I’ve never seen this properly studied, and only rarely taken into account by software developers: the opportunity cost of committing to one service or program over another. In a word: Why is it software that’s in charge, not the data itself? An obvious one is Twitter vs Jaiku. Which one to embrace? Jaiku actually has… Read More »
Why is everyone switching to the likes of Gmail and Google Reader, even when they aren’t sure why, or that they want to? The most compelling reason, I think, is the ease with which you can get up and running if you need to switch. Your computer crashes, or you’re away from it. Or you’ve… Read More »
I was reading an exchange on a mailing list for a piece of software the other day, where after years of honing the program the developer suddenly faced a mutiny from some of his greatest supporters when it came down to pricing. So I wondered: Just how much are we prepared to pay for software?… Read More »
A few readers have asked how to convert Word documents created in the new Microsoft Open Office XML Format with the docx extension so they can read them on a Mac. The answer: awkwardly. Windows users have a converter they can download. The Microsoft Mac team promised something similar back in December and yet haven’t,… Read More »
Until recently I’ve tended to recommend YouSendIt for folk who want to send large files to each other. But not anymore. I found myself inundated with two full-page casino pop-ups and those awful bouncing ‘alerts’ when I had to download a file just now, which doesn’t impress me. In fact I noticed that I was… Read More »