Matt Whitlock's blog

Black Friday is Almost Here - Are You Ready?

We're but mere days away from our turkey feasts, and that can only mean one thing - Black Friday, the kickoff of the holiday buying season and craziest retail shopping day of the year, is almost upon us.

Given the current economy, it couldn't come quicker. If your budget for Christmas gifts has shrunk along with your 401k, then it may be a good idea to take advantage of the deep discounts and great in-store sales while you can. 

If you're looking to shop the door busters on Black Friday, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of your local newspaper tomorrow and Thursday to get all the store fliers. Start circling the products you're interested in and planning your strategy.

Matt's Tech Law #4 - Cure Yourself of iSyndrome Before It's Too Late

Over the last year, I've watched several friends develop severe cases of what I'm calling 'iSyndrome.' Not sure what that is? It's a disease... a terrible, awful illness with the horrible side-effect of making everyone you know hate you. Sounds serious doesn't it?

iSyndrome targets a small, but rapidly growing segment of the population - iPhone owners. If you or someone you know owns an iPhone, listen up.

Letter to Apple: Way to Stick It to iPhone Developers

Apple's business model is built on strict control of their products, both hardware and software based. It's the reason why the iPod is so tightly integrated to iTunes, and why you can't install their OS on whatever computer platform you wish (though there's a company called Psystar that's pushing those limits right now).

However, Apple's rediculous, unfair actions against Podcaster is making me wonder why they bothered opening up the iPhone to developers in the first place. 

Managing Your Bookmarks

Question:

Is it possible to export/import/transfer Favorite bookmarks from Internet Explorer to Firefox?

-submitted by Pappy

Answer:

In may almost seem like an afterthought, but after years of web surfing, the bookmarks we accumulate become invaluable. In my browser, I have at least 50 different bookmarks that I seriously doubt I could find again should they ever be lost. Moreover, as browser preferences change (or if you're commonly surfing from several different browsers), it's often handy to have all your bookmarks move around with you.

Convoluted Family Tree of Telecommunication Companies

I understand the reasoning behind the Feds decision to breakup the AT&T monopoly, and on January 1st of 1984, AT&T's local operations split into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (you've heard the term 'baby bell' right?).

Since then, the telecom industry has slowly been playing a game of renaming, mergers, partnerships, and takeovers. In fact, what was left of AT&T after the breakup and a failed business segway into computer systems, ended up getting purchased by one of their own spin-offs.

Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' Ads Fuel the PC vs. Mac Debate

In the blogosphere, on YouTube, and anywhere else PC and Mac users share the same space you'll see and endless barrage of "mine is better than yours" posts from those who claim to be Mac or PC.

In recent weeks, Microsoft has kicked off an aggressive marketing campaign intended to change user perception about Windows, and Microsoft in general. Apple has been dominating the advertising wars over the last few years, and their long running PC Guy and Mac Guy skits have been seen by almost everyone at this point. Microsoft is now firing back, and we've seen three distinct flavors of perception changing, debate raging campaigns come out of Microsoft.

The Mojave Experiments

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