Leopard trips

I’ve been looking forward to OS/X Leopard seriously for about three months now. After seeing it in action on our development systems it definitely gets the nod for some beautiful, eye-catching improvements that will make any Windows Vista user jealous. But is it really worth the upgrade cost of $129?
Actually, I’m a bit miffed at [...]

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Easy legal reference material

Looking for some example employment contracts relevant in California? Or perhaps you need a billing services agreement, or professional services contract? Check out RealDealDocs.com. They’ve got millions of legal documents available—and you can search and preview for free and subscribing is a pittance (it’ll cost you less than spending 15 minutes on the phone with [...]

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Finally some sense on extended warranties

I’ve been advocating against buying extended warranty plans for years. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to do the math: Most people end up putting their extended warranty into play only rarely. In fact, of the literally hundreds of gadgets and gizmos I’ve purchased, I can recall actually having a malfunctioning gizmo repaired [...]

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New York Times photo from Iraq

John Gruber wrote, “if the photo accompanying this story doesn’t move you, you’re not hooked up right.”

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Michael Dell on Apple

This struck me as offensive at the time, about a decade ago… now, it’s hard not to laugh about it:
I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders. (Fortune)
Made all the more poignant by this week’s market cap figures: Apple, $146 billion. Dell, $63 billion. (Just for comparison’s sake, Intel is at [...]

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Mentat

We’re always struggling with task management, it seems. I’ve got a great system for personal task management, but what about shared tasks—things that depend on other people? Or perhaps things that need to be worked on collaboratively… I’d like to have a system that lets me hand tasks off to other people.
And of course, it [...]

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A bruise or two on Apple’s reputation

This short piece in BusinessWeek is really driving the point home: Apple’s shining reputation for stellar customer service is suffering. I’ve been bitten by the new and poorer support programs, as have others:
By broadening its share of the computer market and diving into whole new businesses, the company has become a case study in the [...]

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iWork ‘08: Not ready for the Office yet

Just a little while ago I mentioned Numbers and what Pages needs to compete in the Office space (both to run head-to-head with Microsoft Office and to be useful in a business setting). Now Apple has rolled out iWork ‘08—a huge upgrade to the iWork suite.
So, how does iWork ‘08 stack up—and should you think [...]

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Trillian comes to the Mac

Someone at the office pointed me to this announcement about Trillian coming out on Mac OS/X. Frankly, I was a bit shocked to find that someone with a Windows machine found out before I did—clearly, I’m not doing my job and staying on top of late-breaking news.
At any rate, I can’t wait. It’s only in [...]

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    This is me. Martial artist, zen student, programmer, writer and author, technologist, father of two, photographer and a resident of Los Angeles (well, the outskirts of it).

    I also publish Rational Scrum and am President & CEO of Hyrax International LLC, delivering comprehensive process improvements to its clientele. Specialities include audit and assessment of program areas such as project management, quality assurance, risk management and customer satisfaction as well as delivering focused initiatives to improve customer efficiency.

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