Feeling Grinchy on eBook Readers

He’s a mean one, that Mr. Pogue. He’s a nasty, wasty skunk. His heart is full of unwashed socks and his soul is full of gunk. Right?

Um, no. Although I sometimes disagree with Pogue and his assessment of many consumer electronics products, after observing our own Mobile Gadgeteer’s hands-on Nook video tour, I happen to think he’s probably dead-on with his analysis — the Nook ain’t ready for prime time.

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Kosher Orgy: Save the Deli launch party at Ben’s

For those of you who have been living under a rock the last several years, my friend David Sax has been working diligently on his book Save the Deli, a chronicle of his travels throughout the United States and Canada in his efforts to seek out what remains of our dying Jewish Deli culture.

I was invited to his launch party this evening and I have to say, the man seriously knows how to throw a kosher rumpus — invite Borscht Belt King  and Friar’s Club dean Freddie Roman as master of ceremonies, attempt to feed some of the hungriest fressers in the city with enough cholesterol and saturated fat to kill a rogue elephant, and get Jewish Elvis to entertain the masses. Now THAT my friends is a party.

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Stallracasaurus Rex

While RMS’s hatred of all things proprietary has fueled the FSF’s and GNU’s mission to create Free software alternatives for what seems like eons, the overwhelming desire for interoperability between open and proprietary systems makes his narrow-minded Cretaceous world view ripe for extinction.

As I have said in previous columns, I live as a citizen of two distinct worlds with diametrically opposing software development ideologies — the world of Microsoft, Windows and 3rd-party vendor developed proprietary software and systems, and that of Open Source and Free Software.

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Best Buy: Dress all the sales reps up like Dumbledore!

My colleagues Mary Jo Foley and Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote today about the plans that Microsoft has in place to train retail sales staff at Best Buy how to position PCs with Windows 7 for prospective systems buyers against Apple’s Macintosh systems and of all things, Linux.

This sort of grassroots negative campaigning against the Mac and Linux is really not the way Microsoft should address buyers in the upcoming year and holiday season. Just like negative political campaign advertising and grassroots door to door stomping, it often leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and comes off as completely without class. Worst case, it has even been known to even backfire as a campaign technique. From the perspective of effective sales and marketing tactics, at best I would classify this as bottom feeding.

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Snow Leopard Coulda Been a Contenda

I have said on numerous occasions that Apple has missed the boat when it comes to enterprise adoption. This is sad, really, when you consider how good an operating system Mac OS X really is, in that it is the only UNIX-based OS that really could have had any chance in displacing the status quo of Windows and Microsoft hegemony in large enterprise environments with a “full stack” for end-user acceptance as a desktop OS. Consumers may enjoy its niche status, but In the enterprise, Apple is a “Coulda Been” contender of unfulfilled potential.

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Who is this company and what did you do with the old SONY?

As covered by ZDNet Assistant Editor Andrew Nusca in his Live Blog today, SONY announced the immediate release of two brand new e-Readers, the “Touch” and the “Pocket”, as well as pre-announcing for the holiday season a larger format, 3G wireless-enabled 7-inch “Daily” that will compete with Amazon’s Kindle DX.

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I’m Sorry Dave, I’m Afraid You Can’t Sign That

I spent the better part of my day trying to get Thawte personal email digital signatures to work with GMail and Lotus Notes 8.5. Why does it need to be this hard?

Yesterday I finally had a need to get a personal digital certificate and send somebody a digitally signed email message — I’m working remotely on a project for one of my customers and I needed VPN access into their network. To get the necessary permissions and access, I had to send a digitally signed email to their head of IT security.

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Victor von Frankenstein Never Had to Deal With RMAs

Several months ago I put up a blog post called “Extreme PCs and Homebrewing: Rest In Peace”, which needless to say attracted a great deal of responses on both side of the fence, those that agreed that due to the economy and the factors surrounding the business of homebrewing and component sales, system building is probably in its last days, and others who vehemently oppose the notion that the practice of home-brewing your own computer is going away.

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NJ Dining: The 2009 Feedbag Burger Summit

The First Feedbag Burger Summit, hosted by Citysearch’s Josh Ozersky, was held on July 26, 2009.

Click to view hi-res slideshow

I feel very, very queasy. And I know that God is punishing me. I have proof of this, because the act of punishment, served in Biblical fashion with ketchup, mayonnaise and and pickle slices was witnessed by hundreds of people.

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In Honor of the Deceased, We’ll be Serving Bagels and Rugelach

My laptop’s screen died during 4th of July weekend. I sent it back to HP for warranty repair, but then they wanted either $89.00 to send it back without repair, or $440.00 to replace a $99.00 OEM part due to “Accidental Damage”.

I love the 4th of July. Hot dogs, fireworks, and destroyed LCD screens.

So I’m out food shopping on the 4th of July, when my cell phone rings. It’s my wife.

“Jason…. don’t kill me.”

“What did you do now?”

“I think I killed the laptop”

“What do you mean you killed the laptop?”

“I was using it in the bedroom on my laptop desk, I moved it, and now the screen is all messed up.”

Suffice to say that the stream of obscenities that left my mouth in the middle of the condiment and sauces aisle at King Fung Asian Supermarket made even the most salty of Chinese stock keepers blush. I was royally pissed, and my shopping experience trying to determine which unreadable brand of Taiwanese chili black bean sauce was the best for my purposes was now completely disrupted.

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