Happy New Year, part II

It's New Year's Day. Have you remembered to change the copyright dates on all your sites? Or to put it another way: damn, I love ssi's.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our readers from all of us here: Tom, Dori, Sean, and Pixel the Cat. May this new year of 2005 be a good one for us all!

The 2004 MDJ Power 25

On this last day of the year, the 2004 MDJ Power 25 was (finally) announced. Follow that link to see who ranked where, or sign up for a trial subscription to get the full story behind the list.

I have my own measure as to how much power I have in this biz (because I ain't never getting in the Power 250, much less 25), which is how many of my votes and quotes get into the full article. This year was my best ever—I'm five for five. I guess I'm getting better at pithy sound bites.

I should probably also state that while three of my five votes went to people whose companies have bought my writing in the past (and two of whom I owe work at this very moment), that doesn't influence who I vote for in any way, shape, or form. I don't vote based on trying to suck up to anyone. If I did, I'd probably be voting for the lower-level people who actually contract with me to do the work, not the people at the top of the companies. But they're the ones making the big-picture decisions (for the most part), so they're the ones who get my vote.

For reference, here's links to the 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 lists. My favorite bit of the 2004 list, unsurprisingly, is that while the 2000, 2001, and 2003 lists had no women, and the 2002 list had a single woman, the 2004 list has two. We're moving up now! (no sarcasm whatsoever there, btw).

When's Longhorn due again?

At tonight's Geek Dinner, I mentioned having made this post about two years ago, and got a general round of, "You're joking, right?" Nope, no joke—look it up yourself.

Which is why I was bugging Robert to tell me when Longhorn was going to ship. Not because I care about Longhorn, but because I want to know when to get my bet into the follow-up pool.

Later note: I shouldn't let things like this piss me off, but they do. Look at the picture in that link. The original had five women. The version on the site has four. Guess who didn't make the cut? (hint: the answer isn't "But you were out of frame" when the photogs were asked repeatedly, "Do I need to move to be in the picture?").

Geek Dinner, etc.

Tonight's plan: Geek Dinner and Geek Dinner Afterparty. That's assuming the traffic and weather are in my favor, of course. See you there?

The GOP is the Party of Corruption

Let's not ever think that the Republicans in power in Congress are slowed down by foolish concerns like, say, ethical behavior. A few weeks back, the House Ethics Committee made some ineffectual slaps at the conduct of Tom DeLay, surely one of the most corrupt congresscritters ever to ooze the halls of Capitol Hill. He immediately crowed that the panel hadn't laid a finger on him. Now, The New York Times says G.O.P. to Make Ethics Inquiries Harder to Begin.

In the wake of back-to-back ethics slaps at the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations and could remove the Republican chairman [Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado] who presided over the admonishments of Mr. DeLay last fall.

"The removal of Representative Hefley would constitute a declaration of war against ethics in the House," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a possible replacement for Mr. Hefley would be Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and a former member of the panel. Mr. Smith this year contributed $5,000 from his campaign account to Mr. DeLay's legal defense.

So there you have it. The GOP leadership wants to institutionalize their corrupt behavior, and will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to protect DeLay, their capo di tutti capi.

My opinion on the "iCheap"

There's been lots of hoohah in the Mac/Weblog world today about the Think Secret rumor of a sub-$500 Mac to be announced at Macworld Expo. So hey, I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

Is it true or not? I have no idea. But imagine this scenario for a minute:

Prospective Mac purchaser (PMP) walks into an Apple store and says, "Hey, I hear that Apple just shipped an inexpensive Mac. I've been thinking about getting a Mac for a while (I do love my iPod), and now that the price has dropped, I'd like to see one."

Sales staff (SS): "Yes, we do have the new Mac, and it's only $499!"

PMP: "It needs a monitor, too, right? That's not included?"

SS: "That's correct. Here's our low-end monitor, our 20" Cinema Display, for only $1299."

PMP: "You want me to spend 2 1/2 times as much on the monitor as I do on the Mac itself? Are you insane?" and stomps off.

Or in other words, I just don't see it. Something's missing. Apple likes to sell soup-to-nuts solutions, and pairing a $499 computer with a $1299 monitor ain't it.

Debunking Paul Thurrott

Scoble pointed to my post below on John Dvorak's two sentences, and then pointed to Paul Thurrott's claim that Dvorak was right. I'm busy today, so I said to myself, how fast can I skim Thurrott's piece and find a simple factual error?

Answer: pretty darn fast. Here he is, comparing his current Wintel laptop a Powerbook:

What separates this from the PowerBook, really, are the options. They're everywhere. Buttons that you can use to control playback of DVDs when you're not in Windows. Slots for memory cards and a cool little remote control nestled in the PC card slot for when you need it (there's no PC card slot on the Mac, naturally).

Huh. Funny. My Powerbook has a PC card slot. And while my Mac didn't come with a remote control, my cell phone does double-duty as a remote just fine. And that works better for me, anyway, because my PC card slot is filled with my CF card adapter.

If what matters to you is cheap, fine. Go buy cheap. No one's stopping you, and I'm not one of those Mac zealots who thinks that the Mac is the right idea for everyone. But don't claim that the Mac can't do things just because some Macs can't do them, or that Macs have decreasing market share when the link you're using shows their share increasing, or any of the other 50 usual crappy excuses the pundits are giving again and again.

If you're going to bash the Mac, at least come up with something correct. Original would be nice, but truth is where you have to start if you want me to take you seriously.

Got money?

Sometimes I use this blog to recommend ways that you can save money. Today, it's ways that you can spend money:

• Coldwater Creek, one of my favorite clothing and accessory stores, is having a sale if you purchase through their online store: 50% off everything, from now through Thursday midnight ET. Just be careful while you're buying; I found items disappearing from my cart because they sold out of the item while I was shopping.
• Last Minute Auctions has an up-to-the-minute list of items that are about to be sold on eBay in 60 minutes or less, for $1 or less. it looks like a good way to blow through a lot of money in just a few minutes. Keep an eye out for shipping charges!

Just remember: no matter how much money you're spending at both of these sites, you're saving a lot, too. Right? Right?

More Crap From Dvorak

I thought about doing a detailed rebuttal about John Dvorak's latest turd, Grim Macintosh Market Share Forebodes Crisis, but I couldn't get past the second sentence before I realized that a thorough debunking would take more time than I have. So, herewith, I'll debunk just the first two sentences:

The Mac platform is essentially stagnant.

Compared to what? Longhorn, which hasn't shipped yet? Or Windows XP, which came out several years ago?

That becomes obvious when you look at the declining market share numbers—not from research firms, but from the W3C, which monitors online activity.

Ah, he's talking about market share, not the OS itself. Nice to have that cleared up.

But wait? The W3C puts out OS market share numbers? The highly-regarded World Wide Web Consortium, run by Sir Tim Berners Lee?

Nope, Dvorak's talking about an entirely different, unrelated "W3C"—or more accurately, W3 Schools, an online "e-learning portal." W3 Schools is a online, ad-based reference and tutorial site. And yes, they have some current statistics that cover browser usage, operating systems and screen resolution. But the W3C it ain't.

Oh, and those statistics? They show that the number of Mac users online (or at least visiting the W3 Schools site) has gone from 1.8% in March 2003 to 2.3% in December 2003 to 2.7% in December 2004. But noting that the number is increasing would completely destroy Dvorak's premise, so he doesn't mention it.

I'm shocked, shocked!

Macworld Expo Hotel Deals

Macworld Expo is less than two weeks away, and normally you'd be hearing around now about various Priceline deals at hotels near Moscone. Not this year: if you check out the hotels section of the Web site, you'll see that three of the more popular hotels (including our fave) are already booked solid. And the Marriot, where many of those deals were found in previous years, is one of them.

Dunno if that says anything about the popularity of the show itself, but if you're planning on going but were waiting until the last minute to make your room reservations, you may have waited too long.

Euros Up, Dollars Down

Swell. Even drug dealers are giving up on the dollar. It turns out that euros are quickly becoming a more attractive currency for many people, on both the legal and not-so-much side of the law. This can't be a good thing for the US, and it will only get worse, as it is not at all likely that economic sense or sanity will break out in the second Bush administration.

Earthquake!

For the locals: yes, that was an earthquake you felt at 2:36 am today. The details can be found here. Executive summary: 4.3 magnitude (little baby quake) centered near Anderson Springs. That's right near here, so we felt a very strong jolt.

Geek Dinner this week?

Scoble's in San Francisco this week, and he's writing about "a geek dinner. Thursday night. At the Cheesecake Factory in Union Square. 6 p.m." I'm strongly considering going; about the only reason to skip it is that I have to be in SF on Wednesday, and it's a pain to drive that twice in two days.

Later note: according to Scoble, the time and date are definite, but the location is not. Keep an eye on his blog for the final word on the restaurant. And if you have an opinion as to where it could be, please chime in over there.

REALBasic kicks ass

As many of you know, IANAP (I Am Not A Programmer; Dori is the programmer in the family), but I've known for a long time what Bob Cringely says in his latest column: that REALBasic is a terrific programming environment. It's easy for experienced programmers to learn and use, and applications created on it are deployable on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Beginning programmers can get up to speed relatively quickly, too. If you're a programmer and haven't checked it out yet, you should give it a shot.