Jack Hirsch

Indeed.

(via KeepCalmShop)

The Death Of The Spec

I used to get excited for Sunday inserts in the local paper so I could see what new machines were available at Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA. The only thing I cared about were the specs. Which Intel chip did it have? What was the clock speed? How much RAM? How big was the hard drive? How fast was the CD burner? How much cache? Those things mattered…

My MacBook Air doesn’t have the specs of a brand new HP PC laptop — but it still feels faster. Maybe it’s OS X, or maybe it’s the solid state drive. Point is, consumers don’t and shouldn’t care. They care about which machine will boot faster and which will be easier to navigate. Time to web matters.

-TechCrunch

Amen.

Say it ain’t so! Charles Schwab’s Invest First Visa credit card has been bought by Bank of America. Time to find a new credit card!

(via Replacing Schwab’s Late, Great Rewards Card - NYTimes.com)

Mobile UI Patterns

This is a great reference for your next mobile project.

“Microsoft had tablets for many, many years. And Microsoft Office had always run on them. That was not a selling case for these things.” -Robert Scoble (Microsoft Can’t Win In Tablets)

I said the same thing two months ago emphasizing the difference between design and usability in Windows 8.

Maybe the best programmers aren’t those who spectacularly solve crazy problems, but those who don’t create them, which is much more silent. – Lena Herrmann

The Number One Trait of a Great Developer | Engine Yard Blog

M83 - Midnight City

(Source: musicforyourcoffee)

A couple of weeks ago, in a Product Manager interview with Google, I described a gap between Google’s ideal “file-less” document based system and users’ file system mentality. I suggested that Google Docs deliver real-time syncing to a local file system to provide users with incremental steps towards a document based workflow.

I went out on a limb in the interview and disagreed with what MG Siegler posted as to the correct approach for this “bridge” product. It’s not just about storage, it’s about creating an interoperable environment that guides users towards wider adoption of Google’s document-based platform. It looks like Google agrees with me.

The latest intel on Google Drive suggests that it will not be a standalone product, but rather a connection (or bridge) that syncs users’ local file system and Google Docs.

More About Google Drive

@TuneFind Improve the continuity of users’ experiences by playing music directly when a user hits the play. Then create a separate button to provide the option to purchase music. 

Since 1994, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation amassed an endowment of over $31 billion in funds to fight the world’s most difficult issues. But it hasn’t merely accumulated funds, the foundation has already given away over $25 billion. Those aren’t trivial numbers. In seventeen years, the foundation has raised and given away more than one-tenth of Apple’s extraordinary market capitalization.

Idolize Bill Gates, Not Steve Jobs - Businessweek

Too late. You should have heard this coming before you made that terrible decision.

White House Rejects Petition To Legalize Marijuana

The statement came in response to a petition submitted by retired Baltimore narcotics officer Neill Franklin as part of the White House’s “We The People” project, an effort to allow ordinary Americans to gain the attention of policymakers through an online portal at the White House website. Any petition garnering 5,000 signatures within 30 days of submission is guaranteed a response from the White House; Franklin’s petition received more than 17,000.

Holler at my alma mater!

Oracle Buys Cloud-based Customer Service Company RightNow For $1.5 Billion | TechCrunch

Portugal. The Man - Sleep Forever

Jobs on Bill Gates: “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything… He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

parislemon:

Chances this biography is going to be awesome? 100%.