An Interesting Slant On Apple
I found this article on the BBC web site. I like this interesting snippet.
This is what happens when a company is too cheap to invest in research and development. Did you know that Apple spends far less on R&D than any of its rivals – a paltry 2% of revenues, versus 14% for Google and Microsoft?
I’ve run R&D and you must spend to keep ahead of the game. Perhaps, Apple are too interested in making money?
But mugs will still queue up for the iPhone5. I won’t!
Dwelling On Loneliness
I do think that people will admit that my life can be rather lonely.
Although, as someone, who has often worked alone in his life, my state is little different to where I have been before.
As a child, I used to spend hours with my Meccano or just with my father down at his print works in Wood Green.
I was also very much a solitary programmer for much of my working life. Or if I did work with someone, it was just with one person. The only time I really had someone to work with was when I was writing software in the few years after I’d left ICI. And that was our third son, George, who used to sit in his chair, whilst I bashed away on an old Teletype. Occasionally, he’d get taken over to Time Sharing in Great Portland Street and sometimes, the girls in the office would take him away and play with him.
I sometimes wonder what happened to all those girls; Maeve, Maggie and and the Australians; Crystal Hendricks and Marie Thorpe.
But then I’ve always discarded friends throughout my life. only a couple of my school friends are still in touch. But what happened to Sheena Findley, Susan Portch, Caroline and the other girls from my year at Minchenden? C was just as clumsy with friends, as her best friend from school, Ruth Mason, is just a name in the past. She got married and moved to Ruislip, but where is she now?
I did bump into my first girlfriend at Liverpool; Marilyn Garland, once at Swiss Cottage, a few years after leaving University. She had a baby then and is probably a granmother now.
Some of the Metier people I still know, as I must have got better at keeping in touch as I got older.
But I never really was a team player, and that has stood me in good sense, since the death of C.
I do many things I want to on my own. And in some ways, I like it that way.Although I do miss the company of a good woman. A bad one would probably be good to!
Nokia’s Critical Handset Launch
Not my headline, but one on the BBC’s web site, that links you to this story.
Sadly, it’s not a new version of the legendary 6310i, that many want, but some smart phone that they don’t.
It’s apparently based on Windows 8. Come to think of it what’s with Vista that I use.
I’m no technophobhe, but developments in hardware and software should be like men and women. As people have developed, the next generation is always perfectly understood by the previous one.
Hard Man Bruce Takes On Apple
According to the Sunday Times, Bruce Willis wants to leave all his downloaded music to his kids and the iTunes agreement doesn’t allow this.
Why would he want to do that?
Obviously, after he’s gone, he wants to have control of his kids’ musical taste.
How arrogant!
At least though for once, Apple have got it right.
Disruptive Innovation
I’ve not heard the term before, but read this article. It starts with this question and answer.
Question: what do these companies have in common?
Skype, Spotify, Marks and Spencer, Whipcar, Zopa, Zilok, Kiva, Patagonia, Kickstarter, Café Direct, Taskrabbit, Buzzcar and InterfaceFLOR.
Two of my favourite innovators; Zopa and Kiva are mentioned in the same breath as quite a few companies like, Skype, Spotify and M&S.
If the article has a fault, it’s that it misses out a couple of well known names, who the writer would call disruptive innovators.
I would have thought ARM Holdings and Dyson should be on the list. And I would think that a certain company called Metier Management Systems was one of the first! So we were only a shark in a small pond, but we completely rebuilt the pond.
Do These Scams Still Work?
I got this e-mail today with a title of Heir Information.
Greetings, I am Norman Wong, Chief Auditor Hong Leong Bank. I got your contact email from an online directory; I would need your assistance in re-profiling funds belonging to my late client who shares similar surnames with you. Contact me on my private email for more detailed information.
Regards,
Norman Wong
I still get the occasional one, so sadly they must still bring in the odd mug. The e-mail actually came from Iran, although it may have been routed by South Africa. Could the Iranian connection, indicate it was sent more in hope than expectation? The spelling and grammar are good, which shows a certain level of education.
The Gambling Spam Keeps Coming
I’m still getting the gambling spam, I reported about here.
I have only been counting since the 19th July, and as of this morning, I’ve received over 680 in a month.
This must rate installation in the Guinness Book of Records.
There is an iunsubscribe link on the e-mails. But it either doesn’t work or Outlook and my anti-spam system, doesn’t allow it to be used. I of course pass the link to my test machine, which means if it gets infected by a virus, I just delete everything.
MPs Don’t Like Google’s Tax Affairs
According to this article in the Daily Telegraph, Google only paid £6m tax on revenues of £395m.
Obviously, it is not in the interest of the UK, that major international companies pay so little tax. It’s also not in the interest of small UK companies, who perhaps pay high rates of tax and see their foreign competitors in the UK, paying very little.
Years ago, I was involved in monitoring the perception in the press of major companies. After a couple of quarters bumping along at the bottom, companies quickly picked their ideas up.
So perhaps a publicly available table on the Internet, showing the turnover, tax and a few other figures of companies, might not be a bad idea.
Suppose say it was obvious that a well known restaurant chain, was paying a very low rate of tax. Would it mean that customers went elsewhere? Possibly, but it might mean they did other things to justify the low rate, that were of benefit to the UK.
A Country I’ll Never Visit!
I’ve enjoyed the Czech Republic in the past, but I doubt I’ll be going to the neighbouring country, Slovakia, despite this enticing poster.
A Country I’ll Never Visit!
It’s all because I get around thirty spam messages a day promoting dodgy gambling sites, from a site with connections to the country. Here’s an extract from the domain registration.
fname: Dobran
lname: Sulaj
address: Letaliska 101
city: Kidricevo
pcode: 2325
country: SI
phone: +486-40-167802
email: support@dlypromos.com
Get your act together Slovakia!
Creating A Funding Circle Account
I have just created a Funding Circle account, as I want to see how other peer-to-peer lending sites work.
As a Zopa user for many years, I could be considered biased, but although I got registered quickly, there are some things I liked and didn’t.
E-Mail Address Based Account
All accounts, should be based on e-mail addresses. They are in Funding Circle.
Passwords
Because of my gammy left hand, I don’t like passwords where case is important, as I often get it wrong, when I use the shift key. Funding Circle insists on at least one Capital letter and one number.
At least though they didn’t use the dreaded Captcha system beloved of so many sites.
Check Questions
They did have, who was my best friend at school as a check question. This is a question, that I don’t really have an answer to, because I had a bad time at school with personal relationships.
Addresses
Because I’ve only been at my current address for less than two years, I was asked to enter my previous address. I made a mistake and ended up with the wrong address in my profile. I was able to change it easily to the correct one.
Debit Cards
The first investment was by debit card, which brought up the dreaded Verified-by-Visa system. I would prefer to use a Direct Debit or a Bank Transfer. Especially as fake Verified-by-Visa e-mails are being used by fraudsters.
But I did successfully register my account and transfer £1,000 into the account.
The Anonymous Widower 