Nobody Wants to Hear Lloyd, originally uploaded by mlaaker. Shortly before I left the halls of Island Def Jam to come to Yahoo!, the company began promoting little-known Atlanta artist Lloyd on their Murder Inc. sub-label. After one spin, I smelled a stinker, and said so. “No, no, no. Lloyd’s gonna be hot,” I heard. […]

I recently offered to pre-screen O’Reilly’s first graphic novel, “Hackerteen: Volume 1: Internet Blackout,” under the caveat that I’d post a review afterwards. Quick review: I wish I hadn’t committed to write this review. I find Internet Blackout to be offensive to those who enjoy comics, the Internet, and learning. Full review: I’m a fan […]

The “animal cracker” is an often misunderstood delight, deserving of detail and defense in an era of mislabeling and generalizations. According to Wikipedia’s definition of “animal cracker,” they are “crackers in the shapes of animals… They are like crackers due to the way they are made, with layered dough, however the use of sweetened dough […]

MyBlogLog has been on a tear lately, releasing FOAF support, XFN support, and verification of sites. Most interesting to me, however, has been their quiet rollout of MicroID support last week. ClaimID quickly posted, Fred Stutzman followed suit, and the MicroID blog alerted folks as well. MicroID, for the uninitiated, is a snippet of code […]

My good colleague Max recently released his Yahoo! Media Player WordPress plugin. This add-on uses the Yahoo! Media Player, recently released on the Developer Network, to automatically create an embedded MP3/audio player for every link to an audio file you have in your posts (or every file linked from an XSPF playlist). Additionally, Max’s plugin […]

I’ve had a recurring problem for years in Mac OS X. Whenever I need to do a backup, I find myself repeating a pattern. I select a series of files and folders, and then check their total file size via the Finder’s Inspector palette (Cmd-Option-I) to see how close that is to the CD/DVD disc’s […]

Over the past year, I’ve had several friends and colleagues break out from their corporate jobs and start up their own companies. As such, I wanted to point folks over to their efforts, as there are several stand-out efforts that are worth checking out. Crush3r An events service that lets you send out beautiful, custom-designed […]

At the end of 2006, an interesting phenomenon in the Mac world unfolded. “MacHeist” was unveiled, wherein the public could engage in a number of challenges to earn passwords. Each password would “unlock” the MacHeist vault, wherein a user would get access to a piece of Mac software with a legitimate license for use. At […]

Rock chalk Jayhawk! My alma mater, KU, just won the Orange Bowl. This is big news for KU, whose football program dominated my home state team, Nebraska, this year (an inverse of the normal yearly relationship).(Posted from Twitter.)

As my final send-off to 2007, I’ve assembled a 2008 Apple wishlist, as mentioned in my previous posts. I’m not asking for the world… just tricking out what I already use to make it better for users like me. Address Book Mac OS X’s Address Book is one of the strongest features of the entire […]

As a send-off to 2007, I’m assembling my 2008 Apple wishlist, as mentioned in my previous posts. I’m not asking for new products… just enhancements that would make their products better for users like me. iPhone/iPod Apple must be inundated with idea after idea on how to improve or really make the iPhone a better […]

I’m compiling a wishlist for Apple for their 2008 efforts, as mentioned in my previous posts. It’s not comprehensive, strategic, or anything else… just things I think would make their products even better for users like me. Apple.com User Profiles Before anyone goes and says there are currently user profiles on Apple.com, I’d ask you […]

As mentioned in my previous post, I’m compiling a wishlist for Apple for their 2008 efforts. It’s by no means comprehensive, strategic, or whatever else… just things that might make their products even better for users like me. Or maybe just me. Customer Lifecycle I mentioned earlier that 3 folks in my family purchased a […]

I’ve been known to be called an Apple fanboy before… mostly by those in my family (three of whom then purchased MacBooks in the last year). That’s OK; I am a big fan of Apple. While a Mac was not my first computer (that honor goes to the VIC-20 followed by a series of Apple […]

Carrie and I are having ourselves a merry little Christmas, though Jonah remains a bit undecided. (Posted from Twitter.)