Does Steve have cancer again? After seeing photos of Steve Jobs at WWDC I am not the only one who wondered whether Mr. Jobs is sick again. I have stood next to him in the Apple cafeteria line, he is definitely a larger than life figure. You may say this is not really business news. In Apple’s case many billions of dollars of market value rests on Steve’s remaining healthy and at the reigns of Apple for many years. So his health is a very material business concern.

Can you imagine if Apple made a non cool blunder with the iPod or the iPhone, or heaven forbid with the computer line? Steve was the one who tied technology into fashion statements. I certainly hope his cancer has not returned, but I would think someone could emerge from the Apple ranks who has his pulse on “Apple Cool.” Maybe Apple should search among its fans to see who can design the next cool Apple tech item. Its too bad Douglas Adams and Gary Gygax are gone, I am sure they could have come up with “cool” Who knows maybe the next idea generator is an 8 year old kid who is at this moment eating glue off his school desk.

Apple announced at their WWDC the release date and the new price point for the iPhone 2.0. I think it came as a complete shock knowing historically how Apple does not cater price points for the masses. The new 8 gig iPhone will retail for $199 and the 16 gig version will retail for $299. This makes it cheaper than the ipod touch. I would think that product might becoming a technology irrelevant item soon.

Apple has demonstrated that the new 3G connection speed to be twice as fast as the EDGE technology of the original iPhone. The new versions will have a single color back versus the two tone of the original. The 8 gig will have an all black back and the 16 gig version will have an all white back. Apple also mentioned that it is slightly slimmer than its predecessor. Lets also not forget the new software update that will increase its popularity two fold. The new App store will be home for all third party applications for the iPhone.

As excited as I am about this wonderful product it still has
continue reading "iPhone 2.0 releasing on July 11th, but still not perfect!"

Nord Enterprises owner of Home Owners Association Website Solutions has lauched a massive new marketing campaign to increase site traffic. Nord has a vertical market solution aimed directly at HOA website hosting solutions. This vertical market has seen an increase in competition over the last several months. Carl Nordhielm , the principal of Nord Enterprises, has hired a web marketing firm to hopefully increase traffic and sales conversions for his Home Owners Association Website Solution. Its an interesting venture and we plan to keep an eye on its progress.

A little known secret to getting all those stubborn bug guts off your cars grill or front bumper is to use a regular dryer sheet. It has the right texture to wipe them off and not scratch your paint. Give it a try next time and see how much it helps. Then surprise your friends with your new secret solution to cleaning bugs off the front of your car. Here is a link to my 3000 GT site with the instructions.

Fast Company magazine’s June 2008 cover story is of Alex Bogusky and his design firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky being awarded a $300 million contract from Microsoft to Make them as “cool as Apple”

Some of their work in the past has included the fun return of the King in the new Burger King commercials. They also did the award winning “Truth” campaign.

This is an act of desperation on Microsoft’s part. I have worked in the Advertising industry for the last 16 years. There is an adage in the Ad industry that says “Nothing is worse for a poor product than a good ad campaign.” So maybe this is another good thing for Apple, is to have Windows software weakness highlighted even more.

Another sad fact is that Alex is tossing out his new Macbook air and several of his other Macintosh computer systems in their office so they can immerse themselves in the product of their new client. This is a monumental mistake for his company. If I was an art director at his firm forced to use a windows based PC to do creative work I would request to be assigned to another account or quit.

His agencies productivity will drop considerably and he will have to hire an army of IT support technicians. There are more than one whitepapers written that support this point. There he goes flushing at least one third of his multi million dollar contract down the toilet.

Now what is he going to do with the other two thirds. Andrew Keller, Creative director, talks about how you can’t really fight cool head on. He mentioned that the job is less about the money and more about the challenge. I am not so sure about this. The entire history of Microsoft is about how they bought out every product they wanted to resell.

They mention they might come out with one of Microsoft’s popular products like x-box. I find it quite ironic that the Flagship game, Halo, was the brian child of Jason Jones at Bungie software. Bungie was a Macintosh only developer until Microsoft bought them out.

The historical image problem with Microsoft has always
continue reading "Can Microsoft Be As Cool As Apple?"

I have my car website (3000gtvr4.com) ranked for two key terms. 3000gt and VR4. Yesterday when I ran a report my ranking for 3000gt was around 76 when normally its around 6. My ranking for vr4 is still #1. I checked with google. I am indexed and have my pagerank. Although it dropped from 3 to 2 last update. For what I don’t know why.

I don’t know why google has done this. I have made two big changes recently. Both occurred about three weeks ago. First my site was finally listed in DMOZ. After waiting like 6 months. then I moved the whole site and domain to another web server.

I have read lots on the net. Even several things by mattcutts the top google tech. It seems like google does not have any problems with moving servers like they used to and how can they punish me for getting in DMOZ? I ran a check that sees if any of the incoming links are from bad neighborhoods and that check came out clear. I also checked the various data centers google keeps and they all looked like they were consistent.

Maybe its because of the amount of incoming links now that I am in DMOZ. Many websites out their skim data from the ODP and repost it on their site. Maybe google saw this as too many new links too fast. So they thought it was link spam. My site is registered with google web master and they had no warning messages for me. I have also posted on a few boards with no concrete answers.

– Five days later my site was back on the first page of the SERPS. I had removed a couple of off topic links and took off an old 3000gt webring that had been on there for over 7 years. The site was not re-indexed by google. However it returned to its original position. Was it human intervention or just a spider glitch?!?

According to Seattle news columnist, Ion Zwitter. Microsoft Corp. has declined comment on the embarrassing revelation that the new Windows Vista “startup chime”, the musical vignette that is played to calm and distract users while waiting on the operating system to complete the boot up process, was created exclusively on Apple computer systems. The controversial tidbit was reportedly slipped during an off-the-record interview of a composer on the twenty member team that worked for over a year to create the harmonic tidbit.

During an annual trade show and conference for professional composers, Jacob Nutley, in response to a question on musical software, posed during ClefWeek 2007, who assisted during the Vista music production, said, “I’m generally most comfortable working with a Macintosh, normally on Encore or Sibelius. They’re available for PC systems, but I need a stable operating environment to avoid distraction, particularly when working on long-term projects like the Vista startup theme.”

When pressed, Mr. Nutley admitted that the entire Windows Vista composition team
continue reading "Windows Vista Startup Music Designed on Macs"

Gardner group says that Apple’s Q1 US sales are up 32.5% from Q1 last year. Many are saying that companies that allow its employees to utilize their own computers for word are choosing to buy and use Macs.

Not only is aggressively moving forward with the iPhone, but the new sexy Air powerbook demonstrates that apple is still the leader in innovation and curb appeal. And as much as Apple makes from iPods and iPhones they still make the real cash from
continue reading "Apple’s Q1 Sales are up."

LifeLock has been sued by Experian , who is one of the big three American credit bureaus. Experian is alleging that the service provided by LifeLock violates the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act passed by Congress in 2003. The FACT Act states a fraud alert can be placed “by a consumer, or an individual acting on behalf of or as a personal representative of a consumer, who asserts in good faith a suspicion that the consumer has been or is about to become a victim of identity theft.”

Experian is alleging that LifeLock’s Identity Theft Protection Service has no right to place fraud alerts on behalf of consumers as they are not an individual. Furthermore, they allege that Life Locks perpetual renewing of the fraud alert and in some cases their initial placing of the fraud alert violates the condition that a reasonable suspicion of being or becoming an identity theft victim must exist.

LifeLock CEO Todd Davis called the lawsuit baseless and felt that Experian was reacting to Lifelock’s success in penetrating their market and challenging their business model. I am sure Experian is also upset at the increased labor to handle all the requests by LifeLock’s alerts. Some ID Theft companies Trusted ID for one are now are getting power of attorney to get around this issue.

continue reading "Experian Credit Bureau sues LifeLock Identity Theft Protection service."

Even though its only six months old, the Apple iPhone is a major player in mobile Web consumption, while traditional smartphone users remain focused primarily on e-mail and messaging.

According to the M:Metrics January Benchmark Survey 85 percent of iPhone users accessed online information that month, compared with 58.2 percent of the wider smartphone market.

Nearly 60 percent of iPhone users conducted online searches, with only 37 percent of smartphone users accessing Web search.

While demographics of the two user groups might be similar, the results show that iPhone owners want more online entertainment and social engagement than users of the BlackBerry and other smartphones. This is why you will find more “cool” “non-boring” people using the iPhone. Also the reason I think it will be more popular.

continue reading "BlackBerry users less active than iPhone users."