icecrums

A common problem I address constantly: What part of the sentence do you link up? That’s why I use the (Via Link) format. You decide.

(Via Cameronmoll.com.)

Scoble comment on the importance of demos as a result of the Mojave Experiment:

Actually, this is what I have loved about Apple’s stores whenever I go in: they are usually demoing what their machines can do. Walk in and they show you how to do all sorts of stuff from podcasting to digital photography.

Here is the problem: demos are cool if you can actually make it work once you’re on your own. If you see a video demo on apple.com/support or the Apple Store and try it yourself, more likely than not it will work. I am afraid to say that is probably not the case with Windows Vista.

Also, a demo is cool, feature packed and very short. Using something that simply doesn’t work on a daily basis is a completely different story.

To Microsoft:,

This is not about spin: don’t make your marketers do what your engineers couldn’t!

(Via Scobleizer.)

Can’t get enough of internet parodies:

(Via Mashable!.)

Cuil finally launches. They are my “favorite” search engine startup because of this:

Much of the secret sauce of Cuil is in the way they index the web and handle actual queries by users. Both are costly to scale, and Cuil claims to have found a way to massively reduce those costs. That allows them to run the search engine a lot cheaper, even at Google-scale should it ever reach that point. By some estimates, Google spends a billion dollars a year to run the back end infrastructure of it’s search business.

Just made it my default search engine in Firefox to test it out in a real Jonathan scenario. The one thing I can’t get over is their 3 column layout, since I am too accustomed to the Google format and colors.

So far I get a lot of “Not found” type results. One example is this search for “capistrano for mediatemple dv” which got this while Google got this where result 7 was exactly what I was looking for.

The whole idea of cheap and innovative indexing sounds great, but it still needs to work. I will still give a try for a few more days.

Note: I think that Powerset is the biggest and dumbest waste of money since I originally read about it.

(Via TechCrunch.)

Paul Stamatiou reviews the Jawbone 2:

I wouldn’t say the Jawbone 2 has changed my life but it is by and far a capable bluetooth earpiece.

It is a solid earpiece which some small inconveniences like fitting and it could be easier to switch from my phone to the computer(that’s probably all headsets). Other than that, I am happy with the Noise Assassin performance, which allows me to have meetings with clients over Skype inside a busy office.

(Via PaulStamatiou.com.)

Paul Kafasis form Rougue Amobea on the problem of the iPhone SDK NDA. Here is the most important to me:

On the Mac platform, knowledge sharing is commonplace and resources for development are plentiful. This community is one of the best aspects of writing software for the Mac. On the iPhone, however, the NDA means no such community is allowed to exist.

Before choosing a particular technology I always look at the community first. That is why I love Rails and Cocoa. It’s filled with great developers that are gratified with the community well being, rather than just themselves.

(Via Inside iPhone.)

Here is why lifting the NDA would be a great idea:

All the NDA does right now is keep developers from talking to each other and blogs, magazines and book authors from publishing how-to articles. Said articles, etc., could actually help Apple reduce its tech support overhead. It would certainly help solidify the brand and allow third parties to make better, stronger App Store entries.

I believe it’s still in place to prevent developers from expressing in detail how frustrated they are with the developer program. We are working on a couple of apps and could really use a mailing list or discussion forum.

(Via TUAW.)

I always though about this, and never knew the answer to the question until now. This is what surprised me the most:

I have heard that it can take a new engineer at Google anywhere from 3-6 months to become accustomed to using these tools and services.

It requires lot of cash to have a developer at less than 100% for 6 months! This will someday come back and bite them in the butt.

(Via TechCrunchIT.)

Mark Shuttleworth:

Can we not only emulate, but can we blow right past Apple?

The problem with most Linux developers is that they want to make things because they are “cool” not because the regular Joe(target market for mass adoption) would find it practical. I doubt that well see anything that “blows right past Apple”, but I still like to be surprised!

BTW, hasn’t Ubuntu been trying to do this for a while?

(Via eWeek.)

I saw “The Dark Knight” this past weekend and couldn’t help notice some parallels with the original Batman. Now I find this:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

It’s the trailers for both Batman and The Dark Knight in parallels.

“Let’s put a smile on that face!”