It turned out that the solution to my iMessage problem was relatively straightforward. That said, it only worked because I still had my old phone (it hadn’t been stolen; I hadn’t traded it in; etc.). It also worked when doing things like going to Apple’s site and deauthorizing my devices didn’t (which I still don’t understand). So the problem I pointed out really is a serious bug. But for me, I had the phone and the solution (as a few people suggested in the comments to my post) was as simple as disabling iMessage on my device. Apparently this triggered a reset on the Apple server such that messages sent to me were no longer being routed through iMessage, thus…
Category
Technology
Apple’s secret iPhone lock-in feature
If you’ve been following my twitter feed you’ll know that about a month ago I finally made the switch from AT&T to Verizon (brief conclusion: what took me so long? from my experience this month, the VZ network is vastly superior). At the same time I decided that I’d give Android a real try (I’d played around with it in the past, but never adopted it as my primary device). Enter the Galaxy Nexus. The slightly over-sized, slightly too much of a battery hog, but generally pretty well executed device from Samsung which at the moment is the only Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich (for those of you wondering why I didn’t just get another iPhone, the quick answer…
My Big Mac
So after much teasing by friends and in a vain attempt to solidify my geek creds, I finally took the plunge and ordered a MacBook Pro. I’m dumping my Microsoft infrastructure and am going to switch over cold turkey once I get the thing set up. I’m anticipating a difficult few weeks transitioning. And here’s where I need your help. For readers that have made the switch, what advice do you have to make it go smoothly? For all Mac users, what programs, add-ons, short-cuts, Mac resources (particularly a directory of short-cut codes) do I need? Also, very specifically, I’m looking for something that will let me sync a network share locally so that all files are available off-line. This…
News Corp is spoiling Google’s fun (not to mention ours)
So it’s really come down to this? News Corp is thinking about inking a deal with Microsoft/Bing whereby not only will Bing get access to News Corp data (WSJ, Fox, etc.) but they’ll also prevent Google from indexing their sites. This sounds like a lose/lose/lose/lose proposition. News Corp loses – fewer page views, less revenue for their online content, and to the 90% of Internet users who use Google for search their properties will effectively stop existing. Google loses (sort of) to the extent people miss the data (not sure what will happen when you force a search on Google to a News Corp domain – will they simply return no results?). The rest of us lose because universal search…
Please sir….may I have more targeted advertising
A few days ago I received a note from Plaxo in my inbox that said in part: As you probably know, Plaxo was acquired last year by Comcast and is now a business unit of Comcast Interactive Media (CIM). Not surprisingly, given the above focus, we’ve been working on enabling interoperability between Plaxo and other CIM Websites. In advance of rolling out this common identity system, we’ve developed a unified Terms of Service and Privacy Policy that will apply to Plaxo and the other participating Comcast Websites, providing consistent protection and eliminating the complexity and potential confusion of having different terms and policies for each Website. Among the things that were updated in the policy was the section pertaining to…
How much does Google really know about you?
In case you were wondering what goods Google has on you check out http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ from the browser you typically use for web browsing and search. If you scroll down you’ll see what interests Google has you pegged for and get to see the data they have collected on you in your cookie. For me the most interesting part wasn’t the data they had on me, but looking through the Google interests taxonomy at the bottom of the page. There are specific tags for individual car brands, for your love of Bollywood movies, pest control, screensavers, etc. It’s an interesting glimpse into how Google thinks about the world (and more importantly into what categories Google thinks it can make money by…
There’s "something called the Internet"
There’s a clip that’s been making the rounds in the last week of a Tom Brokaw spot from the mid-90’s on "the Internet". I love the quick clip with Eric Schmidt (then of Sun) and the casual walk around with Bill Gates. I also really like the pitch for the IBM notebook that’s "4 pounds". The amazing thing to consider is not how quaint some of the technology appears in this video, but how far we’ve come so quickly. This video is only 15 years old. After the video ended I sat back in my office for a bit and considered how pretty much all of the things that are state of the art right now will seem as quaint…
Sonos keeps getting better
If you’ve read this blog for a while you’ll know that Sonos is one of my favorite all time inventions. For those of you living in a closet, Sonos is a system that allows for wireless streaming of music throughout your home with the ability to separately control dozens of music "zones". You can easily stream music from various online sources (or your own music library) and their controller makes it easy to create play-lists, cue up music and play different tunes in different parts of your house. If you have ears, you should own one of these. Last week Sonos announced a bunch of new features – free integration with Pandora (I was already paying for this – it…
A different take on Twitter
As you know, I’m a big fan of Twitter. I’ve even gone so far as to call it the new IM. My wife Greeley has watched on with some amusement as I’ve twittered my life away over the last year or so. She finally sat down this weekend and read a few months of my tweets. What follows is a note she sent to me – an "if I’d been twittering too" list of tweets (to be read with heavy sarcasm; I was laughing out loud, but maybe it’s just me…). Woke up in a shitty mood, PMS? Contact lenses dry and itchy, off to buy SALINE! Sale at Safeway on seedless grapes. Nectarines look good, too. Made peanut…
Life without email?
For most technology professionals (really most professionals of any kind) email is so integrated into our work that we can hardly imagine life without it. Sure, it can be a distraction at times and – especially if you carry a wireless device – hard to escape from. But it also greatly enhances productivity, allows us to communicate quickly and effectively and to have asynchronous interactions with a great number of people. I know in my own work life I send and receive between 200 and 300 emails a day. And since I’m already tied up on the phone or in meetings for at least 5 or 6 hours in any given day, email allows me to be significantly more productive…