This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “What is that?” Here is my entry.

The caption when you hover your mouse over the picture might be a bit of a give-away, but it’s not entirely obvious what it’s a picture of, so I think it fits the theme. It was taken in Cuba.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Misty.” I’m entry 196 (–> Stephen <–).

• Afghan Student Sentenced to Death After Downloading Report – Good to see that the invasion of Afghanistan has resulted in more freedom for the locals…
• Forget passports – teachers and kids are the new ID card targets – Despite the loss of personal data and despite the fact that they will not (and cannot) do what the Government says they will, the ID Card scheme is still not completely dead.
• The True Cost of SMS Messages – “How come technology, communication, and infrastructure is getting cheaper while the costs of SMS messages are increasing exponentially? My theory: SMS messages are transfered over air made of solid gold.”

So Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo. I’ll leave the detailed analysis to people better qualified than myself but I thought that I could add a little perspective simply by looking back and remembering something that happened less than ten years ago.

As you can no doubt guess from the title, the event that springs to my mind is the merger of HP and Compaq. The main problem with HPaq at the time was that merging HP’s loss-making PC business with Compaq’s loss-making PC business just wasn’t a good idea. Fiorina pushed the whole MBA line of thinking: being the biggest player will allow greater economies of scale, lower prices and more profit. Unfortunately, two big losses merged tends to make a big loss also, albeit perhaps smaller than the old combined total¹.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Misty.” Here is my entry.

This picture was taken in Norway, just outside Oslo near the huge, scary ski jump. This is maybe more foggy than misty but you get the idea. Also, while this was taken on black and white film, there really wasn’t much more colour than this!

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “The Machine.” I’m entry number 207.

• Fifty years of LEGO – Best. Toy. Ever. And still going strong.
• Polish IT worker calculates exact speed of snail mail – Apparently snail mail is actually slower than a snail.
• For those who thought that the MacBook Air had no use… – It’s odd that Steve Jobs didn’t mention any of these uses though.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “The Machine.” Here is my entry.

Clearly this is a bulldozer, a machine. What makes this the machine is that it was used in the battle of Santa Clara by Che Guevara’s victorious soldiers. Obviously this picture was taken in Cuba.

When was the last time that you came across a printer with only a parallel port? Have you ever used one of those two serial ports on the back of your PC?

Personally I don’t think I’ve used a parallel port for over five years and I don’t recall ever having used a serial port despite using computers for over twenty years. So why do many PC manufacturers still include them on new PCs? Would they not be better using the same space for more USB ports, a Firewire socket or even to save a few pounds by simply not including it?

My first reaction was to hate it.

Actually, no. My first reaction was what a cute, almost-square book. My second was to hate it. It’s only a few pages into it and Levy is already discussing his great taste in music and disparaging mine (“… a pathetic Pet Shop Boys tune, the sort of thing that Nick Hornby would listen to on a bad day.”)

It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. But — step back — what was I expecting? Well, the blurb on the back tells you that you can learn how the iPod became the defining object of the 21st century. Having read most of Steven Levy‘s previous books, the obvious point of comparison was “Insanely Great,” the story of the Macintosh. But while the Mac took several years to put together, the iPod took only around six months. In hindsight maybe it’s pretty obvious that it’s not all the trials and tribulations of putting the machine together.

• Are You Better Off than You Were 2,000 Years Ago? – The next president of the United States of America? If only…
• Apple unveil iNvisible iBook – Even more Apple announcements this week. Kind of.
• How to Spot Arial – I never realised that Arial and Helvetica were so different!

• Apple introduces new Apple TV software, lowers hardware pricing – Now potentially more useful with the movie rentals. But where is the price drop in the UK?!
• Dell tells customer ‘Mac is good option’ – “Now, it’s possible that the techie was referring to a 1970s rock band, or to an item of waterproof clothing. But we can’t help concluding that he was indeed talking about Apple’s operating system.”
• Steve Jobs gets cohesive – Some cool stuff from Apple at the MacExpo. I think the Time Capsule is going to be on my shopping list when it ships next month. The movie rentals (when they get to the UK) look interesting but they really need to build their catalogue!
• How to recognise a good programmer – Great discussion on recognising great developers. The problem would seem to be finding them! Most recruiters just pattern match on CVs which tends to favour the “career” developer.