Mac vs Windows by Winn Schwartau

This has been a great series to follow - a renowned security expert gets "mad as hell" and switches his whole company to Macs. He blogs about the experience over 16 episodes (all of which can be found at the site). This is the finale posting in which he also provides 2 documents for download.

IMHO he has done a really thorough job of providing both a qualitative rationale AND a quantitative one (a pretty decent 3 year Total Cost of Ownership model) which can be found here and here.

It is no point looking at the spreadsheet without thoroughly reading the pdf explaining it (and the qualitative view). But the great thing about the spreadsheet is it gives anyone the ability to put in THEIR own numbers based on THEIR estimates of how much time they spend doing things, what they have to buy (hardware and software) and what the cost of THEIR time is.

I won't spoil the fun by revealing the difference, but let's say it's pretty compelling.

Winn has a unique style which you may or may not like. There are a few things he has not been happy with along the road to Damascus, but he's managed to see the forest through the trees very clearly. This has been really excellent work and anyone considering a new computer for Home or for small office/small enterprise should seriously read this.

If you've got issues with his analysis, I suggest you go to Winn's site (above) and add your comments there.

iPod nano screen issue FUD

This post sums it up nicely as far as I'm concerned.

Of course (before you criticise) it doesn't particularly address screen cracking per se (it concentrates on scratches etc). But I think we have to accept Apple's explanation so far. Based on 6m iPod's shipping per quarter (at the last count), they would probably have shipped AT LEAST 1m nano's in the first month. So even 1,000 screen failures would represent 1 in 1,000 (1/10 of 1% in fact). Assuming the failures happen early in the life of course!

Blu-Ray or HD DVD

Anyone following this topic from the remote sidelines (like me) could have been forgiven for thinking this format war was essentially won. Blu-ray seemed to be getting all the minds behind it. Talks between Blu-ray group (primarily Sony) and HD DVD group (primarily Toshiba) had broken down. All publicity that I read seemed to indicate that Blu-ray was the superior technology and that essentially it would be the one to win out.

Now in the space of a day, I've had my mind changed, and all bets are at least off for the time being (well, I'm not a betting man anyway).

1. From Ars Technica a great article on the economics of the two formats.

2. Microsoft and Intel announce their support for HD DVD (this one from the Register but many other articles on this topic).

I have to say article 1 makes very compelling reasons why HD DVD is just fine, and Blu-ray will not make economic sense. There is still little question about the superiority of Blu-ray in terms of capacity. Maybe from the consumer perspective it won't matter too much if combined players come out. HD DVD is far from out for the count. I wonder if Sony will have backed the wrong horse again?

Ed Zander doesn't get it does he?

"Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?" Zander said. People are going to want devices that do more than just play music, something that can be seen in many other countries with more advanced mobile phone networks and savvy users.

Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola. Obviously a bit irked that the nano has taken all the positive publicity from his first (real) foray into music. His comments betray a lack of understanding about why these things are so popular. Not surprising Motorola got it wrong. Here's what I'm amazed they didn't do:

1. Use USB 2.0. Why, why, why use slow USB 1.1? All current devices support USB 2.0. This phone is crippled right away, irrespective of the 100 song limit. One of the great attractions of every iPod to date has been that it can be filled up very quickly. That means people dock it and update their collections more often. And, because of that they continue to use their device.
2. Allow for larger cards to have larger libraries. Did Apple really insist on a 100 song limit? I doubt it.
3. Put these features in a phone that looked a bit more exciting!

It's not as if this was a last minute reaction - it has been planned and talked about for ages which I'm sure is why people are so disappointed (Victor Keegan of Guardian being a notable exception).

A Razr would be a better bet (and is supposedly coming), but you know just doing a simple checklist of comparable features would have told anyone that this phone was too little too late.

I just wonder though if some of the goodwill between Apple and Motorola will have disappeared with this. It's a pity, the Nokia N-series music phone has been delayed until after Xmas due (apparently) to more DRM work. A good opportunity has been missed.

NetNewsWire and RSS

According to FeedBurner stats as recent as early 2005, NetNewsWire was the most popular desktop newsreader on the market. Not surprised? Read that sentence again. That's right, it's the most popular desktop newsreader on any platform. Somewhat astonishing when you consider NetNewsWire is a Macintosh-only program.

That quote of a quote comes from Ars Technica in a review of RSS Readers for the Mac platform (a very good article with a predictable conclusion!).

I've just got 2 things to say on this:
1. NetNewsWire is an application that has done more for my personal productivity than any other application I can think of in recent memory. I really, really like it (and the concept of RSS). I have just 2 wishes - that it's memory problems (which I think are really Webkit memory problems) get solved and that we can move to some form of efficient Realtime RSS so we don't poll sites every interval but get the notification as it happens.

2. What does this stat mean though? At its simplest it could just be that there are many more RSS readers on the Windows platform with no dominant player. AFAIK there are only a few popular packages though, so that's not the whole story. It implies to me that Mac's market share among early adopters (journalists, media people, IT users, high-end professional people?) is considerably more than it's current ~5% of US PC market. It was the same sort of early adopter phenomenon that led to iPod take-off. While it may not be right to talk about "early adopters" in the mature world of PC's, it still seems to me that Apple has some building blocks to really make inroads into the Windows world if it executes well. I don't mean 70% market share of iPod, but I do think it could easily move towards 10-15% quite quickly. My anecdotal reports of friends buying macs (switching back or switching for the first time) makes me more confident that this isn't just wishful thinking.

Le Nano est arrivée

...in my greasy palms that is. (Headline in French because it sounded better and in honour of MacWorld Paris Expo!)

Less than a week after ordering it, I received a 4GB Black iPod nano today, which I had tracked since leaving Shenzen on Friday! The black nanos (esp 4GB) are much in demand, and I'm pleased I didn't wait longer till ordering. Free laser engraving means it has to come from China anyway I think, so 5 business days is not bad at all.

Anyhow, you've all seen pictures by now, but if you've not seen enough here are mine - boxed, next to phone, and thin vs phone. But really until you have one in your hand you just can't appreciate its petiteness. When I opened the box, I at first thought I was looking at a photo of it, before realising it was the real thing. It knocks on the head the idea of convergence because it's just so inobtrusive, you may as well choose your phone as a phone and carry one of these around too. It synced very quickly to my mac mini. But I haven't dared take the plastic film off yet!

For the active user, this is the best iPod yet. Next step is a car kit and I will start to listen to podcasts properly.

Tea with Japanese friends

Tea with Japanese friends
Originally uploaded by Hobflickr.

Sue and I were delighted to host Masa Yamaguchi (right) with Wakana, Yasuko and Noby from Masa's laboratory at Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT). Sue spent 6 weeks with Masa's group in 2003 and they continue to collaborate and exchange ideas in the field of DNA replication, via their study of Drosophila (Fruit flies to you and me). Masa's lab is 20 strong, although that does consist of undergrads who may spend up to 1 year assigned to a lab. Contrast that with science education in this country (how many hours are spent in a lab on experiments as an undergrad?). Wakana and Yasuko will be here for another 2 weeks working in Sue's lab. Masa and Noby have already returned. We hope they all enjoy(ed) their first visit to the UK, and their first experience of scones.