You mean products fail for other reasons?

If you read recent press coverage of Google’s Nexus One, it all seems to make sense. Phones weren’t going to sell well being sold only online without a chance for people to try them in person in a brick-and-mortar store. There wasn’t an advertising campaign for it. Very few articles or blogs about the end… Continue reading You mean products fail for other reasons?

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) first impressions

They say you’re not supposed to upgrade to alpha pre-releases of Ubuntu on your main computer. Unfortunately, I have only one computer (my HP Mini 1120nr netbook) to test on, and it has a 16 GB SSD, so dual-booting isn’t even really an option. I just took the plunge, downloaded the latest Lucid Alpha .iso,… Continue reading Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) first impressions

How else can Linux fail in the consumer space?

Many Linux advocates and Linux bashers still think the success or failure of Linux in the consumer (not server or embedded) space rests on technical merits. Implementation, marketing, pricing, inertia, vendor lock-in—no, of course, those have nothing to do with whether people decide on Linux as opposed to Windows or Mac OS X. Would it… Continue reading How else can Linux fail in the consumer space?

The Power of Defaults

I tend to see two extremes whenever there are arguments about what should be the default (I’m speaking specifically of arguments on the Ubuntu Forums, but this could be applied to really anything in technology or anything in life in general). One extreme is that defaults don’t matter at all. It’s not worth arguing about.… Continue reading The Power of Defaults

T-Mobile MyTouch 3G with Android… Four months later

I already wrote T-Mobile MyTouch 3G First Impressions and A month with the MyTouch 3G and Android, but someone requested I write yet another follow-up post after having used the phone for a while. Well, it’s been almost four months, and I have to say that my general impression hasn’t changed much. I can sum… Continue reading T-Mobile MyTouch 3G with Android… Four months later

Linux users take note: Google knows marketing

While critics and advocates of so-called “desktop Linux” waste their time imagining a world in which some consumer-targeted Linux distro manages to fix all its bugs and then self-proclaimed computer illiterates everywhere download and burn .iso files and then set their BIOSes to boot from CD and install and configure Linux themselves, Google moves forward… Continue reading Linux users take note: Google knows marketing

Where is this dreamland in which Windows “just works”?

First of all, I have to say it is not my intention to bash Windows. I am not a Windows hater. I actually like Windows. I use it at work every weekday, and I have found ways to have a generally pleasant experience with it. I like Mac OS X better than Windows, though, and… Continue reading Where is this dreamland in which Windows “just works”?