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About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Coming soon: Everything Must Go

The next edition of "Everything Must Go" will be appearing here soon. --Paul

Friday, May 02, 2003

More bad news from Apple
It's astonishing how Apple releases bad news. In January, CEO Steve Jobs was still talking about the "other 95 percent" in his MacWorld keynote address despite the fact that he knew by that time that Apple's market share had actually fallen to under 2 percent in Q4 2001 and would only rebound slightly (to 2.01 percent) in Q1 2003. This week, we have an unbelievable set of concessions from Ron Johnson, Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail, who admitted the following to a Merrill Lynch analyst: Apple will close retail stores that aren't profitable in the foreseeable future (ala Gateway), Apple will not open any international retail stores unless its US stores make a profit, and Apple hopes to have one profitable quarter for its retail stores by late 2003. These comments stand in sharp contrast to the solely positive news the company had previously released about its stores, similar to the way its touted its Switch campaign, despite the fact that the company has lost market share since that campaign began. Speaking of which, here's another amazing factoid: In a bid to boost the perception that the Switch campaign is working, Apple considers people who have never used a PC switchers, in addition to people who previously used Windows. That's deceptive at best.

[ Posted at 8:46 PM | Permalink ]

New Dell arrives
Well, that was quick. I ordered it Sunday, and it arrived Friday. Dell rocks.

[ Posted at 2:45 PM | Permalink ]

Firebird database project wins naming spat with Mozilla.org
And good for them. The Firebird naming project issued a statement in which it says it accepts Mozilla.org's concessions on the Firebird name. These concessions came, interestingly, after the Firebird database project consulted with laywers and decided to pursue a lawsuit. So much for all the "AOL has it covered" arguments from the Mozilla.org sissies. Again, those people should be embarassed and, at the very least, be forced to issue a public apology. This event, combined with the superiority of Apple's Safari browser, has inspired me to give up on Mozilla.org technology, though I'll still follow its development. But I'm dropping the Mozilla browser from daily use. They've lost me.

[ Posted at 11:05 AM | Permalink ]

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

iTunes for Windows
Apple wasn't very clear about exactly how it intended to bring the iTunes Music Library to Windows users by the end of 2003, but this job posting on monster.com sets the record straight: The company will indeed create a Windows-specific version of iTunes, which is excellent. Apple Computer is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to design and build one of our newest Consumer Applications, iTunes for Windows. Must be possess strong skills in the areas of application design, solid API design principles, user interface engineering, and have a strong understanding of customer and workflow issues. Experience with Windows logo certification preferred. Candidate should have a history of successful large volume consumer product shipment. A B.S. or better in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science is preferred. Required skills include C, C++, UI, MFC, Win32, COM, DirectX, Installshield and application engineering. Exposure to networking and device drivers a plus. Minimum of 10 years of directly related experience. If it isn't obvious, the Windows Digital Media folks at Microsoft should stand up and take notice of this development: If iTunes for Windows is a clone of its Mac brethren, Windows Media Player is in big trouble.

[ Posted at 1:21 AM | Permalink ]

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Apple's market share
I was the first to report that Apple's market share in the first quarter 2003 was barely above 2 percent ("the company accounted for just 2.05 percent of PC shipments [in the quarter]"), and this report from the Boston Globe today confirms that figure using IDC numbers. "Apple shipped only 1.9 percent of all computers in the fourth quarter of 2002, an all-time low, before improving to 2.1 percent in the first quarter, according to International Data Corp., a Framingham-based market research firm. For all of 2002, Apple sold just 2.3 percent of personal computers purchased worldwide, said IDC."

[ Posted at 9:31 PM | Permalink ]

iTunes 4 - the day after
Over the past 24 hours, I've used iTunes 4 extensively, purchased a bunch of music online at the iTunes Music Store, copied purchased music between my iMac and iBook, manually dragged over album art from Amazon.com with Safari, and am now burning data DVD backups of my entire music library, which could take a while. So I feel as reasonably sure as one can this close to the product's introduction that I have a handle on how well it works. The good news is that iTunes is 4 is indeed excellent, and it's still my favorite all-around media player. The bad news is that iTunes 4 is getting more complicated as Apple adds features, and there is still a bunch of missing functionality. By complicated I'm referring to the suddenly huge selection of nearly indiscernable buttons that grace iTune's UI (ala Windows Media Player 9 Series on XP), including "Add Playlist," "Shuffle," "Repeat," "Show Album Art," "Show Equalizer," "Show Visualizations," and "Eject," but also the many hidden features, like Show Browser (which opens a weird new column view), and the weird new browser-like UI that pops up inside of iTunes when you view the Music Store (again, ala WMP 9, though the iTunes version doesn't support Safari's keyboard navigation shortcuts, which stinks): This UI includes a weird beveled toolbar with Back, Forward, Home, and Logon buttons, as well as a bunch of other associated controls, such as Search and Browse. The point here is that as iTunes gets more powerful (and therefore answers many of my complaints), it's also becoming less elegant and more complex, which raises new complaints, naturally. Anyone who has been using iTunes all along should have no problem picking up the new features, but people who start using iTunes now will suddenly find themselves confronted with a very complex piece of software, and that's too bad. As with WMP 9, I feel that there should be some way to turn off the advanced features (and associated UI) or, even better, make those features invisible until a power user turns them on.

[ Posted at 7:07 PM | Permalink ]

Gartner jumps on the Linux Myths bandwagon
To be clear, I hate Gartner and everything it stands for (whatever that might be; I think that's the problem). But an interesting Gartner report this week says what I've basically been saying all along: Despite amazing progress over the years, Linux isn't ready for the desktop and might never be ready. Some of the myths they debunk include "Linux [is] less expensive than Windows," "Linux is free," and "Linux requires significantly less labor to manage [than Windows]." Good stuff, though I've written about this numerous times in various places over the past three years.

[ Posted at 10:41 AM | Permalink ]

Apple launches new music service
Apple's new music service is excellent, as is iTunes 4.0 and, presumably, the new iPods, though I've not seen one up close yet. The music service--creatively dubbed iTunes Music Service--lets you browse through a suprisingly small list of 200,000 songs from a variety of artists on all of the five major record labels, buy songs for 99 cents each, and buy albums for $10 or so (some are a few bucks more). The songs--encoded in protected AAC format at 128 Kbps--sound great and I was able to transfer them between two Macs and an iPod; tomorrow, I'll test CD burning and how well that sounds. But I hope this service takes off: Apple got it right this time. Apple iTunes 4 looks nice, offering features like album art and song combining, but only on new rips: If you already have a library of music, as I do, you can't combine songs at all or automatically grab album art. Still, it's a nice update.

[ Posted at 1:08 AM | Permalink ]

Mozilla backs down on Firebird name
Those babies over at mozilla.org have finally admitted they were wrong to steal the name Firebird--well, they actually haven't admitted anything--and will only be using Firebird as a codename. So now, it's "Mozilla Firebird." And when Firebird is actually released, it will be called Mozilla Browser. See, it was all just a big misunderstanding (ahem) and I guess we can just all forget about that little trademark nonsense. Now I'd like to see some of the more petty Mozillians prepare an actual apology. Come on, you can do it.

[ Posted at 1:05 AM | Permalink ]

Sunday, April 27, 2003

New Dell on the way
My year-old Dell Dimension 4400 (1.8 GHz) desktop is about to be replaced, and in a classic way, the new computer is going to be just as cheap as the old one. Last March, I bought the 4400 for just $400. Today, I ordered its replacement, a 2.66 GHz Dell Dimension 4550, for just $385. The new one includes an integrated NIC, which the old one didn't have, and 6 USB 2.0 ports (the old one had 4 USB 1.1 ports). Combined with the processor upgrade and the newer 533 MHz bus, that's a steal. Good times.

[ Posted at 8:23 PM | Permalink ]