The myth of the Tablet consumer

The "Tablet isn't for consumers" story is a myth. Tell it to the students using Tablets. Tell it to the start ups that leverage the flexibility of the Tablet in their highly fluid states. Tell it to the doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, and on and on, that purchased a Tablet …

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Loren Laments That Ultraportable Computers Arent Tablet P

Loren laments that ultra-portable computers aren't Tablet PCs. Check out the Sony U-70:

Man, I'd buy a Tablet in that form-factor in a microsecond! But I've come to realize that I'm more pen-centric and more note-taking centric than most people (I have dozens of paper notebooks going back to High …

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Visual Studio .NET Key Bindings, Chords, and Consistency

There has been a fair amount of discussion about key bindings in VS.NET, and the fact that they seem to be changing yet again in VS.NET 2005....But the thing that bugs me most about the current set of bindings is the amount of arbitrary stuff you have …

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Favorite Geek Movies

Richard Callaby's favorite geek movies are:

  1. Sneakers
  2. War Games
  3. Hackers
  4. Anti-Trust
  5. Startup.com
  6. Triumph of the Nerds

Mine are:

  1. Minority Report (I loved that pre-crime interface! Oh, and you must check this probably-not-intended-for-public-consumption page at Microsoft Research: http://research.microsoft.com/\~dcr/minority/functionality_01.htm)
  2. Blade Runner
  3. War Games …
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"Bill my email" -- Hmmm...

....Why don't I just bill the user via email using something like PayPal? Think about it, the user enters their email and phone number on their phone, promises to pay the 99 cents when they get to a real computer and that's it. Done. No middle man, no carriers, no …

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Xbox 2 won't be backwards compatible with original Xbox games

Apparently some top Xbox execs are quietly confirming that the Xbox 2 isn't going to be backwards compatible with original Xbox games. via [Engadget]

MSDN Magazine: 2, Raymond Chen: 0!!!!

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On Rereading Joels Article I Think His Argument Boils Down To IMG Srchttpwwwthinkinginnetgems79

On rereading Joel's article, I think his argument boils down to:

He's not denying the need to rely on "external dependencies," he's advocating that such dependencies be localized. Why? Because when there are several external dependencies, they have a tendency to have internal dependencies, and you tend to need a …

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"Touch Once, Fix Everywhere" is the big Web App win

Corporate development choices are driven by the imperative to rapidly deliver customer value. Developers have their own values (language preferences, philosophical agenda, etc.) which sometimes conflict with this imperative but when push comes to shove, a CTO's job is to "get it done."

The great advantage of Web Apps for …

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SpaceShipOne

Those guys rock.

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mciSendString("Wrong, Joel")

Joel Spolsky's (why hasn't Software Development hired him as a columnist?) Microsoft Lost the API Wars has a series of solid observations and at least one brilliant construction ("Chen v. MSDN"), but I'm afraid his title and conclusion aren't supported by his arguments.

He hoists himself on his own petard …

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