Linked List: October 21, 2009

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Macminicolo: ‘The State of the Mac Mini’ 

Who better to write about the new Mac Mini server than the guys who specialize in colocating Mac Minis as servers?

Google Adds Live Public Twitter Feed, Too 

Marissa Mayer:

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results.

I guess they weren’t kidding about the Bing deal being non-exclusive.

Apple Stock Hits an All-Time High 

I’ll go out on a limb and predict that Apple’s market cap will surpass Microsoft’s by the end of 2010. (Also worth noting: Apple has enough cash on hand — cash — to buy every share of Dell.)

Microsoft is paying Twitter for non-exclusive access to the entire public Twitter feed. You can try it here. (My verdict: the results are interesting, but the design/presentation is a mess.)

Fear of Upgrades 

Marco Arment:

Our industry has collectively taught average people over the last few decades that computers should be feared and are always a single misstep from breaking. We’ve trained them to expect the working state to be fragile and temporary, and experience from previous upgrades has convinced them that they shouldn’t mess with anything if it works.

TLA Video 

A sad local note: the best video rental store in Philadelphia is closing.

TidBITS Issue #1 

19 years and, as of this week, 1,000 issues ago. Here’s Adam Engst’s announcement of issue #1 from comp.sys.mac. “A hard disk is recommended, but not necessary since each week’s issue of TidBITS will never be more than 40K.”

Five Surprising House Hacks 

From Merlin Labs.

Dan Benjamin’s 2009 Podcasting Equipment Guide 

Worth reading just for the photo at the top.

Nook Based on Android 

A Nook detail I missed yesterday: according to Barnes and Nobles’s comparison page, it’s the “first Android-based eReader”. (Thanks to Marc Zeeder.)

Freeverse Concludes That App Store ‘Top Grossing’ List Includes In-App Purchasing Sales 

Their Flick Fishing app is behind their Top Gun app in the regular sales list, but their relative positions are flipped in the top-grossing list, which indicates that the top-grossing list takes in-app purchasing sales into account. This, in turn, means that free apps which offer in-app purchasing will be eligible for the top-grossing list.

(We’re left to suss this out for ourselves because Apple does not state how the top-grossing apps list is compiled.)

Lost in Translations 

Nice piece by Wil Shipley on localizing Cocoa apps, including his own clever technique for doing so without maintaining separate XIB files for each separate localization.

iDon’t Know How to Use Proper Apostrophes Consistently 

Tony Delgrosso:

You know, if Verizon is going to pour millions of dollars into rolling out their iPhone-killing “Droid” handset, they could have at least hired an ad agency who knows how and when to use proper apostrophes and primes, and who doesn’t mix them multiple times in the same television ad.

Update: Raza Syed has a better illustration.