Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Bits or pieces?: Why I believe AAPL will crumble ...

Bits or pieces?: Why I believe AAPL will crumble ...

Understanding Why Consumers Choose Operating Systems

Why Not Linux? - Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
I thought about posting a comment at the bottom of a nicely reasoned article about why someone loves using Linux. But after reading through the comments, I was more interested in other people's justification of why not Linux.
Why not Linux?  Is a fantastic question that apparently shows some interesting rationalization of consumer behavior.
First of all in the article, the writer doesn't understand why people mistakenly assume the value and the price of something is interlocked. It seems to me that in a capitalistic society that people learn that the two are equal. But this is only true in a free and open market. In order to break people's assumption of value=price you need to show how the markets are entirely different. That in an Open Source software world/ market there are different costs and benefits versus any closed source alternative from Microsoft or Apple...
Second consumer inertia seems to be a valuable lesson. Changing purchasing behaviors is difficult and if we are also talking about someone needing to use a different marketplace it would seem undaunting.
I'm going to have to continue my thoughts later.

Problems with Cyanogen or Android in general

Last night I was lucky enough to be working in something like a lead shielded basement at my in-laws house.  I had absolutely no Verizon signal, I'm sure, no GPS signal and the only wireless devices turned on were 1 wireless access point installed just feet away from the desk I was sitting at and my stereo bluetooth headset.

While I was downstairs I started getting a bunch of force close errors on all kinds of applications.  Most notably  Google App Service and Browser.  Since I run the Cyanogen Mod, I have run into a situation like this.  Usually I can fix the situation by running the ROMManager's fix permission task and reboot my phone without a hassle -- I actually only ran into one situation where this helped when I upgraded to Cyanogen 7 without wiping the data or the cache partition and the fix permission was only a temporary fix until I went to factory restore.

Android Encryption Options

Whisper Systems :: WhisperCore
My current favorite encryption tool on Android is Droidcrypt.  I just installed RR File Locker and will see what I think about that application.

Blocking Facebook and Twitter at Work

Our company just took it's first step towards evil by blocking Facebook and Twitter based on perceived lost productivity. Don't get me wrong, I am all for keeping productivity high. I have always appreciated our past stance that Internet and computer waste was a management issue not a technological issue.

I was given the task to come up with a way to block primarily Facebook. In the last year we have purchased Cisco's Ironport product for its ability to block dynamic categories that is constantly being updated by Ironport's system.


Why Your Company Should Not Block Facebook or Twitter | Social Media Today


Blocking sites like Facebook and Twitter is unecessary and couterproductive, here are some reasons why:
  1. Trust: If companies can entrust their employees with things like patient care, financial data, or customer care it follows that they should be able to trust these very same employees with something like access to social media properties. Social media policies should, of course, be put in place to provide guidelines for your employees.
  2. Creativity: There are pundits out there that calculate the billions lost with employee status updates and tweets. Ultimately though, our minds need a reprieve from our workplace tasks - that's why we have smoke breaks, coffee breaks and water cooler conversations. Stepping away from a problem via Facebook or Twitter may actually help you solve it.
  3. Empowerment: I'm of the mind that you become powerful by empowering others. If you think you are optimizing productivity or security by blocking certain sites, you are probably doing the exact oppositewhile at the same time creating an illusion of security for yourself and your company.
  4. Happiness: Your employees might work 40 hours a week but when you factor in commutes, prep time, and work that is brought home - it's a lot more than 40 hours. If you can increase your collective workplace happiness by letting your call center folks see their friend's vacation pictures or new boyfriend on Facebook, you will likely be paid forward with a more productive workplace.