Microsoft’s recent reorganization

Satya Nadella’s email to employees from a couple of a weeks ago generated a lot of press coverage, mostly centering on how he seemed to be de-emphasizing the importance of Windows. GeekWire has one article about Terry Myerson’s departure and another about Scott Guthrie’s new responsibilities. I’ve always liked Guthrie; he seems to be a good guy with a lot of good ideas. From what I understand, ASP.NET MVC was basically his idea. (From a Stephen Walther blog post: “ASP.NET MVC framework was originally created by Scott Guthrie on an airplane trip to Austin, Texas.” Also see Scott Hanselman’s write-up from back in 2007.)

I recently finished reading Nadella’s book Hit Refresh, so this news makes sense in light of the priorities he outlined there. I do think that Nadella has Microsoft on the right track. While they continue to do a lot of things that annoy me, they’re a lot better than they were back in the days when we’d refer to Windows as “Micro$oft Windoze”. They’ve been doing a really good job with their developer tools over the last few years, so that’s good for me. And I’m starting to play with Azure a bit, and they seem to have that on the right track too.

Ben Thompson has a good take on this stuff (as usual). I think his choice of title (“The End of Windows”) is a bit hyperbolic, but he hits on something interesting about Nadella’s leadership style: “Nadella’s most impressive bit of jujitsu was how he killed Windows Phone; while the platform had obviously been dead in the water for years, Nadella didn’t imperiously axe the program. Instead, by isolating Windows, he let the division’s leadership come to that conclusion on their own.”

I’d contrast this with the way Steve Jobs killed the Newton when he took over Apple from Gil Amelio, though maybe that’s not a fair comparison. (Which reminds me that I should probably read the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography some day.)

Twitter too

After posting about Facebook a couple of days ago, I though I’d follow up with a quick post about Twitter. I’ve been using Twitterrific on both my Mac and iOS devices for some time now. Like Facebook, Twitter also has an “algorithmic” feed, by default. Twitterrific uses a straight chronological feed, with no ads or promoted tweets confusing things.

Twitter, unlike Facebook, has allowed third-party clients to access the service via a supported API and present their own interface to the service. (Facebook’s feed can be altered by monkeying with their web page, via browser add-ons and stuff like that, but there’s no way to write an authorized third-party Facebook client, using a supported API.) But Twitter has been slowly backing off on their support for third-party clients over the last few years. The most recent issue is described here. (The description on that page is clear enough that I won’t try to restate it here.) I hope Twitterrific and other third-party apps remain viable and useful for the foreseeable future. I really kind of like Twitter. I follow some interesting people there, and I’ve found a lot of interesting stuff via my Twitter feed.

On a related but more general topic, the Mozilla Internet Health Report for 2018 is interesting. (Though I think they got a little too creative with their page design…)

I’ve also been following a few threads around alternatives to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/etc. One thought is that RSS is ready for a comeback. I’ve mentioned that recently. I haven’t really been able to talk myself into checking my The Old Reader page regularly just yet. I need to clean up and organize my feed list before I’d consider it to be really useful. Maybe the next time we get a rainy day, I’ll look into that. I’m mildly curious about things like micro.blog and mastodon, but I’m not sure either of them has enough momentum to really go anywhere.

Facebook adjustments

Even after all the Cambridge Analytica stuff and Zuckerberg’s 10 hours of testimony in DC this week, I’m still using Facebook. I’ve known for a long time that a lot of the free stuff on the Internet involves a tradeoff between privacy and convenience, and I’m generally careful of what I share and what I don’t, and which apps and services I use and which ones I avoid.

On the desktop, I use Facebook in Firefox, with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and FB Purity all installed and running. On iOS, until recently, I’ve just been using the regular Facebook app. But I switched to using an app called Friendly recently. It’s pretty good, though it’s got a few rough edges. It does ad blocking (after a $2 in-app purchase), and lets you re-sort your news feed chronologically, and some other little tweaks. I’ve also recently set FB Purity to sort my news feed chronologically, so now I’m seeing stuff that way on both desktop and iOS. It’s funny how different Facebook looks when you’re seeing stuff in simple date/time order, rather than whatever order their algorithm decides to use. I’ve also reviewed and tweaked my privacy settings a bit. This page at iMore has some good advice for that.

I’ve been reading a comic book called The Private Eye recently. It’s a science fiction comic set in a world where there’s been a major internet privacy meltdown, and society has essentially reconfigured itself in a way such that personal privacy is a core value, and is taken to extremes. It’s a really interesting take on the subject of privacy and trust, and it makes me wonder what our world’s going to look like in 100 years.

Ben Thompson has a good overview of the Zuckerberg hearings at his site. A lot of interesting stuff has come out of all this, but I agree with Thompson on the bottom line: “The most likely outcome of Facebook’s current scandal continues to be that nothing will happen.”

Marvel 99 cent sales and other comics stuff

The Beat has a good article up today, trying to explain what’s going on with the Amazon/Comixology 99 cent sales on Marvel books. As a fan, it’s kind of cool to be able to pick up some pretty good books for a buck each, but I feel a little bad for my local comic shop, when these prices are being offered on new release books. I mean, nobody’s going to spend $20 on a book at the store if they can get it for $1 on Comixology. (Well, maybe some people will. But a lot of people won’t.) I’ve bought a few of the 99 cent books over the last few weeks, but they’re all books I would never have paid cover price for anyway.

On a semi-related note, The Beat has a write-up on the Mike Mignola Q&A from MoCCA Fest that I missed last weekend. (Now I’m in the mood to read some Hellboy.)

This weekend, I’m thinking about going to the Big Apple Con. I probably shouldn’t go to comic cons two weekends in a row, but the Big Apple Con is much different from MoCCA Fest. It’s much more of a traditional comic con. There are going to be a few interesting panels at the con, including a Gold & Silver Age panel that could be fun.

MoCCA Arts Festival 2018

I went into New York today for MoCCA Fest. I’d gone to it last year, and enjoyed it, so I went back again this year. Last year, I’d made a full day of it, hitting a couple of museums too. This year, I wasn’t as ambitious and just went to MoCCA Fest. (And I was lazy and took a cab from the train station and back, so I didn’t even get in much walking.)

Last year, I didn’t buy anything at all, nor did I go to any panels. This year, I went to one panel and bought one book, so I did a little better on that front. I bought a copy of March: Book Three, and got it signed by Nate Powell, so that was pretty cool. (I have digital copies of books one and two, though I haven’t read them yet.) Powell was one of their guests of honor, and had some of his art exhibited in the little gallery they set up.

I went to a Q&A panel with Jaime Hernandez, one of my favorite artists. He was there mostly to promote his new book The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America. He also talked about the new Studio Edition book from Fantagraphics, and about his work in general. I’ll probably pick up the Dragon Slayer book from Amazon; the Studio Edition book looks a little too expensive for me. Love and Rockets has been one my very favorite comics since the early days; I think the first issue I bought was #2, in 1982. I’ve never seen any of the Hernandez brothers in person before today though, so it was really cool to finally see Jaime. I probably should have stuck around long enough to get something signed by him, but I didn’t. I’m way behind in my L&R reading too. I have the whole New Stories series, all eight volumes, from Comixology, but I haven’t read any of them yet. That series ran from 2008 to 2016, so I guess I’m ten years behind. (Geez.)

I would also have liked to stick around for Mike Mignola’s panel, but it wasn’t until 3:30 and I didn’t want to stay in the city too late. I could have gotten something signed by him, too, if I’d wanted. When I first walked into the con, he was at his table, and there wasn’t a line, just a couple of guys chatting with him. But I hadn’t actually brought anything for him to sign. (I probably should have just asked him to sign my program book.) Maybe next time.

Overall, it was a fun little show. Lots of eccentric work on display, and pretty much zero super-hero stuff. A nice change of pace from a typical comic con.

 

TidBITS redesign

I’ve been reading the TidBITS newsletter for years. They’ve been publishing it for 28 years; I’ve been subscribing to it for more than ten. (I’m not sure how long exactly, but at least since 2002.) They just unveiled a new design and back-end after many years under the old design and system. The new system is based on WordPress, which isn’t surprising. Lots of websites (including mine) are running on WordPress these days. The design looks good. I haven’t seen any hiccups with the back-end yet, so hopefully they’ve done a good job with that. TidBITS has always been a good source of Apple news and analysis, better in general than most of the more modern web sites. (I won’t mention specific sites, but I’m thinking of certain sites with a lot of “top ten” listicles, sponsored content, and more space devoted to ads than articles.)

I’m always interested in how sites like TidBITS remain commercially viable. I doubt they make much money from ads these days. They probably get a modest amount of money from their membership program. And they have something called the TidBITS Content Network now too, which is interesting. They used to run Take Control Books also, but they sold that off a while back. I should probably pay them for a one-year membership. I keep meaning to do that, but I never quite get around to it.

I like the newsletter model for this kind of content, and I wish more people would use it. I’d love to find a Windows newsletter that’s as good as TidBITS. Years ago, I used to subscribe to Windows Secrets and that was pretty good for a while. It looks like they’re still around, but as a paid newsletter only, and it appears that none of the original contributors to the site are still involved. I found a recent post on Woody Leonhard’s site that runs through a little of the history of Windows Secrets. It used to have a lot of good content, from people like Woody, and Brian Livingston, and a couple of other good tech writers whose names I can’t remember now.

Digg Reader and other thoughts on RSS and news consumption

I learned today that Digg Reader just shut down. I had set up an account there when they started it up, but wasn’t actively using it. I also have an account with The Old Reader, but I’m not really actively using that one either. Both of those services started up after Google Reader was shut down in 2013. I’ve been thinking about going back to checking RSS feeds semi-regularly, rather than relying on Twitter and Facebook as much as I do now. If I did that, I’d probably just try to check my Old Reader account more often and maybe add/remove some feeds. (Here’s an article with a few other RSS reader alternatives.)

While I haven’t really jumped back into RSS yet, I did download Flipboard to my iPhone and iPad recently. Flipboard isn’t an RSS reader, but it is a way to follow a variety of news sources, similar to Apple News, but maybe better. (Well, Flipboard’s founder thinks it’s better, but he may be biased.) I think Flipboard is interesting, and likely is better than Apple News, but this is another case where the app is free, which makes me wonder about their business model. I think they’re just making money off in-app ads, which is fine, but who knows. (And I’m not really that excited about in-app ads either, to be honest.)

I’m still reading a lot of email newsletters, from the NY Times and a variety of other sources. I’m very far behind though. I’m currently reading news from late December 2017. (Merry Christmas!)

Here’s an interesting article from Farhad Manjoo about an experiment where he switched to getting his news from print newspapers for a couple of months. (Except that he didn’t really unplug like he said he did. Sigh.) I’m not going to switch back to print anytime soon, though I’m occasionally tempted. I’m also a little envious of this guy, who just stopped reading the news entirely after Trump got elected. That just seems irresponsible though. (And wildly impractical too for most people.)

 

Harry Potter excitement

I’m starting to get pretty excited about going to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child this weekend. As I mentioned I would do in my last post, I reread the script book this past weekend. I had indeed forgotten the plot almost entirely, but it came back to me as I read through it. (I may have linked to this before, but here’s a good article on how to remember what you read.)

I don’t normally read Vogue, but here’s a good article from them on the play. While I was rereading the script, I was trying to imagine how they’d stage a lot of the stuff in it, and I’m really stumped as to how they’ll be able to do it all and not have it look really hokey. But I have faith; the play has gotten really good reviews (from the London run), so I assume it’ll be great.

Meanwhile, WonderCon will be going on this weekend and I’ll be missing out on some good panels. I had pretty much decided that I wanted to go to WonderCon this year, but then the Potter thing came up and I decided that was more important. I’m not regretting that decision, but I kind of wish I had a Time-Turner so I could go to both!

And, as long as I’m going to be in New York, I might also try to see Weird Al one more time, since he’s playing The Apollo on Friday. I didn’t think I’d be able to get tickets for it this late, but there are some available at reasonable prices right now. His Tarrytown show was great, and he has been mixing up his set list more than he usually does on this tour, so maybe it would be worthwhile to see him again.

We had a lot of snow yesterday, but I’m starting to feel like spring is here. (Please, please, let there be no more snow this weekend!)

Home phone service (for old people)

Last summer, I got a notice that Verizon was going to retire the copper phone lines in my town. And, via my landlord, I’ve been told that our building apparently can’t be upgraded to fiber. So, we won’t really have an option for “traditional” home phone service anymore. I got a follow-up notice from Verizon last month. They still haven’t set a final date for retiring the copper, but it looks like it’ll happen before the end of this year. So I started looking around at alternatives. My cable company has an option for phone service, for $30/month, which is a little less than what I’m paying Verizon now. But I did a little more digging and found that Verizon has a wireless home phone option that’s only $20 a month (assuming you already have Verizon Wireless), plus $30 for the little base station that you need to buy. So that’s not a bad deal.

I know that all the young people have given up on regular home phone service. But I’m an old man, and I’ve had the same home phone number for more than twenty years, and I don’t want to give it up. So I went ahead and signed up for the Verizon wireless home phone service today. I’m hoping that the call quality is reasonable. In theory, it should be about the same as my cell phone, since it’ll be on the same network, but who knows whether the $30 device they give you affects call quality (vs an iPhone) or not.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

I’m going to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in NYC in a few weeks, so I thought it might be fun to reread the script book. I read it when it first came out, back in 2016. And I’ve almost completely forgotten the plot, I’m embarrassed to say. I mean, I remember that there was a curse, and a child, I think. But not much more than that. So I could reread it, to refresh my memory, or I could skip it and go into the play not remembering anything, and be surprised.

I just realized that the version I have is the Special Rehearsal Edition, which is no longer available. There’s a new version, published in 2017, with the final script. (Or at least the script they were using at that time. Maybe they’re tweaking it again for the New York run.) So now I need to decide if I want to reread the version I already own, or spend $9 on the new version. I did a little research, and it sounds like there’s not much new in the final edition. So I might as well stick with the one I already own.

I’m really looking forward to the play. Here’s an article from the NY Times about the NYC production. It’s interesting, the scale of it, and the amount of money and effort that goes into something like this. Here’s hoping it does well.