The Tech Night Owl Newsletter — Cutting-Edge Tech Commentary

Newsletter Issue #703

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:00:09 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE So what did Google actually accomplish at the I/O conference? There was no new hardware to speak of, although it appears Samsung will release a "pure Android" version of the flagship Galaxy S4 that's free of bloat and junkware. The 16GB version of the standard S4 leaves you [...]

Newsletter Issue #702

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:38 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE How are software publishers dealing with the problem of enticing customers to buy paid upgrades to their apps? Well, one way is to offer so many compelling new features that you can't afford to pass it by. Another is, of course, to charge for an update required for [...]

Newsletter Issue #701

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 06 May 2013 07:00:25 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE When the CEO of a major tech company says something dumb, you wonder if it's just a misstep, or whether that person is in over his or her head. Consider the recent comments from BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins that tablets aren't profitable. He certainly wasn't the first CEO to [...]

Newsletter Issue #700

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:00:17 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE Has the time for industry conferences at physical locations come and gone? Consider that Apple announced that tickets were available for their annual developer-oriented event, WWDC, and two or three minutes later, the tickets were gone. Well, except for a few offered selectively to additional developers. Of course, [...]

Newsletter Issue #699

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:00:59 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE Although Microsoft did pretty well in quarterly sales and profits for the March quarter, that doesn't mean they are out of the woods. Far from it. Sure, lots of PC makers may have ordered Windows 8, but sales are flagging, and those results were clearly inevitable. Unless Microsoft [...]

Newsletter Issue #698

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:00:55 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE If I ever wondered whether my suggestion to ignore so-called industry analysts was the right approach, this week I became certain. In the wake of reports from IDC and Gartner showing Mac sales for the March quarter either falling by nearly 7.5% or rising by a similar amount, [...]

Newsletter Issue #697

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:00:21 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE So hardly a day passes where my senses aren't assaulted by yet another supremely irritating Microsoft TV ad. Whether it's touting the Surface tablet or Windows 8, I will fast forward the DVR, or press the mute button on my remote if I happen to be watching a [...]

Newsletter Issue #696

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 07:00:44 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE So what's a DDoS and why should you care? Well, it's defined as distributed denial of service attack, which is a way to bring down a Web site by flooding it with loads of unwanted traffic. Servers can only handle so many simultaneous attempts to connect, and too [...]

Newsletter Issue #695

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:00:46 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE So is Android in trouble? Consider that the hottest selling Android devices are made by Samsung. Samsung, in turn, barely mentioned Android in the recent rollout of the Galaxy S4 smartphone. Other than generic hardware improvements, the major new features were apps made by Samsung. So where does [...]

Newsletter Issue #694

Gene Steinberg — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

THIS WEEK'S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE Moving to another country? Well, the issues that might arise when it comes to your tear gear and services was part of the discussion on this weekend's episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE. When I spoke with commentator Kirk McElhearn, Macworld's "iTunes Guy," and the editor of Mac OS X Hints, I asked [...]