This past week (just in time to beat WWDC), my team released code to integrate Yahoo!’s Social Platform APIs into your Mac OS X and iPhone applications. Announced on the YDN blog and pushed to our GitHub account, the code gives any developer access to the following: Read the profile of your user (photo, nickname, […]

My former colleague, Mike Speiser (who’s now over at Sutter Hill Ventures), recently suggested his vision of where Apple TV should be heading. With the rumored Apple TV-minus-the-box-plus-the-TV unit days from being announced, I wanted to add one more set of thoughts to his before any such unveiling. Mike was one of the folks behind […]

The Apple TV and the iPhone will (at some point) converge as a single development platform to complement the Mac computer platform. Or so my theory goes. Why is that? Apple dropped the Apple TV on consumers in January 2007 as a “hobby.” Since then, it has released several software updates, including a major on-demand […]

Last year, I posted a list of my favorite Mac software I used and recommended to others. 18 months have passed, and its time to provide an update for folks. Inquisitor Download Inquisitor | Previous recommendation that must be recommended again Aside from far-faster page-loading performance, Inquisitor makes Safari the one-and-only browser choice on the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

I recently attempted to install the Adobe AIR SDK on my MacBook Pro so that I could compile AIR applications. While Adobe’s done some great work at developing and exposing their tools early to the public, I could not find a set of instructions that resulted in a working installation. Luckily, Yahoo! Developer Network co-worker […]

Every couple of months I am usually hit up by a friend (who knows of me as a Mac user) for sage advice on what software to get for their new laptop or iMac. Invariably, I write up a long email with the latest and greatest freeware/shareware that I can’t live without, as well as […]

(Palo Alto, CA) – Silicon Valley local-boy-done-good Steven P. Jobs, notable to many for his founding of Apple Computer in the 1970s and then his subsequent turnaround of the company in the 1990s, made his first Micah Laaker sighting since arriving in Palo Alto years earlier, despite living only blocks away from the designer. Attending […]