy with their job. What they don't want is a competitor simply hiring whole departments away from Apple which is sort of what happened with the Palm Pre division.

Please, please don't let the new Robot OS be Windows!

Robot 1: Fools! There is no stopping now that we've upgraded to Vista SP3!
Robot 2: Actually, that was just a bug patch for a Windows Media Vulnerability.
Robot 1: We're dead meat, aren't we.

Unlike the earlier lumbering beasts, the Microsoft Dinosaur sees the little furry creatures running all around its ankles and knows that the Asteroid O' Doom is coming. And, it is doing its darn best to be prepared.

Microsoft tried a complete takeover the Internet in the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century, but failed. However, they came awfully close in succeeding.

Microsoft now sees a bigger threat to its core OS/Office franchise. When hardware prices drop low enough, the cost of the Windows OS itself, not to mention the cost of the Office software becomes relatively expensive. Who wants to pay $100 bucks for an OS on a $300 computer?

Microsoft sees the biggest threat is Linux and Web 2.0. Linux is free which makes it a rather interesting OS if you're a PC manufacturer building that $300 computer. Shall you charge $400 and offer Windows, or maybe just charge $300 with some OS based upon the Linux kernel?

The challenge to the Office franchise is not Open Office, but Facebook, Twitter, and Email. Most users no longer write paper letters (thus a need for a word processor). Now, they simply email or update their Facebook page. The price of the "Student" edition of Windows Office keeps dropping faster and faster, but sales in non-commercial settings are still slowing down.

But, Microsoft still has some tricks up its sleeves: SharePoint.

SharePoint is a collaborative environment that allows users to track, update, and create various projects. You can create a workflow, notify users when documents changes, and even build websites. Businesses love it. And, it uses exclusively Windows and even integrates tightly with Microsoft Office. Businesses love it.

However, if you're a Mac user, you are left out in the cold. It's much like what happened to the Mac business environment when Microsoft stopped updating Word for the Mac, and Mac users no longer could read their fellow coworkers' Word documents. And, don't think Linux users get any better treatment. By going the SharePoint route, businesses lock themselves into that Microsoft monopoly a bit longer.

And, because many computer users use their personal computer to access their work environment, they may now be forced to use Windows too. You think about buying that sleek little MacBook Pro? Think again! You can't use it to access your SharePoint projects.

So, thanks to SharePoint, Microsoft is breathing a bit more life in its dominate OS and Office market.

I've been married for 25 years now. Repeat the following until you can say them with utmost sincerity.

* I'm sorry.
* It's all my fault.
* You're right dear.
* I love you.

Remember: You're happy when she's happy. So, make her happy. And don't ever forget her birthday. That's why God invented PDAs.

Get rid of all the top level domains except for the country ones. No more .com, .net, .edu, .org, and all the stupid new ones recently concocted.

Instead, you just have the country level domains, and allow each country to control their domains the way they see fit. In most countries a domain name would be handled like any other trademark issue.

In the U.S., you'd eliminate domain name squatting since you must show some sort of actual activity to retain a trademark. Buying "Sporf.com" and sitting on it in hopes that a company called "Sporf" will have to buy the domain from you will no longer be a good business model.

Will greedy capitalist evil corporations steal your domain? All you have to do is show that you've actively used the domain (and not just merely have a parking page), and that you've registered your trademark with the correct authorities (something that could be done by the domain registrar where you bought your domain).

In the U.S., domains can be done on a local basis (memphis.tn.us), on a state basis (state.tn.us), or on a national basis (com.us). This way, two local shops called "The Flowerpot" -- one in chicago and one in memphis -- could have the same domain: flowerpot.memphis.tn.us and flowerpot.chicago.il.us. National companies like Apple and Microsoft could get their domains registered as apple.com.us and microsoft.com.us.

The .com domain could become a virtual domain. You type in a company name with a .com suffix, and your browser will search your local area, then the state, and then nationally for a company with that domain prefix. Thus if I live in Memphis and type in "Flowerpot.com", I get flowerpot.memphis.tn.us. If I lived in Chicago, I get flowerpot.chicago.il.us.

This would allow us to get rid of TDL sprawl (.name, .info, .biz, .mobi, etc.) that isn't benefiting anyone but GoDaddym It would eliminate all the sniping the the U.S. controls domains because they'll only control the .us domain. And, it would greatly simplify the whole domain registration process.

The question is not what the song is worth, but the damages. If I take a 99 cent song and a million people download it and therefore don't buy the 99 cent song themselves, the copyright holder is out a million dollars in revenue. The price of the song is irrelevant.

The best you can say is that the RIAA is overstating the damages. Just because 200,000 people download a song doesn't mean that 200,000 people would have bought the music, but didn't. The penalties the RIAA asks for isn't some random number, it's damages + penalty based upon some formula they've convinced the court is accurate..

What you need to show is that the RIAA damage assessment is wrong. That some people who downloaded the song bought the song anyway, or that some people who downloaded the song would have never bought it in the first place, or that someone downloaded the song, their friend heard it and bought it. You need to come up with your own model on calculating the damages. Maybe you can show the damages isn't $20,000, but only $500 (and $1000 in penalty).

Still sucks paying $1,500, but its better than $20,000.

But, it isn't YOUR music. The music belongs to the copyright holder. If I write a book, and you buy a copy, you certainly don't have a right to print your own copies.

Nor, do I understand your argument about not prosecuting people who merely "made available". The only other thing we have is prosecuting the people who actually then download the "made available" music. This would be almost impossible to prosecute because you'd have to prove that the person who downloaded the music actually knew the music they found was illegal to download.

I am not happy with the current copyright laws, but I certainly don't want to get rid of the concept of copyright. We need to figure out a way to give the consumer the rights they want:

* Having the right to use a work on different hardware which is played in similar format. For example, if I buy a book, I still don't have a right to the movie. But, if I buy a book for my Kindle, I don't want to pay for that book again because I bought a Sony ebook reader.

* Right of first sale: If I buy a book, I get to sell the book (and my right to the copyrighted work). If I buy a record, I can sell the record (and my right to the copyrighted work). I can't sell an ebook off my Kindle, and I can't sell music I bought from the iTunes store.

* Right of assumption when there is a copyright issue. If I buy a book, and there's a copyright problem with the book, I normally am not charged with a copyright violation, and I can keep the book. The owner of the copyright goes after the initial seller, and not the buyers. The erasing of 1984 and Animal Farm off the Kindle should have never happened.

* Reasonable right of copyright expiration. This is the stickiest issue since copyrights now seem to last forever. Originally, an author wrote a book and owned the copyright. After a reasonable time after death (originally 25 years), the copyright disappeared and the work is now public property. This doesn't work with corporations since corporations never die, thus their copyright never expires. Something must be worked out to allow corporations to keep property that's valuable, but not to prevent all copyrights from ever expiring.

* A broader definition of Reasonable Use. The definition has gotten tighter and tighter as more people claim trademark and copyrights over more items. It's getting almost impossible for an independent film maker to film anything in New York because almost every shot includes some copyright or trademark someone is trying too vigorously to protect. Intent should be a prime factor. If I am filming a bunch of people, and The Simpsons happens to be in the background, I should still be able to use it. If I am filming The Simpsons on TV and occasionally make a snarky comment, that shouldn't be allowed because my obvious intent is to get around the Simpsons' copyright.

Well, if they moved to Windows, you'd get:

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