Olá Apple

Εδώ και μια πενταετία αρκετοί χρήστες Mac προσπαθούν να φέρουν την Apple πιο κοντά στις, ως επι το πλείστον, παραμελημένες από αυτή χώρες τους. Μέχρι πρότινος χώρες όπως η Ιταλία, η Ρωσία αλλά και η Πορτογαλία παρέμεναν εκτός του δικτύου της Apple. Η Ιταλία απέκτησε το δικό της Apple Store πέρυσι. Φέτος, το Μac OS X Leopard κυκλοφόρησε με πλήρες localisation στα Ρώσικα εντός του διεθνούς retail πακέτου και τώρα η Πορτογαλία αποκτά το πρώτο, δικό της (δικτυακό) κατάστημα Apple, η πρώτη επίσημη παρουσία της εταιρίας στη χώρα --- έστω και μέσω διαδικτύου. Και στα δικά μας.

Robot Guitar ('Someone Kill The Marketing People')

So after the digital pickups now Gibson is releasing an auto-tuning guitar. Great. This does seem like a big deal and I do like it that Gibson is trying to pair modern technology with high quality craftsmanship and vintage design, yet the name, website and associated marketing videos are utterly ridiculous. Do they really think that guitarists are 8 year old retards that would find this kind of promotional material appealing? Ok, they clearly do. Are they? :)
Gibson Robot Guitar
The marketing literature even goes as far as comparing the future value of this limited edition auto-tuning LesPaul to that of a number of legendary guitars including the 1959 Standard; what a sacrilege! The overall presentation goes a long way against maintaining Gibson's respectable image among musicians. Still, when the limited run disappears and this becomes a standard feature of Gibsons I'm sure many people will be happier. I know I would if I had one. Image courtesy of Gibson Guitar Corporation.

Exploring Android: Preliminaries

Android is out and it seems pretty well designed. This is the first of what’s hopefully going to be a series of articles covering Android from cosmix.org. It’s also going to be the least technical in nature as I haven’t had much time to play around with it and also because introductions should rarely be […]

Κόπωση και blogs

Διάβασα πρόσφατα στο metablogging.gr ένα μpost-ερώτηση σχετικά με το εαν παρατηρείται ευρέως ένα φαινόμενο ‘κόπωσης’ στον χώρο των blogs και μου έδωσε την αφορμή για να γράψω κάποιες από τις σκέψεις μου πάνω στο θέμα. Η εκθετική αύξηση του αριθμού των ελληνικών blogs (άνω των 20,000 μέσα σε έναν χρόνο) δίνει μια πρώτη ιδέα σχετικά […]

Dalvik: The new name of Sun's worst nightmares.

An excellent article about Java on Android, Sun's licensing trickery, Google's checkmate the slanted meaning of Openness. A must read. Also read this for a retrospective view of the open sourcing of Java one year ago.

Gizmo Project Woes Redux

Last month I wrote about my woes with the Gizmo Project, up until then one of my VoIP providers of choice. Days after the post was published I was contacted by one of the company’s engineers/support employee who apologised for the PayPal payment issues the company was facing and wanted to find out more about […]