Gerard’s CC:World

Every once and a while, a new operating system comes out. Apple seems to be on an 18 to 24 month life-cycle for MacOS X, Microsoft seems to be more at the 24-36+ months (if you also consider the major service packs), and some Linux distributions come out every 6 months. The hot topic is currently “to upgrade or not to upgrade” to Windows Visa, Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating systems. Shortly, the followers of the Apple cult will have the opportunity to get their favorite computers running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. In this blog posting, I look at the flip-side of the software world when it comes to an Operating System upgrade, e.g. the perspective of the company / people who create the applications (often qualified as ISV or Independent Software Vendor). And I’ll stay as far away as possible from the Web 2.0 discussion in this entry.

Technorati Tags: macos, opinion, software, windows

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So, it’s finally been announced: the Apple iPhone! What a cool looking device. The user interface looks absolutely beautiful, and the whole user experience appears to be as good as you would expect from Apple Inc. OK, the iPhone won’t be available until this summer in the USA (no words about Canada) and this fall in Europe, but based on what has been shown so far, I don’t expect to buy an Apple iPhone when available…

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod, opinion, hardware, telecom

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Have you noticed that more and more small devices get charged through a simple USB connection… to name a few of those I have: the Blackberry, the Netgear Skype-phone, the iPod, point-and-shoot cameras, the Palm TX (with a special USB cable that Palm doesn’t provide). This is really great, except when you run out of USB ports on your laptop while travelling!
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I finally gave up the fight and got a BlackBerry. After using it for a few week, I have this love and hate relation with it. But at the end of the day, I am, for the time being at least, able to keep up with my inbox, especially when travelling, without needing to spend my night connected.

Yes, I am now one of the millions of users who happily type on this tiny keyboard - I have the 7100 model - any time I have to wait somewhere. Really adictive this little device. It is definitely not as good as a Palm OS device for an all purpose PDA, but as a mobile email client, it rocks. And the integration with the corporate email really works great, including global address book lookup and folder support (see my blog entry about the Palm TX) as well as syncing of calendar, tasks and notes.
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