Adverse Apple Articles
As part of my research into AAPL vs AMZN Performance Madness, I noticed a lot of negative press on AAPL’s share price. So I decided to wait until after the election, then sample the press again to see whether it was a blip or a trend.
In short, the evidence points to a concerted effort to create a negative impression of Apple and push the stock price down. Lets take a look, shall we.
Multiple Themes in Sublime Text 2
One thing I like to do is to have different themes for different file types in my text editor. That way, at a glance, I can guess what kind of file a text-filled window contains, especially when zoomed out using Mission Control. I’ve been using Custom Language Preferences in BBEdit preferences to set up the color scheme for each file type there. TextMate 2 users, check out Multiple Themes in TextMate 2.
Rarely Microsoft Office
I rarely use Microsoft Office. There, I said it. And it’s true. There are electronic cobwebs on my copy. You may now run out of the room screaming.
For many, this is like saying I rarely bathe. I rarely use Microsoft Office because I have absolutely no reason to use it except for two specific cases.
Email, not Outlook
There are several reasons why I don’t use Outlook for email:
Managing the Productivity Context
Productivity is doing less stuff to get more stuff done. Managing its context is the key to becoming more productive. Here is a framework to establish and manage your productivity context to maximize your productivity when using your computer, based on what I have been doing to manage my own on my Mac. Hang in there, this is a long one.
Reducing Inboxes
We’ve all heard about Inbox Zero, where you try to reclaim your email, your attention and your life by clearing out your email inbox. I needed to reduce the number of inboxes first.
Those of us who have been on the Internet for decades have amassed a large number of email addresses on a variety of services. As time passed, and new services emerged, we added more. Most of us are loathe to close any of these addresses down just in case we get an email there. Which means setting them up every time we set up a new device, and checking them regularly. That is not productive!
Surface Disk Free Space
Yikes! A 32GB Microsoft Surface RT has only 16GB free according to the Microsoft Surface FAQ. Thats 16GB for the Operating System! 5GB of that is recovery tools which could be on the net, but instead chews up expensive internal flash memory! This bloat explains the pricing and performance issues with the device. Arguably, you can expand the Surface (and Android devices) with up to 64GB more disk space using a single SD card, but that I/O is pretty slow compared to the built-in flash memory.
AAPL vs AMZN Performance Madness
Philip Elmer-DeWitt noted something interesting on Saturday in Fortune magazine, Amazon’s price-to-earnings ratio is now 2,767. Apple’s is 13! In the last quarter, Apple’s earnings were up and the stock went down, whereas Amazon reported a loss and the stock went up.
When a company reports bumper earnings, I assume its stock price should rise, and when a company takes a loss, the stock price should fall. After all, the stock price is really the public valuation of the company. So this response to earnings makes no sense to me. I decided to investigate this madness to see if there are any other rational indicators that explain it. Instead, I found support for my thesis, and no answer to why this is happening.
Surface RT is not a Duck
What is a duck? Well, if it looks like a duck, floats like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. The just-released Microsoft Surface RT fails the duck test, it looks like a tablet, but it is not a tablet. Windows 8 RT also fails the duck test, it looks like Windows 8, but it is not Windows 8.
For the record, I have used the real proper Windows 8 on a Samsung tablet before, so my impressions of the Surface and Windows RT are based on that experience.
Marco and the Surface
Marco Arment, of Instapaper and The Magazine fame, went to a Microsoft Store yesterday to try out the new Surface and wrote about the experience in his blog in An alternate universe. Go read it. I’ll wait.
I’m sad to say but I think I may have to agree with his conclusion:
But it’s not for me at all. Not even for testing, experimenting, or curiosity. It feels too much like using a Windows PC, which was exactly Microsoft’s intention, and it will appeal to people who want that. But that’s a world I fled 8 years ago with no intention of returning.