Microsoft Turns Inward to Face the Future

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“In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often ...

Apple Stealth Markets MobileMe to PC Users

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Windows XP and Vista users who update to iTunes 7.7 — the version required to access the App Store — receive a complimentary control panel applet for Apple’s MobileMe online sync and storage service, and some are not happy about it. ...

Microsoft’s Shifting Strategy in Response to Apple

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AllthingsD republishes a memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to all Microsoft employees detailing an update in their corporate strategy. Ballmer specifically mentions Apple and their recent success:

Apple: In the competition between...

Reformat standard web pages for better iPhone display

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Mobile Safari on the iPhone does an amazing job displaying web pages. However, I find that in the context of viewing some web pages on the go, that this view isn't necessarily the best way to read some pages. For example, even though the iPhone interface is awesome, I don't really want to waste time zooming and messing with a page to read the actual content. I'd rather just load up a page, read my content, and move on. (Of course, the best solution would be if web designers designed alternate "iPhone-optimized" views that would look great on the iPhone, but only a few mainstream sites do this as of the time of this post.)

I discovered back in my Treo days that Google has a page that translates web pages to "mobile-friendly" versions. I find that loading pages using this URL reduces page load time, and makes them easier to read on the iPhone. So, I created a bookmarklet that allows you to take the current page in Mobile Safari...

Use Automator to get podcast enclosures

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I wanted an easy way to download a single enclosure from a podcast feed everyday. I also didn't want to use iTunes, because this download would need to sync with my Palm Centro for an alarm, and iTunes stinks at exporting things. So I used Automator and iCal to do it. I thought I would save someone else the trouble by listing the steps here. This is the feed URL I was interested in: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510101 -- the single enclosure is a daily poem in the form of an MP3 file.

Here are the Automator steps:
  1. Internet » Get Specified URLs (here is where you put the feed URL)
  2. Internet » Get Enclosure URLs from Articles
  3. Internet » Download URLs (specify a folder to save the MP3 to)
That's it! You now have the podcast without using any extra apps. I also have Automator (after a five-second pause) get the new file, rename it to daily poem, and move it to a new folder. It then gets synced to my Palm with the Missing Sync...

Use MobileMe push on iPhone with alternate From address

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This hint is for those who have a primary email address, say a@default.com, and would like to use this email address, but would like the 'push' aspects of their MobileMe account, say a@me.com. It would be useful to be able to send email from a MobileMe account, but have a@default.com show up by default as the From address. This hint is similar tothis previously-posted hint, in that one can set their primary email address to forward a copy to their MobileMe account. However, this previous hint does this, but only by subscribing to their MobileMe account as a standard IMAP account, which would not use push.

For this hint, one also needs an additional Gmail account (which may or may not be the primary email address) -- assume this account is a@gmail.com. and one would need to subscribe to that within the iPhone as well. Under the Mai...

Apple Mac Tablet or iPhone Nano? You Decide

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Since it's inception, I started to question what Apple's next big product release will be. To nobody's surprise it is currently the iPhone 3G. But iPhone aside, I've always anticipated (and hoped and prayed) that Apple's... read more.

Apple Advertises iPhone 3G Speeds and Enterprise Features

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Apple has started advertising the iPhone 3G with a series of television advertisements that highlight new features found in the new iPhone. Three ads have been posted on Apple's website.

The new ads are called Everyone, Unsl...

Developers Chafe Under Apple NDA

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A number of third-party iPhone application developers are unhappy with continuing restrictions imposed under the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) they signed when they joined Apple’s Software Developers Program. ...

Top Five Reasons Why Apple’s Right and Wallstreet is Wrong!

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Wall Street’s reaction to Apple’s traditionally conservative guidance by the brain trust that drives the US equities markets has further convinced me that most of these jokers (and our economy) would be better off if they all just ...