This will always be the difference between bloggers and journalists.  You can be a journalist, covering things you’re not especially interested in, and still be a reasonably happy (or extremely happy, for that matter) person.  You have an assignment, you perform that assignment, and then you have personal time that’s all your own.  There’s no down-time for a blogger.  No matter how often you actually write, you’re always observing, thinking, analyzing.  A true blogger is a blogger 24/7.  If you don’t love what you’re blogging about, stop now. It’s not worth the stress.

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Without further ado, I’d like to announce that I have just accepted the role of  Web Director at Harmonix. Harmonix, for those who don’t know, is the game company that developed Rock Band, as well as Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 (plus the cool iPod game Phase, amongst other cool stuff).  I’ll be leading the team responsible for RockBand.com, as well as anything else Harmonix does on the web.

I am thrilled beyond belief to have been offered this opportunity.  Not only does this role truly encompass my extremely diverse range of professional interests, it has also reinvigorated my somewhat dormant loves of both video games and rock music, long buried under the twin pressures of work and raising a family.  Now that I can legitimately play video games in the name of "research," I have no excuse for growing up.

I begin the job on April 14th, at which point you probably won’t hear much from me on this site for a while -initially because I’ll be swamped with getting my head around my new duties, but I will also need to give some serious thought to my personal web presence.  It’s not like I’ve been elected pope or anything, but this is a role that will likely attract a lot of attention.  Rock Band has sold over 1,000,000 copies and, as an employee of Harmonix, I’ll also be working for MTV and Viacom.  While Chausse.org has always been a personal site that "does not represent the opinions of my employer," I’ve never worked for such a high profile employer.  I’d hate for one of my snarky comments to be misinterpreted by the wrong person and end up on the front page of CNET or something.  Anyway, Chausse.org will likely still be here for a good long time, just give me some time to figure out if any changes are in order.

Meanwhile, strap on plastic guitar, fire up your favorite video game system, and rock out.  I’ll see you on RockBand.com.

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I went to the Genius Bar with this problem, and they admitted this problem and had pretty much nothing to offer me, except to let me return the keyboard, if I had my receipt.  Thanks, guys.  I guess the ultra-minimalist keyboard packaging doesn’t give you much room for a “Not actually compatible with all Macs, use at own risk” warning.

Of course, one workaround is to always use “Startup Disk” (or the “Boot Camp” Control Panel option on the Windows side), but a fat lot of good that will do you if you bollox your Windows installation, and can’t even get it to boot (which happened to me, and started this whole adventure).  Another workaround is to grab an old keyboard out of my garage and use that whenever you need to change startup disks.  But I don’t really want you rooting around in my garage.

Anyway, enough cursing the darkness.  Here’s your candle: Somewhere in this thread on the Apple forums, a simple workaround is offered: You can use the Apple Remote to switch boot disks! Just aim at the box, hold down the Menu button while booting, and voila:  Wireless boot disk selecting magic.

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Just a random bunch of recent pix. Enjoy.

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Think back to high school (those of you who actually took typing classes).  What was the “sales pitch” the teacher gave you about “touch typing”? Well, it made you more efficient by stopping you from having to repeatedly move your eyes from the keyboard to the screen (or, er, paper - at least when I was in high school).

Now think about the iPhone.  Where’s the keyboard? Where’s the screen? Your eyes never have to move more than 3 inches to jump between the two.  AND, with the large visual pop-up key feedback (the real stroke of genius), you can rely on your peripheral vision to ensure correct keypresses, and still never take your eyes off of the entered text.  Apple simply took a negative limitation of a mobile device (limited room for both display and input), and turned it into a positive - the ability to support a virtual keyboard by replacing tactile feedback with peripheral visual feedback.

Turning limitations into advantages is a hallmark of both great marketing and great user experience design.  Whenever you’re in the process of designing a transformative product like the iPhone, always be sure to ask yourself “What old rules no long apply?”

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Apparently, founder Jack Tramiel was such a ruthless businessman, obsessed with vertical integration, he drove prices into the basement using this clever little trick:

1. Buy parts in bulk from a small company on credit
2. Neglect to pay the company for the parts
3. Wait for the company to nearly go bankrupt
4. Buy out the company dirt cheap
5. Forgive their own debts
6. Rinse, repeat.

Pure, unadulterated, evil business genius!

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I can’t stop laughing at this one though…

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“Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.”

This wasn’t just an offhand comment to the press.  It’s committed for posterity in Sculley’s memoir: “Odyssey” (13 used copies are currently available for $0.01 if you’re looking for further inspiration.)

And this is why he really should have stuck with selling “sugared water”.

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I recently stumbled across two different, unrelated articles which point to the same conclusion.  In order for comptuters to truly shine, the software MUST be tied to the hardware.

The first article, “Has Vista Lost all Credibility?” talks about how product development and product marketing conflicts between Intel, Dell, and Microsoft led to a lot of the faults of Vista (and provides 158 pages of internal email evidence backing it up).

The second article, “Why I Quit“, by former Linux kernel developer Con Kolivas, talks about how even with complete control over the software, the PC platform architecture has become so convoluted over the decades that machines that are technically 1,000 times faster, they’re 10 times slower in “doing stuff”, like playing audio or moving windows.

This problem is only getting worse, and Vista has proven it once and for all.  The open “Wintel” architecture used to matter, when people were regularly building and upgrading their own systems, but those days are long gone.  With $250 PC’s at Wal-Mart, the average user is as likely to upgrade their own computers as they are their pocket calculator.  PC’s are disposable commodities now, and people are fine with that.

Apple knows this, which is why they developed the Macbook Air the way they did.  You can’t even (officially) replace the battery in this thing.  It’s a sealed, black box for the average user, and even though it comes at a premium price, people don’t care.  They want the illusion that the computer is just a single thing that just does what you want, whether it’s powered by Intel, Motorola, or magical fairies.

True innovation in computing (in this day and age) will only come from an integrated hardware and software platform.  The Amiga was a quantum leap ahead of its contemporaries (as Con Kolivas points out) because of its hardware innovations.  Apple is currently the only company following this path, and this is why Macs will become the defacto home computer within 20 years, regardless of how cool OS X is.

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