The rise and fall of Shack, and how to fix it
Wired has a nostalgic piece on the not-quite-late, not-quite-great Radio Shack. I think it's a good article, but it glosses over part of the reason for the store's decline. It blames computers. The...
View ArticleA snapshot in history of Gates and Microsoft, 1992
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire is a 1992 autobiography of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. It’s old. But it’s a compelling snapshot of what the industry thought of Gates...
View ArticleMilestone! I’ve been pirated!
In searching for the abstract of my book, I found more than I expected: What appeared to be a pirated PDF copy of the book in its entirety. What’s worse is that it appeared #1 in Google’s search....
View ArticleLenovo and IBM look back at IBM’s PC exit
The Register reports that Lenovo is gloating over its purchase of IBM’s PC division and its turnaround efforts, while IBM doesn’t regret pulling out, at all, even going so far as to call the PC dead....
View ArticleLessons of the HP Touchpad
At full price ($499 for the 16 GB model and $599 for the 32 GB model) the HP Touchpad was a colossal flop. Like AT&T’s first PC clones of the mid 1980s, it was a me-too product at a me-too The post...
View ArticleThe trouble with Dell
Note: I wrote this in mid-2010 and, for whatever reason, never posted it. I found it this week. Although the information in it is no longer fresh and new, it’s still useful, so for that reason, I’m...
View ArticleA penny-book author’s take on secondhand sales, physical and digital
There was talk on Slashdot on Friday about reselling digital media, and typical sky-is-falling predictions saying that secondhand sales will drive down prices and drive artists out of business. “Look!”...
View ArticleHow Ives-branded track clips ended up in Lionel sets
Ives-branded track clips for Lionel O27 track are relatively common, and although they are often mistaken for pre-1933 items, they were actually manufactured for several decades after the Ives brand...
View ArticleIdentify bad guys through writing style
This month’s Social Engineer podcast discussed a tactic to identify bad guys through writing style, something the hosts expressed surprise was possible. This won’t be news to anyone who minored in...
View ArticleWhy Bowman sold out to Topps, or how Topps bought Bowman
Virtually every schoolboy who is interested in baseball cards knows the story of how Topps bought Bowman. After World War II, Bowman was the leading brand of baseball card, or, at least from 1948 until...
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