The Idea of Availability

I can’t remember who I was talking about this to but, stuck at the airport Starbucks again I thought I’d blog my thoughts while they’re not too addled by caffeine. I have Skype, I have Packet8, I have GPRS, I have landlines, I have Instant Messaging. So why is IM the smartest of the bunch? … Read more

Our Nasty Internet

It sometimes boggles my mind at how messy and nasty the Internet has become. The Canberra Times (no URL available, can’t find it on their website) quotes Peter Tippett, a member of United States President George W.Bush’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and chief technologist at Cybertrust, as telling a media briefing in Sydney last week … Read more

Technology And The Decline Of Service

As the world develops, and technology gets better, will we forget the essence of relations between two people: how to serve? I live in Indonesia right now, which is probably the service capital of the world. Not necessarily in terms of expertise, and certainly not in terms of quality of goods (despite having some of … Read more

Amazon, eBay And The New Liquidity

I bought a second-hand book off Amazon the other day and was boasting about it to a friend. He wasn’t impressed. “We never buy anything new anymore,” he said. Clothes? Thrift shops. Toys? Yard sales. Books, CDs and whatnot? Amazon or eBay. Only food seemed to be something he bought new, and even then I … Read more

Internet Explorer Euthanasia

Is Microsoft intentionally allowing Internet Explorer to die? It’s not brand-spanking new as an idea, but that’s the suggestion (I’m guessing the URL; it’s not posted on the website yet) of Dana Blankenhorn, who writes a newsletter called A-Clue.com. In it he writes: Microsoft is deliberately letting Internet Explorer lose the browser market to Mozilla’s … Read more